Ver 2.6.3 no split entry

[David Carlson]

On 7/10/2014 4:21 PM, Scott Roe wrote:
> Dear John, Cat, Derick, Mike, and David:
>
> First of all, thank you very much to all for taking the time to reply to me on this issue.  I am not an accountant, I'm just running a small business and do all the accounting myself.
>
> My problems are probably two fold: a) I may have been entering split transactions incorrectly, as Derick suggested, I looked and I have 2 imbalance accounts, one in USD, and one for my local currency, CID, and just about every split entry is in there.  Reviewing the splits, they are always in one currency,  the local CID, as that is the currency I derive my expenses from (or the majority of them), and those are  the ones that require split transactions.  The majority of my split transactions are payment to the company I work for as an independent contractor.  I write them one check every month, but that one check is for numerous expenses, all in the local CID currency. 
>
> I  open my local currency checking account, enter the date, check #, the entity I write the check to, then skip to the decrease field, enter the total amount of the check, and then, while the focus is still in that field, hit the split key (as per how I read the help directions within Gnucash) and then tabbed to the first account field below in the 2nd line (between the description field and total increase field) and selected the first expense account, tabbed to the increase field and put in the amount for that expense account, tabbed to the next line and account field, selected the next expense account, then tabbed to the increase field, input the expense amount for that account, and so on and so forth until the last expense account and then tabbed to the next line and the running balance in the decrease field would equal the original decrease field entry and I would hit the enter key, at which the total split entry seemed to be saved, and took its place in the register chr!
>  onologically depending on the date I cut the check.  I picked one entry that was saved successfully this way, and examined it, and everything looks correct and logical.  The asset account (local currency checking account) was decreased by the total check amount, and the expenses accounts were increased by the individual line item amounts attributed to each expense account.  Examining the imbalance account (CID) shows 3 copies of this same transaction, which probably means it disappeared once and I re-entered it perhaps.  Each of the 3 are slightly different, one has every field filled and the transfer field has "split transaction"; one has no description (company I write the check to) and one has no value in the main line decrease field.  I'm not sure which one is correct, nor why they are in there.  If I delete every instance of this transaction in the imbalance field, what will that do to the one in the checking account register, that is correct?
>
> b) second issue is I am not using the business features nor invoicing.  In addition to my main job I also do renovations.  When I win a renovation contract, I create an account receivable account in the name of the renovation job, then when I receive this first "stage" payment, I enter it in as a payment, which creates a negative balance.  As I pay out funds for materials and labor, I enter the payments in the "invoice" column which reduces the negative balance.  When the job is completed, what is left is my profit, and I transfer that to an income account, zeroing out the account receivable account.  The numbers and running balance have been correct but obviously this activity needs to be accounted for in a different manner.  The stage payments should create a positive amount, and the payments for materials and labor should be a negative amount that reduces the balance.  Thinking about what Mike and David said, I guess I need to create an account as an asset, being the job !
>  I've won, and enter incoming stage payments, and outgoing expense payments, to have the funds flow correctly.
>
> I'm not sure what I am doing wrong with split payments.  When I enter an individual expense in a local currency asset account like my CID checking account, no currency conversion dialog comes up ( I keep my books in local currency).  When I'm entering expenses in my credit card accounts (all USD), or my US asset accounts, when I hit enter, a currency conversion dialog does come up, converts it to CID, and then saves at the CID amount.  I never enter split transactions in USD, only the local currency CID, so I wonder if the currency conversion has anything to do with my split entry problems?
>
> Thanks to all, in advance, for reading this, and any thoughts, or suggestions on correcting my problem(s) much appreciated.
>
> Scott
>

I think that as you surmise, you are seeing more than one issue in the
same transaction.  GnuCash 2.4. 15 or less has an issue that John
described in his reply (Timestamped 1:56 pm Central time on the 8th)
which causes a difference in behavior of (technically unbalanced)
transactions involving multiple currencies created in pre-2.6 releases
when the file is opened in newer releases.  As he described, the
unbalance is not necessarily visible in releases before the 2.6 series,
but it shows up clearly in release 2.6. 3.  I quote:

When you're in split view, GnuCash doesn't look at the other split(s) because it doesn't know that you aren't going to enter more of them. It's up to you to make sure that the transaction balances in the current register's currency, and if you've more than one split in another currency that it balances in that currency as well. It doesn't show you the price or amount in that other currency except one at a time in the transfer dialog, so you have to keep track of that other-currency balance on your own. One major difference between 2.4 and 2.6 is that 2.4 had a bug where it didn't ensure that the transaction balanced in the other currency, so you could successfully enter transactions that didn't balance.

Mike Alexander recently wrote a more detailed explanation in https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=732058.



The second issue that makes it harder to see the problem is that when
there is more than one split line in the same account for one
transaction,  as many entries are visible in the register for that
account as there are split lines for that account.  IE, if there are
three split lines for the same account in one transaction, if you open
the register for that account, it looks like there are three
transactions, one for the amount of each split line.  If you try to edit
that transaction while viewing it in that account register, the focus
jumps around wildly between the multiple 'transactions' depending on
which field you are trying to edit.

This is an artifact of the way the register code is written and it will
probably continue to work that way until the 'register2' code is
finished and released or another replacement for the current register
code is implemented.  That will likely not happen soon as the
developers' priorities have shifted to other areas for the near term.  I
usually 'Jump' to another account register when I edit one of those
transactions.

However, as John suggested, the underlying unbalance issue is corrected
in release 2.6.3.  I think it would be better for you to use release
2.6.3 or later.

Unfortunately, I have no idea how to find and fix those older,
unbalanced transactions in release 2.6.3, as I have not migrated to that
series yet myself. I do not use multiple currencies so I have not seen
that problem in that form.  I will leave it to others to step up with
solutions to clear up the old unbalances in release 2.6.3.

David C