RFC: Timestamps/timezones proposal

[Graham Leggett]

Charles Day wrote:

> No, splits don't have posting dates or times. The entire transaction 
> uses a single timestamp. That's how it works now. Under this proposal, 
> that timestamp would only be *displayed* differently in different 
> registers, or not, according to your preference.

This is still very broken.

If the accounts have different timezones, then the split in account A 
can fall on a different date to the split in account B, even though they 
have the same timestamp. User confusion results.

You can try and kludge it as much as you like: A timestamp will never 
reliably represent a date no matter what hoops you jump through.

> I disagree. If GnuCash uses timestamps, but a particular user such as 
> yourself wants to disable the effects of time of day and time zone 
> differences, then GnuCash could be set to use a single time zone for all 
> accounts. I imagine there being a global preference called something 
> like "I want to enter transaction times", which would be off by default, 
> causing GnuCash to completely ignore the time zone of your computer, So 
> when you moved your computer between time zones, it wouldn't affect your 
> accounting.

Under what circumstances would an end user ever choose the option 
"randomly change the dates on my transactions when I change the timezone 
on my machine"?

As I have said before, there are *severe penalties* for getting 
financial information incorrect. Tax authorities will *fine* you for 
submitting inaccurate information. This bug exposes gnucash users to non 
trivial risk during a tax audit.

Any fix to this problem must not include scope for a programmer of 
gnucash to accidentally use the system timezone for date calculations 
and in so doing introduce subtle to find and dangerous bugs.

Using timestamps is begging for trouble.

Regards,
Graham
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