Adding a 'number' field to splits

[John Ralls]

On Sep 18, 2011, at 3:10 PM, Alex Aycinena wrote:

> John,
> 
> On Sat, Sep 17, 2011 at 4:43 PM, John Ralls <jralls at ceridwen.us> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> There are already two fields in Splits which are available for random use: Action and Memo. You could set up your report so that if the Transaction's Num field is blank but the Split's Action field isn't and has a numeric value, the latter is displayed.
>> 
>> Doing something like that in the Register is perilous, though -- regardless of whether you make a new field in the split record or not. The problem is that when viewed in unsplit mode, the user won't know whether the number in the Num column came from the transaction or the split -- and if she edits it, the program won't know whether it should edit the split value or insert the number (though I suppose you could force a split view in that case to make it obvious).
>> 
>> Regards,
>> John Ralls
>> 
>> 
> I was thinking of giving preference options to the user - one could be
> to not use (no change to GUI, wouldn't even need to tab over it);
> another could be to display it on the split line (to the left of the
> 'action' so there would be no confusion); a third would be show it
> where the current 'num' is and move the transaction 'num' to the
> second line (with proper labelling - this is how I would use it). What
> to update on data entry would follow from this. I would add
> documentation so that this would be clearly explained. A selection in
> imports would be needed to decide which field to populate.

Alex,

Sounds like a good argument to just use the Action field for your numbers. Except for option 3, no changes required to anything except your custom reports; option 3 can be implemented as easily with Action as with a new field.

Or are you already using the Action field for something else?

Regards,
John Ralls