Bug in lots ?

Derek Atkins warlord at MIT.EDU
Sun Oct 14 11:06:20 EDT 2007


Hi,

First, this isn't a bug in lots, per se.  More likely it's a bug
in the business processing code.  Can you please put this into
bugzilla so it doesn't get lost?   Thank you SO MUCH for providing
a step-by-step process to reproduce the problem; I'll test it out
when I have some time (who knows when that will be, tho :-(  ) and
unless someone else gets to it first try to see if I can fix it.

-derek

Geert Janssens <janssens-geert at telenet.be> writes:

> Working with Gnucash 2.2.1 on Mandriva 2007.1 Spring. BTW, I used the Mandriva 
> 2008.0 src rpms for Gnucash to get this version on 2007.1.
>
> I have been using Gnucash in a particular way lately:
> Using the business utilities, I create customer's invoices, for which I enter 
> payment information before they actually get posted, for example a customer 
> making an advance payment (before actually having made the final invoice). 
> This seems to mess up the lots that are behind it, at least in my book. Note 
> that the book I first encountered this issue in, was originally created with 
> GnuCash 1.8.x and I have worked on it in Gnucash 2.0.1 as well.
>
> I'll work with an example, to show how I can reproduce this:
> Note: I have the lot viewer open on Accounts receivable (where all lots for my 
> customer's invoices show up)
>
> 1. I create a new invoice (test1) for customer test, for 100 €
> 2. Without posting the invoice, I make a payment (real world example: a 
> customer makes an advance payment)
>
> => The lot viewer will get a line like this:
> http://www.kobaltwit.be/gnucash/Lots1.png
>
> This suggests a new lot has been created, but apparently when the invoice is 
> not posted, the invoice doesn't get associated with this lot. I'm not sure 
> if/how Gnucash knows which invoice this lot belongs to.
>
> 3. I create a second invoice (test2) for customer test, this time for 50€
> 4. Again, I pay it without posting it.
>
> => The lot viewer will show now:
> http://www.kobaltwit.be/gnucash/Lots2.png
>
> The line in the lot now has the net worth of the two invoice payments as 
> balance.
>
> 5. I now post the first invoice (test1)
>
> => The lot viewer will show:
> http://www.kobaltwit.be/gnucash/Lots3.png
>
> A lot from the previous step now explicitly gets linked to test1, and the 
> balance is set to 0. Also a new lot suddenly appears which has got only an 
> imbalance of 29 instead of 50. Strange.
>
> 6. I now proceed to post the second invoice (test2)
>
> => The lot viewer will show:
> http://www.kobaltwit.be/gnucash/Lots4.png
>
> So the 29 € imbalanced lot now gets explicitly associates with invoice test2 
> and has a new imbalance of 31,5€. I don't understand this. When I open the 
> Pay Invoice dialog for this second invoice, this also tells me 31,5€ is still 
> to pay.
>
> 7. The payments for both invoices were made to the Cash account. I open this 
> account, and remove the two payments.
>
> => The lot viewer will show:
> http://www.kobaltwit.be/gnucash/Lots5.png
>
> Invoice test1 now has an imbalance of 150€, while the imbalance for test2 
> hasn't changed. Trying to pay invoice test1 will ask me to pay 150€, although 
> the invoice is actually only 100€
>
> Clearly the two payments while the invoices weren't posted both got associated 
> with the first invoice.
>
> I first thought this was a problem with my book.
> But when I perform the exact same steps in a new book, the steps up until 6 
> will work correctly. Step 7 also will cause both the removed payments to 
> change the imbalance on test1. So in a new book, after step 7 to pay invoice 
> test1 again, it will require 150€ in the payment dialog and 0€ for invoice 
> test2. This is not correct, because invoice test1 only values 100€ and 
> invoice test2 values 50€.
>
> I think the problem starts with the payments on unposted invoices getting 
> linked in one and the same lot, although the actions a user (me in this case) 
> takes in the business accounting screens suggest separate lots should be 
> used. In my opinion, a payment made explicitly for one invoice should never 
> be linked to the lot of another invoice.
>
> Do other people have this problem also ?
>
> Also, I am stuck with an inconsistent datafile now. Any hints on how I can 
> clean it up ? Where did the 29 and 31,5 come from in my book ?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Geert Janssens
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> gnucash-devel at gnucash.org
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-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available



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