[GNC-dev] [GNC] Transaction Report Sign Reverses

[David T.]

Chris,

Thanks for returning to this.

I see that this is a patch file for trep-engine.scm. My only experience 
using patches was when I was on a Mac; now I am on Windows, and wonder 
which tools to use to apply your patch.

Moreover, I am using 3.5, and do not find trep-engine.scm anywhere in 
C:\Program Files (x86)\gnucash. Does "recent build" mean?? GC 3.7?

Best,

David T.

On 10/13/2019 6:51 PM, Christopher Lam wrote:
> Hi David, I'd had a review of transaction-report and can attempt fix 
> signs for subtotals when sorting by 'account name'.
> The difficult issue remains how to handle reversals when sorting by 
> 'other account name'. I think it's buggy and not sure how to handle it.
> Try this patch to trep-engine.scm in a recent build.
>
>
>
> On Mon, 12 Aug 2019 at 08:45, David T. <sunfish62 at yahoo.com 
> <mailto:sunfish62 at yahoo.com>> wrote:
>
>     Well, it seems odd to me that "Double" display (as Adrien
>     noted)(thank you, Adrien!) is able to display the figures as the
>     user prefers. It is also odd to me that the report knows to switch
>     the values of the individual transactions, but is unable to
>     remember that fact when it comes to the totals. That right there
>     is the problem.
>
>     As for the FAQ, it seems to me that there is a mistake in the
>     example there: the GnuCash option is to change signs for Income
>     *and* Expenses. But the example provided reverses Income but not
>     Expenses. Were it to reverse both sets of accounts as the
>     preference indicates, then the math should work out correctly
>     ($100+10-20=$90). Or am I missing something here?
>
>     Why is it not possible to perform the calculation for totals and
>     then apply a display modifier so that the user sees numbers as
>     they prefer?
>
>     The current solution is a poor one.
>
>     On 8/12/2019 11:12 AM, Christopher Lam wrote:
>>     https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ#Q:_Why_does_the_Transaction_Report_.27Sign_Reversal.27_setting_not_work_on_subtotals
>>
>>
>>     This issue could be fixed if the scenario addressed in this FAQ
>>     can be resolved. I don't really know how to handle that
>>     particular case.
>>
>>     On Mon., 12 Aug. 2019, 13:02 David T. via gnucash-user,
>>     <gnucash-user at gnucash.org <mailto:gnucash-user at gnucash.org>> wrote:
>>
>>         Hello,
>>
>>         I am trying to create a YTD Capital Gains report, and am
>>         encountering a
>>         problem with how the Transaction Report implements the Sign
>>         Reverses
>>         setting.
>>
>>         I recall some time back a discussion about the fact that the
>>         Sign
>>         Reverses setting reverses signs in these reports in a
>>         confusing way.
>>         There was some discussion about reversing the individual
>>         transactions
>>         but not the totals. Although I do not recall the specifics of
>>         the
>>         discussion, I am encountering the same situation now, where the
>>         transactions themselves respect the user setting, but the
>>         totals do not.
>>         To say this is confusing is an understatement.
>>
>>         It seems to me that other financial applications must have
>>         encountered
>>         the problem of displaying income to users as a positive value
>>         (since
>>         that is how most of us view income!) while still finding a
>>         way to
>>         display the correct accounting information.
>>
>>         To display my YTD report of Capital Gains, I ran a
>>         Transaction Report
>>         and selected the Income:Realized Gains accounts for the
>>         current year.
>>         The result shows losses as positive numbers, and gains as
>>         negative. I
>>         don't know about you, but my expectation is reversed from
>>         this. If I
>>         change the Sign Reverses setting to Income and Expense, then the
>>         transactions switch, but the totals do not. This result was
>>         the gist of
>>         the discussion in an earlier thread. Bleah!
>>
>>         Now, I know that I can copy the data, paste it into another
>>         program and
>>         change all the settings to my heart's content, but I am
>>         looking for a
>>         way to run a report in GnuCash that directly and
>>         unambiguously shows me
>>         whether I have gained money (a positive) or lost it (a
>>         negative) over
>>         the current year. Does anyone have suggestions?
>>
>>         FWIW, I attempted to turn this report around and have a
>>         report that
>>         lists transactions in the asset accounts, filtered by the
>>         Income:Realized Gains accounts, but that seems to report only
>>         the Asset
>>         account currency--in this case, the mutual fund or stock
>>         shares involved
>>         on the Gain/Loss transaction. Unfortunately, that's not the
>>         actual
>>         Gain/Loss value...
>>
>>         It would be nice if the sign reverses setting could be fixed.
>>         Barring
>>         that, does anyone have a workaround report setup that can
>>         give me a
>>         sensible YTD Capital Gains total as described?
>>
>>         David T.
>>
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