transaction report error

[Miss Keating]

My thanks to John Ralls for pointing me to the GnuCash report-sorting 
controls which, indeed, I had not looked hard enough to find (because 
that's not the basic problem). Knowing where these lurk should be 
helpful in future, if I can just remember where to go for them.

And, in the instant case, sorting by “Register Order” as he suggested, 
produces an accurate report, at least with my extant data. That's a 
work-around of sorts.

However, that does not explain why sorting by “Date”, as is apparently 
the default, produces reports with incorrect arithmetic. Frinstance, 
7218.95 minus 78.63 does not equal 7952.06, and a GnuCash report should 
not (by my lights) claim that it does, no matter what sort order is 
commanded.

So I say that that's a bug, and a serious one, since it propagates 
fundamental arithmetical untruths. Doing correct arithmetic is the most 
basic requirement of a financial programme.

There is also the question as to why “Date” order is the apparent 
default. Isn't it natural to expect the default layout for a report to 
be the same as the register from which it is derived? If there's a 
global preference setting for this default, I haven't found it yet, and 
have had to change each report manually.

Even if there exists a globally settable default, apparently the 
as-installed default default is "Date".

Then there is the consideration that - had "Register Order" been the 
default - I am unlikely to have uncovered this bug.


trj