accounting eqn; account summary report; semi-monthly transactions

[Victor Chudnovsky]

Hi there,

I just started using GnuCash this weekend and have set everything up
pretty well. I really like it. I do have some questions and comments,
though, and thought this would be the right forum to air them:

(1) Documentation: When reading about the accounting equation at
http://www.gnucash.org/docs/v1.8/C/gnucash-guide/basics_accounting1.html#basics_accountingequation2
and at
http://code.neil.williamsleesmill.me.uk/gnucash-guide.html
one first reads 
Assets - Liabilities = Equity,
which makes sense, and then
Assets - Liabilities = Equity + (Income - Expenses)
which does not make sense to me as written, without any time indeces.
This second equation, should, I believe, read as follows:
delta( Equity ) == delta( Assets - Liabilities ) == Income - Expenses,
or
Equity(i)==Assets(i)-Liabilities(i)=Equity(i-1)+Income(i-1)-Expenses(i-1)
which is also consistent with the diagram on that page

(2) Reports: I have set up GnuCash with my assets, liabilities, equity
(opening balances), income, and expenses. When I run the "Account
Summary" report, without changing any options, I get the balance for
each of these top-level accounts, which is fine. Then I see a horizontal
line on the report, and then another total (which thus looks as though
it should be the total for the whole report, whatever that would mean)
but which only works out to be income minus expenses.

(3) I have set up a semi-monthly scheduled transaction set to occur on
the 5th and 20th of each month, starting Dec 5, 2005, and have
configured it to be created automatically 15 days in advance. The
scheduled transaction editor says that the last occurrence was Dec 20,
2005, and the next occurrence is January 5, 2006, but the accounts do
not show a future transaction on Dec 20th, 2005. (Monthly [as opposed to
semi-monthly] transactions that I've set up do display upcoming
transactions properly) I'm guessing this may be due to the fact that the
first transaction date for the current month has passed. Is this a known
bug or am I misconfiguring something?


Cheers,

Victor