Clarification of Account Compatibility Check

[Derek Atkins]

Hi,

Quoting Clayton Carter <crcarter.gnucash at gmail.com>:

> The announcement for GC 2.0.4 states that it now features a `Correct account
> compatibility check with top level account.'  I'm currently using 2.0.2 and
> I'm wondering if this bugfix would break my account tree.
>
> I setup several top-level accounts, for instance: personal, business1 and
> business2.  Under each of those accounts I then created subaccounts to
> manage the assets, liabilities, expenses and income of each.  These
> businesses are micro-scale and are sometimes indistinguishable from hobbies,
> but they are businesses nonetheless and I wanted to be able to represent
> this with separate account trees (to keep most transactions separate;
> representing the business aspect) that could still support transactions
> between each venture (representing the `hobby' aspect).  As an example, when
> I buy bags for packaging, the payment is made from my personal checking
> account, but the expense is split between the two business units.
>
> Setting this up was a bit of a pain because the program would let me create
> and use the subaccounts with types different than the parent account, but it
> would warn me about needing to change the types of all of the accounts in
> the tree when I attempted to edit an account (say, if I tried to rename it
> or turn off the `placeholder' property).

You were exploiting the bug..

> So, does this statement about `Correct account compatibility check' mean
> that the behavior I exploited in creating all of my account tree is now
> `fixed'?  If so, are there any plans to turn the compatibility check into a
> warning rather than a dictate?  Or perhaps a feature added whereby top level
> accounts could be `type-less' and placeholder only, thereby allowing this
> kind of categorization.  Assuming the worst (for me), does anyone have any
> suggestions for handling the accounts of several semi-separate, semi-related
> ventures?

Yes.
No.
Maybe, but not in the 2.0 series.  There is some work to create a
"top level account" type, and it MAY be possible (potentially) to
use this new type, maybe, to do what you want.   But really, you
should use separate data files.

> Clayton
>
> PS - If there's interest in the warning/dictate or typeless top level
> accounts, I will gladly create an enhancement bug report.

There's no interest in the warning.  As for the typeless top-level account,
I dont think we need the enhancement request -- we've got enough of those.
Now, if you want to create the patch that implements it.....

-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
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