Data entry problem

[John R. Sowden]

I think we are getting astray from what I asked about.  I got the "There 
is at present no way to disable autofill".  And I got the select "Date 
of entry".  It worked.

I understand that an accounting program is not a spreadsheet.  I was 
referring to the fact that a spreadsheet that is often used for 
financial matters DOES NOT copy down an amount, but it does copy down 
words, in the name of ease and accuracy.

Re: increasing accuracy by putting an amount that I do not want entered 
into a field does not increase accuracy.  Re: the use of the word 
"deposit", I use that for searching purposes, and sometimes a name or 
payee is a required field.  At the GL level, I only want to know where 
the funds went (which income account, not which of 1,200 or so customers 
paid that amount.  That is the job of my AR system.

I am entering with the tab.  After I write the name and press tab, it 
copies the amount of the previous transaction with that name. Like when 
I pay my about 15 AT&T bills, it would put the amount of my previous 
AT&T payment in to the new payment.  That is neither easy nor accuracy.

John


On 08/26/2016 01:30 PM, Liz wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Aug 2016 11:30:24 -0700
> "John R. Sowden" <jsowden at americansentry.net> wrote:
>
>> Every once in a while I retry gc, and I often get hung up on the data
>> entry.  This time I am trying to enter a business deposit. The name
>> is "deposit".  when I enter the name gc brings into the transaction
>> not only the name and also the account number of a previous 'Deposit'
>> transaction, but also  the amount.  That is error prone for data
>> entry. As I am entering my various income account numbers and
>> amounts, I noticed I ended up with a 7,000 'imbalance-USD'.  Is there
>> a way to stop , at least the copying of a previous amount.  It is not
>> unusual to have more than one transactions to a name, a little less
>> usual to have the transaction to the same account number, but the
>> same amount is getting in the way of smooth data entry.  Spreadsheets
>> don't copy down an amount like they do text for a cell with the same
>> starting text.
>>
> This is the way Gnucash works, so I'd like to suggest some alteration
> in your thinking about this.
> Gnucash knows that the entry is a deposit, because you put the value in
> the column which increases the balance.
> Calling it "Deposit" is superfluous, and not expected by the program.
> If you call it with a name which reflects the source of the deposit eg
> "Sarah" "Company A" you will initially get a blank line, but next time
> you use one of those terms then autofill will start, and you will see
> the behaviour which is currently annoying you. If "Company A" always is
> in the same income account, then only the amount will need to be
> changed.
> If the transaction contained a split you can have Imbalance turning up,
> these need more care.
>
> Liz
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