Preventing the "Imbalance-*" accounts from getting used.

[Donald Allen]

Here's an example where I think the Rel. 2 user-interface behavior needs to
be improved along the lines we've been discussing:

Suppose you've previous entered a transaction in your checking account to
make a payment involving two accounts on the debit side (e.g., a loan, where
you are paying principal and interest and thus accounting for them in
separate accounts). Here's what the single-line transaction looks like:
      Description             Account
Debit             Credit
Foo loan pmt              --Split
Transaction--                                 1010

Here's what the splits look like:
      Description             Account
Debit             Credit
                             Liabilities:Foo loan                     1000
                             Expenses:Interest on Foo loan     10
                            Assets:Checking
acct                                     1010

Now suppose for some reason I want to make another payment on this loan in a
different amount. Maybe I'm doubling up the payments. So I start a new
transaction with the register in single-line mode by typing 'Foo ...' in the
Description column in the new-transaction row, and gnucash obligingly fills
in the details of the previous transaction I did. So I tab over to the
credit column, and enter the new total amount of the payment, say 2010,
there. Then I hit tab again. This enters the transaction, but it's
imbalanced and gnucash says nothing about it. There's still a  debit of 1000
to the Liabilities:Foo loan account, a debit of 10 to the Expenses:Interest
on Foo loan, and a new split, with a debit of 1000 to Imbalance-USD. While
this is all correct, it's too silent, in my opinion. I'd much prefer to be
notified before the transaction is committed/entered that it's imbalanced.
Maybe a preference item, so that those who disagree can still have the
silent behavior?

/Don

On 12/22/06, Donald Allen <donaldcallen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I too would like to add my voice to the opinions already stated by Adam
> and Maf. The current method in 2.0.2 I find much less intuitive than it
> could be, and I think Adam has it right that gnucash shouldn't let go of you
> until you've entered a balanced transaction (I also have the impression that
> 1.8.x behaved that way). As things stand, there are ways to innocently
> leave a transaction unbalanced (e.g., hitting 'enter' at the wrong time)
> and you only realize you've done so when you look at the accounts page and
> see a non-zero balance in the imbalance account.
>
> /Don
>
>