[GNC-dev] Report with Fiscal Year

[Borden]

> This is getting ridiculous, can we stop the personal attacks now please.  Let's just accept that different countries call it Fiscal Year and others call it Financial Year - my own accountant here in Oz calls it Financial Year and that is also what we called it in NZ when I lived there.  I guess we're a bit more relaxed about it down under :-)
>
I apologise if any of my observations were "personal attacks." There were  demonstrably false things said, so I corrected them and encouraged the poster to expand his knowledge. I'd expect the same for me if I post things that are wrong.

Maybe in Oceana "Financial Year" is the standard language. I'd love to hear your accountant's perspective with supporting references. I'm saying I've never seen it, including in  IFRS or any textbook. But Commonwealth countries put Us in their words and Americans take them out, so I'm sure different countries have different accounting terminology. I grew up with the terms "Balance Sheet" and "Income Statement," but "Statement of Financial Position" and "Statement of Profit and Loss" are becoming more common. So the language evolves, too.


> As to your last comment well, it is an uphill battle sometimes.  Just think about why there is even a Deposit/Withdrawal flag option - because users struggle to think in terms of statement debits and credits and whether they are from the banks point of view or their own.  Gnucash is littered with users that are totally new to double entry accounting and sometimes seem unable to even read a User Guide/Tutorial and Concepts guide :-(
>
And if users don't want to RTFM, that's their right. I also respect the software designers' audience. If the project's goals are to be professional-grade software, then I recommend using the proper terminology. If the project's goals are to improve information between bookkeepers and accountants, then I recommend using the proper terminology.

And this is why open source software lets one fork and rewrite. If I want it to be professional software and the GNUCash devs don't, then I can always fork the project and hire a team of programmers to tighten it up.