Quotes

Don Allen dca at zurich.csail.mit.edu
Thu May 12 09:15:20 EDT 2005


A similar comment to my previous message about splits: online quotes 
(yes/no, quote source) are associated with positions, rather than the 
commodity. But the quote is for the commodity, not the position. What is 
currently done in gnucash (1.8.10) seems incorrect to me. A result of 
this is that if you have multiple positions in stock XYZ in different 
brokerage accounts and want online quotes for XYZ, you must so indicate 
in each of the accounts.

It would also be nice to have a way of saying "I want online quotes for 
every commodity I've specified, and I want them from source X". In 
general, I've noticed that there are some deficiencies in the UI for 
dealing with things in the aggregate. Another example: I'd like to be 
able to say "every transaction in account X really belongs in account Y; 
please move them".

By the way, including this message, I've now sent two messages 
indicating places where I think gnucash is doing things incorrectly or 
unintuitively. I'd like to mention that overall, I think this system, 
despite some rough edges, is extremely well done and I extend my 
compliments to the developers. It is a pleasure to work with this system 
after years of dealing with the bloatware that Quicken and MS Money have 
become. I also think that basing gnucash on double-entry accounting was 
a crucial decision; a lot of the conceptual cleanliness of the system 
depends on that. It's an example of the sort of thing that the 
commercial vendors won't or can't do, because they are targeting a 
(large) market where a concept like double-entry bookkeeping would be a 
tough sell.

/Don



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