Default account counterpart

[Derek Atkins]

Quoting Mike or Penny Novack <stepbystepfarm at mtdata.com>:

> Less tongue in cheek --- no, I wouldn't like that one bit.
>
> 1) I might indeed have to be creating a (new) account and hadn't 
> realized this until I had begun entering a large/complex split 
> transaction. Here having the default imbalance is much better than 
> temporarily sticking in a wrong (but otherwise valid) account name. 
> You are going to have to come back later to fix the transaction in 
> either case;, the "imbalance" account is more obvious.

Um, GnuCash lets you create new accounts on the fly.  If you type in
"Foo:Bar:New Account" into the Account Cell then when you leave the
cell it will pop up a dialog for you to create the new account (if
it doesn't already exist).  So if you're entering a large/complext
split and need a new account then just create it inline.

The problem here is that GnuCash will Scrub the in-process transaction
while you're editing it and create Imbalance account *** EVEN IF YOU
ALREADY HAVE ALL THE ACCOUNTS YOU NEED ***.  The problem is that GnuCash
PREMATURELY scrubs the transaction and inserts the Imbalance too
early.

> 2) But editing the "name of the account" is exactly what you do. Not 
> the name of the account but the name (which) account you want debited 
> or credited. GnuCash lets you get back into that transaction and 
> change the "imbalance" to whatever the correct account is.

But when you're creating the transaction you shouldn't have to do that.

> Perhaps that was not obvious? People have been deleting and then 
> re-entering a transaction if they later realized that they had 
> debited or credited the wrong account instead of just changing the 
> account? Of course in this case you have to be working on the 
> transaction as it appears in one of the other accounts debited or 
> credited. But this being double entry bookkeeping, there will always 
> be such an "other" available.

People delete the txn instead of editing it??

> Michael

-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