r23117 - gnucash-docs/trunk/help/C - Bug 699430 - Describe the Assets over Time barchart Report

[John Ralls]

Author: jralls
Date: 2013-08-02 14:17:55 -0400 (Fri, 02 Aug 2013)
New Revision: 23117
Trac: http://svn.gnucash.org/trac/changeset/23117

Modified:
   gnucash-docs/trunk/help/C/Help_ch_Reports.xml
Log:
Bug 699430 - Describe the Assets over Time barchart Report

Add a description of Asset Barchart Reports into chapter 8.2 Assets & Liabilities

Modified: gnucash-docs/trunk/help/C/Help_ch_Reports.xml
===================================================================
--- gnucash-docs/trunk/help/C/Help_ch_Reports.xml	2013-08-02 18:08:55 UTC (rev 23116)
+++ gnucash-docs/trunk/help/C/Help_ch_Reports.xml	2013-08-02 18:17:55 UTC (rev 23117)
@@ -95,6 +95,31 @@
 
        <listitem>
         <para>Asset Barchart:</para>
+
+        <para>The Asset Barchart report displays bars that present the value of all assets in a Gnucash file over time.  By default, the report shows all accounts in Accounts Receivable, Current Assets, Fixed Assets, Investments and Special Accounts (if they exist) and it displays monthly bars for the current financial period. This report provides a graphic view of the assets in the file over time.</para>
+
+<para>Like all the generic reports, the user can assign a title and save the report with it's selected options for re-use later.</para>
+
+<para>The display is in the form of either a stacked barchart or simple barchart with an option to display a table of the values.</para>
+
+<para>This report calculates and displays a default of 8 bars or up to 24 separate asset accounts value at the end of the day on several dates through a specified time period. The report automatically selects the most significant accounts to display with all other selected accounts summed as 'Other'.</para>
+
+<para>The report exploits the outline structure of the chart of accounts to allow the user to select top level accounts and sub-accounts down to a user-selectable depth.  Selected sub-accounts below the selected depth are automatically 'summed up' into the next level when it is also selected.  The default number of sub-account levels is 2, giving a summary view.  Increasing the number of sub-levels increases the detail available to display.  It is possible to un-select a higher level account and leave sub-accounts selected to force greater detail to appear in the report.</para>
+
+<para>By default the report includes all asset accounts and sub-accounts, as well as Imbalance and Orphan Special accounts in whatever currencies or commodities may be present.  The report's base currency is the default currency of the GnuCash file but if the file has data for multiple currencies, then it can be changed to another currency.</para>  
+
+<para>Since each account may be individually selected, the report can be designed to focus on a small subset of data such as current assets or investments.</para>
+
+<para>The overall interval of the report defaults to start at the start of the current accounting period and to end at the end of the current accounting period.  Numerous other starting choices and ending choices are available.</para>
+
+<para>The first bar shows the selected values at the end of the day on the first date chosen.  There are a number of choices for step size from 'day' to 'year' with the default being 'month'.  Note that if any step date would fall on the 29th, 30th or 31st in a month that does not have such a date the next interval will be 31 days later.  For that step only the date will 'slip' up to 3 days into the following month.  This is true for releases at least through 2.4.13.  Bug 639049 is open in Bugzilla to modify this behavior.</para>
+
+<para>Currently, there is no option to start the report on the last day of any period.  There is also no option to show 'beginning' balances or 'end of previous step' balances. This makes it difficult to correlate this report to business quarterly reports, for example.</para>
+
+<para>The Net Worth linechart report, Liability barchart report and Net Worth barchart report are similar except for the graphic type and default account groups selected.</para>
+
+<para>Other features are customizable in a manner similar to other standard reports.</para>
+
        </listitem>
 
        <listitem>