"correcting" transactions

[Steve Revilak]

>This is a very good idea indeed. It doesn't even need to be within
>GnuCash as such; it could be done as a separate utility. Either way,
>having a way to intelligently compare two (or more) versions of a file
>for changes and have any changes highlighted would be tremendously
>useful in this context.

There is a (crude?) way to do this, albeit outside of gnucash.

I configured gnucash to use uncompressed files (Edit > Preferences >
General; uncheck "Compress Files"), so .gnucash files are saved in an
XML format.  XML is more software-friendly than human-friendly, but a
human can look at it, and still get a sense of what's going on.[*]

Having done that, I put .gnucash files under version control.  I
happen to like git, but any version control system will do.  My
workflow becomes:

  - Update the books
  - close gnucash
  - commit change to .gnucash files

Version control systems are happy to show changes from one version to
the next.  Again, it's not the friendliest format for humans, but it's
easy to pick out dates and transaction descriptions.

I'm more software developer than accountant, so this is a kind of
workflow that I'm used to.

I agree with the sentiments that others have expressed.  Technology
can help with financial controls, but it's not the whole ball of wax.


[*] Kudos to gnucash developers for putting a "Local Variables" block
at the bottom of gnucash data files.


Steve

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