How do I get rid of old bill due reminders?

[Derek Atkins]

Quoting John Griessen <john_g at cibolo.com>:

> Derek Atkins wrote:
>
>> As I haven't been able to reproduce this myself, and nobody has been able
>> to provide me a "here is what I did to get into this state", I've not been
>> able to track it down.  I've tried all series of posting, unposting,
>> etc. but it never seems to cause this problem for me.
>
> The way this happens is by spending minimal time on data entry and sometimes
> unposting, and sometimes coming across hard problems reconciling, which are
> solved by going into the .xac file and text editing it to change reconciled
> status of entries that need to be fixed to get a reconcile.  At some 
> point these
> problems make me want all the usual straight accounting functions 
> where  I could
> reverse anything and move anything between double entry ledgers while 
> creating a
> trail for audit.

The bills-due reminder has nothing to do with reconciliation.  Reconciliation
just sets flags on transactions (usually on your Asset accounts).  However,
unposting and/or reposting invoices MAY cause this problem, even though
I haven't figured out the proper order to cause this problem to happen.

> I can't succeed when I try with that approach with gnucash, so the next best
> thing would be a way to close out the books to get rid of mistake ridden time
> periods that cannot be fixed properly.

Well, you could start over from fresh going forward..  Or as I said last
time you could just delete all your payments and re-process all your
payments.

> Another thing to consider would be to make the bill due function 
> flaggable and
> changeable on entries in any state -- reconciled, paid, etc. -- so as 
> to turn it
> off after the fact.     After the fact is the right time to deal with
> idosyncrasies of accounting SW.  Redoing anything money related is never the
> way.   Forward is the only way to go, so putting ways users can always go
> forward will get you more helpful bug reports, and more users.

That's not what the Bills Due reminder is for OR about.  It has NOTHING
to do with reconciliation, and in normal operation gnucash should never
get you into the state that you and a handful of other people have found
themselves.  It just shouldn't be possible to get yourself into the state
you have...  (Clearly it IS possible, but I can't do it myself).

All the bills-due reminder does is:

1) Iterate over every Lot in your A/P account
2) Find the list of Imbalanced lots (e.g. Lots with a non-zero balance)
3) For each open lot, find the invoice
4) Build the dialog from the list of invoices attached to open lots

Reconciliation has nothing to do with this process, and indeed reconciliation
shouldn't have anything to do with this.  You don't reconcile billing,
you post invoices and then pay them.   Reconciliation is when you match
that payment to your bank statement; but that only affects the Split into
your bank account, as it should.

If you want more done, you're welcome to send in a patch.

> John Griessen

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available