Issues with Placeholder Accounts

[Geert Janssens]

Op zaterdag 11 februari 2017 09:14:36 CET schreef David T. via gnucash-devel:
> > On Feb 11, 2017, at 6:04 AM, Chris Good <chris.good at ozemail.com.au> wrote:
> > Hi David,
> > 
> > The Help manual says:
> > 
> > A Placeholder means this account is not used for transaction data.
> > Transactions may not be posted to this account, only to sub-accounts of
> > this account not marked themselves as Placeholder.
> > 
> > My feelings are...
> > 
> > Maybe the manual should be changed to say you cannot add *additional*
> > transactions via the register (or import?).
> > 
> > I assume since you have a placeholder stock account with transactions,
> > that
> > the UI doesn't check if there are existing transactions before allowing it
> > to be changed to a placeholder account.
> > I think that is useful functionality that should remain.
> > 
> > If a placeholder stock account already has transactions, then presumably
> > you have made it a placeholder to stop yourself adding new transactions.
> > Adding capital gain transactions via scrubbing is really just properly
> > completing the sale transaction, so I don't see a need for a change
> > there.
> > 
> > Regards, Chris Good
> 
> Chris,
> 
> Not sure where in the Help manual you’re looking; I see a note about
> placeholder accounts in 5.4.1, and another in 6.3.1 (both of which I wrote)
> that do not have the text you cite.
> 
> Regardless of what the Help manual says, the placeholder flag makes an
> account read-only. At least that’s what I have been told over the years on
> the lists.
> 
> This can be done with ANY account, regardless of whether there are
> transactions in the account. The Help manual citation you included is
> wrong.
> 
> My reason for setting this flag on closed and zeroed out accounts is because
> of the behavior documented in bug 397135, and included in the Help text at
> 5.4.1 and 6.3.1. Setting an account to Placeholder prevents it from
> appearing in the combo list in an account register. And, yes, I am also
> interested in not adding new transactions to these accounts as well.
> 
> Further, my complaint isn’t with the process of flagging an account as a
> placeholder account; my complaint is that once the account has been flagged
> as placeholder, there are circumstances in which transactions can be posted
> and altered in the account.
> 
> I also don’t agree with your assessment of scrubbing being a completion of
> the transaction. Scrubbing adds new transactions to an account. Sometimes
> many. Adding a transaction to a read-only account means that the account is
> no longer read only.
> 
> I don’t think that that is simply a matter of documentation. Either an
> account is read only, or it is not.
> 
David,

I agree with you on this. The current behavior in gnucash is inconsistent and 
that should be improved. I also think this is a big challenge because this 
"detail" touches almost all parts of the engine code...

I propose you record your findings in a bug report including all situations 
you have encountered so far in which gnucash is changing placeholder accounts. 
This is not something that will be solved with an easy fix.

As for your extension to AR/AP accounts this is even harder. Ideally the user 
interface for business features would handle everything business related so 
the user would never need to alter anything in these accounts. However this is 
not the case so sometimes it's still necessary to manually make changes in 
these accounts. I'm not sure what would be required to get that completely 
worked out, but I believe again this is a fairly big change.

Regards,

Geert