Imbalance account

[Mike or Penny Novack]

On 7/15/2016 4:40 PM, csmbtreasurer wrote:

>
> I'm a new user of gnucash and still getting used to how it works but I will
> say that all the other accounting packages I've used don't allow an
> unbalanced transaction to be entered which I think is the way gnucash should
> work.
  As somebody who has designed systems like this, let me explain WHY the 
choice the gnucash developers used might be good.

You propose that when entering a transaction, if an account was left 
out, the process STOP at that point and not allow proceeding until an 
account supplied. But what if AT THAT MOMENT you don't know the right 
account to use. Suppose you are the bookkeeper entering transaction and 
at that moment you see an amount that doesn't really belong in any of 
the existing accounts. Yes, guncash would allow you to create an account 
on the fly, but ........

1) The new account might imply some rearrangement of the CoA, some 
thought about the new hierarchy.
2) YOU might not even be a person authorized to make the decision (I 
said bookkeeper, not treasurer, might not be the same person, and even 
the treasurer might need board of directors approval.

The use of Imbalance allows the transaction to be entered and the matter 
resolved later.  When I am preparing the quarterly reports, one of the 
steps in the process is to make sure nothing LEFT in either Imbalance or 
Orphan, in other words, nothing still needing resolution.

Michael D Novack