Giving up on Gnucash

[Anne Wilson]

On Friday 22 Apr 2005 19:48, Richard Gilligan wrote:
> >  The UI paradigm is squarely aimed at accountants and that's fine,
> > although the strict double-entry, debit & credit, scheme is little
> > more than an unneccessary anachronism. Banks don't even use it any
> > more, not in that way at least.  My bank statement has a single column
> > with checks shown as negative amounts and deposits as positive
> > amounts. The debit/credit, left column/right column business is simply
> > a computational device intended to minimize mistakes by clerks. My
> > computer isn't prone to math mistakes so it isn't needed.
>
>  From reading forward in the thread it is obvious that you are proposing
> a UI change (rather than chucking the rules of accounting).  At first
> glance, it seems like an interesting idea to me and I have been using
> GC for 4 years now.  Using a single column of signed numbers in the
> register could have a lot of benefits. I imagine it would make the
> register easier to read, use less screen width for the same information
> displayed, and eliminate some labels that create visual clutter and
> need to be translated.  In addition it would make it easier for people
> to represent GC transactions as text in emails to the list.
>
David remarked that his brain is prone to mistakes, and most of us would 
sympathise there, but also my fingers do a pretty good job at getting things 
wrong sometimes.  A frequent one is to get an '=' when I want an '-'.  
Imagine the scope for problems there!  At least with the double entry system 
it is clear when things don't balance.

Anne
-- 
Registered Linux User No.293302 (http://counter.li.org/)
Have you visited http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org yet?  Mandrake at all levels
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/attachments/20050422/7fdc49d0/attachment.bin