bug: MEMO fields not synchronized in transfer

Charlton Rose sharky@sharkysoft.com
Fri, 2 Mar 2001 11:59:37 -0800 (PST)


GnuCash has a handy feature that allows it to "guess" the rest of an entry
as soon as you complete the "DESCRIPTION" field.  The guess is derived
from your previous input history and is often times right on the money
(pun intended).

However, this feature also gives rise to a serious problem when the guess
is not correct.  After completing the DESCRIPTION field, and seeing that
the rest of the fields are automatically filled in with cached values, you
may decide that one or more of the automatically filled-in fields require
some tweaking.  If you tab over to the MEMO field and update it,
everything *appears* to work fine.  But it is an illusion.  When you
inspect the same entry in the other register, you will find that the MEMO
field still contains the old (incorrectly) guessed value, and that your
correction was completely ignored on the other end of the transfer.

This means that every time you have to correct the automatically filled-in
MEMO field, you must also do it on the other side of the transfer as
well.  This is a huge pain in the rear.

An example is given at the end of this message in case the above "generic
description" is unclear.

After faithfully entering months of transactions into one register, I have
discovered that I need to inspect all of my other registers now and
correct all of the misleading MEMO fields that were filled incorrect
guesses.

Is it intentional that a transfer can have different MEMO fields on both
accounts?  I can think of a few instances where this might be
useful.  Most of the time, however, this "feature" will cause more evil
than good -- especially when GnuCash automatically fills in both sides of
the transfer with cached values but only updates the side you have open
when you correct it.

Fortunately, this problem appears only to exist with the MEMO
field.  (GnuCash would be worthless if both sides of the transfer were
allowed to have different AMOUNT fields. :-)

Example:

Suppose you write a check to your landlord every month, and you enter the
transaction into GnuCash as a transfer from your CHECKING account to your
EXPENSES/HOUSING account.  On the first of every month, after you write
the check, you open up the CHECKING register and enter in the
transaction.  Each time, you enter the landlord's name in the DESCRIPTION
field, and in the MEMO field, you enter "rent."  Come March, you make your
payment late.  So in the CHECKING register, you enter the landlord's name,
let GnuCash fill in the rest of the entry, and then tab over to the AMOUNT
field to adjust the value (for the late fee).  Then you tab over to MEMO
to change "rent" to "rent plus late fee".  You commit the transaction and
think everything is fine.  But it is not.  In the other register, the MEMO
field still contains the old cached value.  What's worse is that in April,
when make another entry, the error occurs again but in reverse.