Check Numbers and Expese Report (Gearry Judkins)

[Phillip Link]

Hi,
I too am using Gnucash 1.6.6, and I must agree with Gearry that this is 
one of the best open source applications around. I tell everyone to 
switch to Linux, but I think that if you need an accounting/personal 
finance manager that Gnucash is one of the more compelling reasons to 
switch.
Concerning point 2), it seems to me that the '+' shortcut key increments 
the check number from the last one entered. This works OK for me, given 
that:
1) if you enter your check expenses regularly, this achieves the right 
behavior (you go through you checkbook in order and gnucash gets it right),
2) if you wait to enter all checks at the end of the month, relying on 
bank statesments (as I lazily do), they are usually pretty much in the 
right order, and you verify with the check number on the bank statement 
anyway
3) just resorting the account by number, allows you to find any holes in 
the series of checks entered,
4) when you start writing checks from a new checkbook, you have to 
change numbers anyway.

Going the extra mile (proposing only check numbers that have not been 
previously entered) might mean a lot of developer hassle, and potential 
bugs, and would not let you cycle through any check number as written on 
you bank statement (because you have already entered a transaction for 
that check).

gnucash-user-request@lists.gnucash.org wrote:

    I have been using gnucash for a few months now and there are a few
    things I have noticed which I thought I would metion to the list to
    see if they are items being addressed. First off I am using Gnucash
    1.6.6 that I got from the debian testing branch a while back.
    1)Check numbers: I belive I saw it the tips section that you could
    automatically get it to insert the next incremented check number by
    pressing the + key. I have tried this and I seem to get some weird
    behavior. If I use that in a given session before I have typed any
    numbers that session it falls back to an old check number, say 140
    when I should be on 157 and the checks 140 through 156 are already
    in the register. If I type in a check number, say 157, pressing +
    when in that field will then work correctly for the rest of that
    session. Has anybod else seen this?
    2)Expense Barchart: I like the expense barchart, but I have one
    problem with it. I like the way that the expense piechart takes the
    catagories which comprise the largest percentages first and itemizes
    them until it gets to n-1 of the total catagories I have asked to be
    displayed, putting the remaining into the "other" group. The
    barchart howerver just takes the first n-1 catagories in
    alphabetical order, and assings the rest to "other", which makes the
    divisions in the bars in that barchart less meaningful. If I knew
    anythign about scheme I would look into it, but I don't and right
    now I don't really have the time to learn, but it seems like it
    should be something easy to change since the code for dividing
    things up is basically in the piechart report already.
    Feel free to tell me all the reasons why I am wrong on this. All in
    all I have to say that gnucash is probably one of the most
    user-friendly opensource apps I have encountered to date. Many
    thanks to all involved. I hope that as time goes on I can contribute
    something to the project.
    Gearry