Empty transactions in General Ledger

[David Carlson]

On Wednesday, 6/26/2013 12:33 PM, Carsten Rinke wrote:
> Ok, ok, just to clarify what made me be confused during the latest
> threads about General Ledgers for those interested:
>
> There are 4 items that somehow relate to the term General Ledger
>
> - The General Ledger called by Tools -> General Ledger
> This one really brings up a new register (or ledger) that seems to
> list the transactions of the past month.
> Related bugs
> *Bug 346159* <https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=346159>
> -General Ledger seems to confuse the blank transaction
> (not sure if this is really supposed to be part of 2.6.0)
>
> - There is a General Ledger REPORT to be called with
> Report->Assets&Liabilities->General Ledger
> This one also lists transaction, but let you choose time period,
> accounts, display settings (like groups, sorting, sub-totals) etc.
>
> - There is the Account Report and the Account Transaction Report found
> in the Reports menu
> Only avaiable if a register is open, whereas the Account Report lists
> all the transactions from the top-register (the one you are just
> looking at, in case there are several open registers), and the Account
> Transaction Report only displays a selected transaction from that
> register or none. The reports have the head line "General Ledger Report"
> Related bugs
> *Bug 334939* <https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=334939>
> -Account Report and Account Transaction Report are apparently the
> same, but different
> *Bug 696492* <https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=696492>
> -Change report name in menu or in report output to be consistent
>
> (maybe there are even some more bugs connected to them, just listing
> those that I know of)
>
> Carsten
>
> On 06/26/2013 04:23 PM, David Carlson wrote:
>> On Wednesday, 6/26/2013 7:31 AM, Michael Hendry wrote:
>>> On 26 Jun 2013, at 13:20, Carsten Rinke <carsten.rinke at gmx.de> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Michael,
>>>>   how exactly do you open the General Ledger tab?
>>>> What menu item do you click?
>>>>   
>>> Tools > General Ledger
>>>
>>> Michael
>>>
>>>> Kind regards,
>>>> Carsten
>>>>   Gesendet: Mittwoch, 26. Juni 2013 um 10:26 Uhr
>>>> Von: "Michael Hendry" <hendry.michael at gmail.com>
>>>> An: "gnucash-user at gnucash.org list" <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
>>>> Betreff: Empty transactions in General Ledger
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Now using 2.4.13 with Mac OS X 10.8.4, I was puzzled by the four
>>>> blank transactions appearing with today's date in my General Ledger
>>>> tab.
>>>>
>>>> Realising that I had tabs open for three credit cards and one bank
>>>> account, I closed each of these in turn, and saw the date disappear
>>>> from each of these transactions, one by one.
>>>>
>>>> Closing the General Ledger tab and re-opening it removed the empty
>>>> lines.
>>>>
>>>> Re-opening the bank and credit card accounts brings back one empty
>>>> transaction for each account (provided the General Ledger tab is
>>>> closed and re-opened).
>>>>
>>>> I suspect that this is a cosmetic problem only, and reflects the
>>>> blank transaction (with today's date already entered) at the bottom
>>>> of each asset account's tab.
>>>>
>>>> Michael
>>>>
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>> That behavior has been there for several years.
>> bug 541386 is one of the bug reports.
>>
>> However, I think that it has been fixed in release 2.5.x, so it should
>> be gone from the 2.6.0 stable release.
>>
>> David C
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>
>
Carsten,
I agree wholeheartedly about too many different things seeming to have
the same or very similar names.  We need some good descriptions to
clarify in detail the differences between these objects and either
justify the existence of each  or justify the deletion of some.  I think
your descriptions are a good start, but I would like additional
details.  For one thing, most of the reports are not well described
anywhere in the GnuCash documentation.  The Account Report in particular
changes it's character depending on which type of register view has the
primary focus at the time it is selected.

Another report titled Reports  > Assets & Liabilities > General Journal
actually produces the same information that you see in the register
Tools > General Ledger register view except that it always shows every
transaction in the data file and cannot be reduced to a shorter calendar
interval like Tools > General Ledger register view defaults to.  I do
not think it is useful if it cannot be reduced to print on less than a
ream of paper.

I wanted to suggest that it be renamed General Ledger Report in the
General Ledger Presentation Bug thread because that is what it looks
like, but that name is already taken by the report titled Reports  >
Assets & Liabilities > General Ledger that you mention resembles a
transaction report rather than a general ledger.  So that report needs
to be changed first.  Is that report any different than the report
simply titled Reports > Transaction Report?

David C