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

[Christopher Lam]

Yes, that is correct. The Transaction Report engine was pulled out into a
separate file because it was reused in numerous reports.

On Sun, 13 Oct 2019 at 14:50, David T. <sunfish62 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> 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> 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> 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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>>