Register stuff (summary of Carol and my talk).

[Carol Champagne]

Dave Peticolas wrote:


> Why not put the 'diff' number in the unused 'deb' and 'cred' column?
> Since the diff column is only present in multi-line mode, the shift
> to multi-line mode and back would be rather awkward visually.



 
> >     Note too that this setup allows you to have two checks, and two
> >     check numbers in the same transaction without confusion.  This is
> >     something we can't do right now, and possibly something we don't
> >     want to do soon, but I figured it was worth mentioning as a
> >     possibility.
> >
> >     When we look at this transaction from one of the other accounts,
> >     *everything* stays the same except for the diff and the balance.
> >     Here's what it would look like from Checking if we presume a
> >     previous balance of 1200:
> >
> >  Date      | Num  | Desc             | Account   | deb | cr  | diff | bal
> >  --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >  2000-10-01|      | Shopping spree.  |           |     |     | -700 | 1500
> >            |      | Louis XIV chair  | Furniture | 200 |     |      |
> >            |      | Louis XIV sofa   | Furniture | 400 |     |      |
> >            |      | Art Deco ottoman | Furniture | 100 |     |      |
> >            | 1001 | Olga's Antiques  | Checking  |     | 400 |      |
> >            |  321 | Olga's Antiques  | Savings   |     | 300 |      |
> 
> Don't you mean diff = -400 and bal = 800?
> 
> >   * Carol mentioned, and I think she's right, that being able to edit
> >     the "current account" in the first line of a transaction can be
> >     very confusing (i.e in all the non-single-line modes).  While I've
> >     had good cause to use that trick to relocate transactions to other
> >     places (when you're cleaning up a scrub account for example), it
> >     might be a good idea not to make it seem like the obvious thing to
> >     do.  Perhaps the default tab traversal should just skip it.  I
> >     suspect it's rare that you'd really want to edit that field, and
> >     skipping it would speed up normal data entry.  If we think that's
> >     a good idea, we should consider skipping the credit/debit field on
> >     the transaction line as well.
> 
> With the general ledger approach (show all splits), there is no need to
> have the 'current account' field, because the splits in the open account
> are visible as well, and presumably editable.

My original concern was that I think a real general ledger approach
would not normally 
show all the splits from an account view.  So my real preference would
be to have Gnucash pop up a
separate window for multi-item splits.  Then the column headings could
reflect only the
necessary information for that transaction.  If the transaction is done
in a separate window,
then the transaction appears separated from the register.  The register
view would show
"Split" in the account field, and clicking on it would bring you to a
"split transaction
window."  

So I know there are some objections to doing this, because of the time
and the possible
extra keystrokes/use of mouse this would involve.  What about this
idea?  In multiline mode, 
do everything in the register, as Rob suggested.  In single or
double-line mode, bring up a separate 
transaction window when the user clicks on a "Split" option.  My guess
is that new users 
would probably use single or double-line mode, and having a separate
transaction window makes
it appear a little more like Quicken.

Any thoughts on this?  Accountants out there, how is this handled in
other accounting packages?  


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