[GNC-dev] About budgets in 3.8, 3.9 and 3.10

[Phil Longstaff]

I agree with what you say about positive and negative with respect to
budgeting assets and liabilities. However, if I have a transaction which
pays down a loan, and then add that loan to the budget report, the actual
value is displayed as negative. That is why I budget paying down a loan
with a negative value.

I understand what you are saying about budget outlays always being
positive. That also makes sense. However, it doesn't match what gnucash
currently does.

Yes, it would be more straightforward to budget either a CR or a DB, and
then "amount left to budget" would be sum(DB) - sum(CR). However, that
would make it more confusing for non-accountants.

On Mon, Apr 27, 2020 at 1:00 PM Adrien Monteleone <
adrien.monteleone at lusfiber.net> wrote:

> I noticed that odd as well. I also noticed it to be odd to choose ‘Inflow’
> for anything but income.
>
> However, I’m not sure the preface ‘Inflow from’ or ‘Outflow to’ should
> even be there. It produces too much confusion with signs.
>
> Now I have to be concerned with interpreting the sign to be the opposite
> of the prefacing term chosen.
>
> I might be an outlier, but when I budget outlays, I budget positive
> amounts. It doesn’t matter if I’m paying a debt or buying something or
> saving some. (liability vs. expense, or asset)
>
> It makes no sense to me to say I’m ‘budgeting negative $100’ on a
> liability unless I was pulling money from a liability to make it available
> to budget. (thus taking out a loan, similar to pulling money out of savings
> for expenses or debt payments) I suppose I could use ‘Income/Expense’
> instead of ‘Credit Accounts’ as my sign reversal strategy but then that
> messes with my use of signs for general accounting.
>
> I see budgeting as a different context and I don’t think it should follow
> the same strict adherence to sign preferences. (maybe that is why it didn’t
> honor the setting in the first place)
>
> The entire issue with signs has to do with someone who made the decision
> to re-write the accounting equation with all terms on one side and zero on
> the other. The real equation given in every text book I’ve seen is not
> presented that way. This is partly why a reversal setting exists.
> Traditional accounting doesn’t present credit accounts as negative amounts.
> Debits and Credits are specifically and strictly not taught as being
> ‘positive’ or ’negative’. I know that’s a bigger fish to fry and more
> fundamental to the core code, but it seems to be a stumbling block when the
> context of the amounts changes.
>
> I could get over it and manage because I’ve been with GnuCash long enough.
> But a fresh new user might well run into an obstacle here. (and some
> already do with the general sign issue in the rest of the app)
>
> Regards,
> Adrien
>
> > On Apr 27, 2020 w18d118, at 9:13 AM, Frank H. Ellenberger <
> frank.h.ellenberger at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > Am 27.04.20 um 06:08 schrieb Christopher Lam:
> >> [image: budget-view.png]
> >
> > as translator I have a problem with "Inflow to" in this context. I had
> > only expected "Inflow from" and "Outflow to".
> >
> > Frank
>
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