-$0.00 ?

[Linas Vepstas]

On Wed, Aug 29, 2001 at 10:04:10AM -0500, Stacey McComas was heard to remark:
> i'm using gnucash 1.4.12 on RedHat 6.1 
> 
> periodically when i reconcile an account, or when i transfer all funds out
> of an accout, i end up with a difference (or balance) of -$0.00, and the
> account won't reconcile
> 
> what causes this, 

version 1.4 used floating point numbers. version 1.6 uses fixed-point
numbers to solve this problem.  (there was a way to solve this problem 
using floating point, but no one bothered to implement it).

The problem occurs when you enter share price (with more than two
digits) times number of shares (with more than two digits).  This
results in fractional pennies. 

since version 1.6 stored prices & num shares, and not dollar amounts,
the fractional pennies couldn't be avoided.


> and what can i do about it? (in the past i've just forced
> it through)

either do what you did before, or if you can, limit share prices and
quantities to two decimal points.  Or take the plunge to 1.6

--linas