[GNC-dev] New balsheet (and P&L report), API considerations, and (slow?) KVP in Account.cpp

[DaveC49]

Chris,
 I have the multicolumn report up and running in V3.2. In addition to adding
your file I also had to incorporate it in the CMakeLists.txt in
~/gnucash/report/standard-reports to have it available from the menu. 
Initially I will just comment on the presentation, as I don't have a
testfile setup with which I can check the numbers out yet. 

I need to emphasize that these are my personal preferences for clarity of
presentation and not any accounting profession standard as such. IAS-1
(https://www.iasplus.com/en/standards/ias/ias1) the IFRS standard does not
specify any particular layout and format and mainly concentrates on what
content has to be presented in the four standard financial statements (some
individual jurisdictions may be more prescriptive):
    Statement of financial position (balance sheet);
    Statement of profit and loss and other comprehensive income;
    Statement of cash flows;
    Statement of changes in equity.

One of the problems of a multicolumn report is in representing an account
heirarchy which is more than 2 to 3 levels deep as I'm sure you have already
discovered. You run out of ways of clearly delineating the totals at each
level fairly quickly. This is much easier when you can have a column at each
level of the heirarchy. 

1. I would put the date headings one line up from the Asset Bold heading.
2. i wouldn't use double lines under sub-totals within the major Asset,
Liability and Equity groups but would just use a single line under them and
reserve the double underline for the total in each of those major sections,
3. With the Totals, I would not incorporate the full account heirarchy in
the heading, but just the parent account that the subtotal is for. Then
indenting of the account heirarchy can then indicate the heirarchy level and
what are totals at that level. You could perhaps augment this by using
decreasing font sixes as the heirarchy level increases.
4. If it is possible, I would have the total of any transactions direct to
the parent account displayed in the same manner as any of its child accounts
and balances so that the total displayed for the parent is the balance of
the direct transactions + any child account totals. If no direct
transactions, drop this as a line item. Since GnuCash does allow this
5. Also consider totalling up rather than down (avoids having to repeat the
Level Heading with a Total label.
6. There is no need for a separate Net Worth item as that is what Equity is.

I have attached a LibreOffice document illustrating what I mean by the above
in case it is not clear. I have illustrated a case where Petty Cash is a
parent account which has transactions into it as well as having a child
account (Ignore any table lines).
MultiColumnBalSheetLayoutSuggestions.odt
<http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/file/t375329/MultiColumnBalSheetLayoutSuggestions.odt>  

Hope this helps with some ideas.

Cheers
David



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David Cousens
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