Does GnuCash possess a Journal Entry numbering facility

Edward Doolittle edward.doolittle at gmail.com
Thu Oct 2 18:32:15 EDT 2014


I've followed the discussion around journaling transactions with interest,
because I've been thinking about what is required to recover from a crash
resulting in a corrupted gnucash database. It seems like the thing to do is
to go to an earlier version of the database and re-enter transactions since
that earlier version was closed. But how do we know which transactions to
re-enter? If there were a journal, transactions could be "replayed" from
the time of the last good database save.

I can see how adding such a feature to gnucash might be more trouble than
it's worth, but I am wondering what a reasonable crash recovery plan would
look like. Perhaps receipts could be stored in a paper journal until
reconciliation is completed?

On Thu, Oct 2, 2014 at 9:33 AM, David Britton <bbaruu at gmail.com> wrote:

> OK then!  That sounds firm. LOL
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Ralls [mailto:jralls at ceridwen.us]
> Sent: Thu, 02 Oct, 2014 11:22 AM
> To: David Britton
> Cc: Michael Hendry; gnucash-user
> Subject: Re: Does GnuCash possess a Journal Entry numbering facility
>
>
> On Oct 2, 2014, at 6:48 AM, David Britton <bbaruu at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I see, Michael.  Decent workaround.
> >
> > @John Ralls: you emailed me with your response.  In it, you state that
> > "a Journal Entry Number wouldn't mean anything in the normal accounting
> sense."
> > I think Michael and I could agree that the action of posting should be
> > the trigger to create a JE# which then would mean something;  you're
> > saying that the posting trigger is already by-passed.  It's here the
> > process hits the rocks where Michael and I are concerned.  In contrast
> > the old Bedford Accounting/Simply Accounting booked transactions in
> > real-time like Gnucash but did generate a Number.  So, conceptually
> > there's a way through.  And it makes a lot of sense from an Audit
> > Trail perspective since Gnucash could be seen as an indexing system.
> > Personally, I don't use the suggested internal reconciliation facility
> > that you mention - never found it useful to mark entries; good to know,
> though, that there's technique out there.
> >
> > @Michael and @John:  So there's a history here.  A number of folks
> > find that Gnucash has this perceived shortcoming.  I strongly suggest
> > that the team look hard at adding this feature.  It's likely a lot of
> > work; I can appreciate that.  But I think it's key.  Has there been
> > any developer team debate around this?
>
> Please remember to copy the list on all replies. Use "reply all" or, if
> your
> client supports it, "reply list".
>
> Yes. We're not going to do it. Auditability is not a design goal of
> GnuCash:
> GnuCash is intended for home and very small business use where reconciling
> with one's monthly bank statements is the only required auditing. If that
> doesn't meet your needs, then GnuCash isn't the right program for you.
>
> Regards,
> John Ralls
>
>
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-- 
Edward Doolittle
Associate Professor of Mathematics
First Nations University of Canada
1 First Nations Way, Regina SK S4S 7K2

« Toutes les fois que je donne une place vacante, je fais cent mécontents
et un ingrat. »
-- Louis XIV, dans Voltaire, Le Siècle de Louis XIV, Chap. XXVI


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