Model of report

[Chris Dennis]

Phil Longstaff wrote:
> If you want to do any work on a requirements spec, set of use cases or workflow design, feel free.
> 
> My basic idea (concept borrowed from Financial Edge, an accounting package I worked with once) is that a report row layout can be defined.  This involves defining section headings, accounts and total lines.  This row layout can then be used to create a report along with column definitions.  As an example, a row layout for a balance sheet would involve an Assets section, a Liabilities section and an Equity section (possibly in different orders depending on country accounting requirements).  The Assets section would be the word Assets, a list of the assets accounts, then the Total Assets line.  By default, this would be driven by the current chart of accounts, but there would be options to reorder accounts or suppress certain accounts.  This could then be combined with a column definition for current value, a definition for 1 year ago today, and a 3rd column which is col1-col2 to provide the difference.  There would also be options for col1 as percentage
>  of col2, or (col1-col2)/col2*100 to give percentage increase/decrease.
> 
> All of the info is there, and if we could define a better framework for reports, it wouldn't be too hard to generate very functional and attractive reports.

The eguile-based balance sheet that I made earlier this year (see 
http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Custom_Reports_Using_Eguile) could be used 
as the basis of a completely general report framework.  It has a good 
system for accessing lists of accounts at given dates, for example. 
Then specific reports can be written mainly in HTML (and Guile, which I 
know takes a bit of getting used to).

Unfortunately I don't have time to work on such a project myself, but 
I'd be happy to help people get started.

cheers

Chris
-- 
Chris Dennis                                  cgdennis at btinternet.com
Fordingbridge, Hampshire, UK