ORPHAN vs. IMBALANCE

[Michael Hendry]

> On 9 Feb 2015, at 14:46, Adam Funk <a24061 at ducksburg.com> wrote:
> 
> On 2015-02-06, Jan Steinman wrote:
> 
>>> From: "David T." <sunfish62 at yahoo.com>
>>> 
>>> Could someone explain to me the difference between ORPHAN and IMBALANCE accounts in GnuCash??
>> 
>> And can you map them into some other account?
>> 
>> I have an account called "Errors and Exceptions." It's main use is
>> when a cash drawer is over or short. In such a case, I'd like the
>> "Balance" button to automagically post to "Errors and Exceptions."
> 
> I'd prefer to have an option that will (for manually entered
> transactions) never create those unwanted accounts but instead will
> just not allow me to complete/save an unbalanced transaction.

There are situations where a bookkeeper might not be sure where (for example) to post an expense, and needs somewhere to “park” it so as not to interrupt data entry. Once the right expense account has been identified, the Orphan or Imbalance can be corrected at leisure.

In paper-and-pencil days a Suspense account was used to make sure the books balanced in such circumstances (or more usually because a transcription error stopped the books from balancing), and this is essentially what the Orphan and Imbalance features are providing.

I’m content with the status quo, but would accept a warning about a posting to Orphan or Imbalance with the opportunity of going back to fix the offending transaction.

Michael

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