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

[Geert Janssens]

My simplistic view on this: if there is going to be confusion anyway, let's at least make it 
consistent.

We have the sign reversal strategies in there to alter gnucash number presentation behavior. To 
me it would make sense this affects normal transactions the same way as it would reports as it 
would budgetting.

That's currently not the case, which means users have to keep two mental models in their head: 
one for transactions (is liability interpreted such or so, and so on) and another for budgets. I 
personally think that's a big hurdle.

Keep in mind that these reversal strategies (should) only be relevant for the display of 
information. Internally numbers should always be stored according to the signs in the 
accounting equation. Again budget values didn't follow this rules. So besides being inconsistent 
to users it is also inconsistent and confusing to developers.

That's what prompted the work to bring this all in line.

No doubt this may change the interpretation of certain numbers. We can't avoid this completely. 
What we had was inconsistent and created interpretations based on the inconsistent behavior. 
Change that and the interpretation has to change with it.

Regards,

Geert

Op maandag 27 april 2020 18:59:41 CEST schreef Adrien Monteleone:
> 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
> 
> _______________________________________________
> gnucash-devel mailing list
> gnucash-devel at gnucash.org
> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel