Report Generation

[Cindy Doughty]

I am wondering if an additional choice should be added to reverse all,
would this solve the problem?

On Sat, Mar 11, 2017 at 10:18 PM, Edward Doolittle <
edward.doolittle at gmail.com> wrote:

> So, I've done some more testing on this. You're right, the problem is with
> the original transaction.scm report. I imagine no one has noticed the
> problem before because everyone has only used the transaction report with a
> limited set of accounts, all of the same account time (all assets, for
> example). With your new report, there are many more creative ways it can be
> used, which makes the bug more apparent.
>
> You can reproduce the problem reliably in the following manner: create the
> account Expenses:Test-Expenses. Create the account
> Liabilities:Test-Liabilities. Create a transfer from
> Liabilities:Test-Liabilities to Expenses:Test-Expenses of $100, say. Since
> everything balances, the net total of the two accounts should be $0.
>
> Run a transaction report including both accounts Expenses:Test-Expenses
> and Liabilities:Test-Liabilities. If Options -> Display -> Sign Reverses is
> set to None, the Grand Total on the report is $0, as expected. If Options
> -> Display -> Sign Reverses is set to Credit Accounts, the Grand Total on
> the report becomes $200, which is incorrect.
>
> No other setting seems to have an effect on this: not the global
> Preferences -> Account -> Reversed Balanced Accounts setting, not any other
> setting in the old transaction report. It is all about that one setting,
> Sign Reverses in the transaction report.
>
> How to fix this in the transaction report: When Options -> Display -> Sign
> Reverses is set to Credit Accounts, the correct way to calculate a grand
> total is by adding numbers from debit accounts (Assets and Expenses) and
> *subtracting* numbers from credit accounts (Equity, Income, Liabilities).
>
> Using the example I gave above, it is also clear that an analogous fix
> needs to be made when Options -> Display -> Sign Reverses is set to Income
> and Expense.
>
> This problem seems to exist in both the existing, longstanding Transaction
> Report, and your new Transaction by Payee Report.
>
> Since these reports seem to be in flux, I'm not sure whether to submit a
> bug report or not. If you fix your new report and submit it to replace the
> old transaction report, that should take care of the bug.
>
> Edward
>
> On 11 March 2017 at 19:50, Cindy Doughty <dbdoughty at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I'll have to think on it awhile - the fact it happens when consolidate
>> transactions is unchecked makes me think it is in the code in the original
>> transaction.scm file included with gnucash I started  with.   If you turn
>> on running balance and uncheck the entry use old running balance (both at
>> bottom of display tab under options)  does it give any clues?
>>
>> On Sat, Mar 11, 2017 at 12:23 PM, Edward Doolittle <
>> edward.doolittle at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Yes, I just tested it.
>>>
>>> On 11 March 2017 at 11:20, Cindy Doughty <dbdoughty at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Does the interaction happen both when consolidate transactions is
>>>> checked and when it is unchecked?  (under options display)
>>>>
>>>> Doug
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Mar 10, 2017 at 11:05 PM, Edward Doolittle <
>>>> edward.doolittle at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hi Doug,
>>>>>
>>>>> I tried your Transaction by Payee Report today, and it works great. It
>>>>> allows me to save searches, in particular the search for estimated
>>>>> (scheduled) transactions which have managed to move above the blue line
>>>>> into the past. Thank you for this work!
>>>>>
>>>>> I have noticed an oddity, however. I search all accounts, so total of
>>>>> the transactions that I find should balance to zero. I noticed that
>>>>> sometimes they don't. When I change the report option to Sign Reverses:
>>>>> None, then everything does balance to zero like I expect.
>>>>>
>>>>> The issue is that my overall preference in the application is to set
>>>>> "Reverse Balanced accounts" to "Credit accounts". I am puzzled by the
>>>>> interaction between the overall preference setting and the setting in your
>>>>> report.
>>>>>
>>>>
> --
> 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
>