Transfers & Payments appear out of order

Sat May 6 04:56:47 EDT 2017

Looking at the resulting XML file, having reproduced your issue, the 
date posted's have different timestamps.

for the transferred transaction:

<trn:date-posted>
    <ts:date>2017-05-06 00:00:00 +0100</ts:date>
</trn:date-posted>

for the normally entered txn:

<trn:date-posted>
    <ts:date>2017-05-06 11:59:00 +0100</ts:date>
</trn:date-posted>

This would force the sorting of the transferred txn to the top of the day,

I would say this is a bug and should be reported.

I am using maint branch from GitHub on Fedora 25.

Mike E

On Fri, 5 May 2017 22:43:59 -0500
Adrien Monteleone <adrien.monteleone at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dave & David,
> 
> Again, sorry if my wording misled anyone. I did not intend to reference any sort of payment button.
> 
> There are two functions I see that generate transactions which do not appear to be sorting the same as any manually entered transaction, and which also refuse to respect the NUM field thus making custom sorting not possible.
> 
> They are the “Transfer" button on the toolbar, (which is also the “Transfer" entry in the Actions menu, a.k.a. ⌘T for Mac, likely CTRL+T for *nix and Windows) and the "Process Payment" business feature. Note, that there are two "Process Payment" features, one for Customers and one for Vendors. So effectively we can say there are THREE methods which do not follow the normal sorting rules though I suspect the Process Payment feature uses almost (or actually) the same code save for which side is debited and credited.
> 
> As with manually entered transfers as Dave H. noted, if I enter a transaction that “pays” a bill or invoice and then use the “Assign as payment” function in the context menu, that transaction will sort properly and respect the NUM field. It is only using the Transfer Funds dialog (via the button, menu entry, or keyboard shortcut) and the Process Payment functions that do not.  I’m really thinking this is a bug unless a developer can chime in that this is intended behavior.
> 
> I’d ask on gnucash-devel, but I know they lurk here too and don’t want to clutter their list. I’d be happy to file a bug if they say this is not working correctly.
> 
> -Adrien
> 
> > On May 5, 2017, at 6:08 PM, Dave H <hellvee at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> > Hi David C,
> > 
> > Yeah I haven't got a Payment button either so I guess as you say that's part of the Business features which I also never use.
> > 
> > I know there were changes to ignore the time somewhere along the line, but it's almost like Gnucash is sorting on Date AND Time and these button based transactions are created with a time that's earlier than manually created txns which may use the current time.  Just my thoughts which could be totally off base :-)
> > 
> > Cheers Dave H.
> > 
> > 
> > On 6 May 2017 at 08:57, David Carlson <david.carlson.417 at gmail.com <mailto:david.carlson.417 at gmail.com>> wrote:
> > Dave & Adrien,
> > 
> > I do not use the the transfer button either.  Now that I look, I do not see a payment button, unless it is any of those in the Business menu which I do use either...
> > 
> > I too would expect transactions created by any method to sort by the same rules or lack thereof.  I know that some sophisticated sort algorithms do scramble the order of records that match the same criterion, but I doubt that is what is happening here.
> > 
> > David C
> > 
> > On Fri, May 5, 2017 at 4:15 PM, Dave H <hellvee at gmail.com <mailto:hellvee at gmail.com>> wrote:
> > No I'm with Adrien on this one, it's not just a Business Feature issue either...
> > 
> > I've got a couple of existing transactions on 4 May. If I click the Transfer button (never used it before as I always just duplicate a previous transfer transaction :-) and transfer funds from the open account to another account Gnucash inserts the transaction as the first one for 4 May.  If I duplicate a previous funds transfer it inserts it as expected by me as the last transaction for 4 May.  Entering 0, 1, 2 in the "Num" column sorts all the other transactions for the day in Num order, but when I enter 3 for the Num for the transfer from the Transfer button it just stubbornly sits at the first position for the day !!!
> > 
> > To my eyes a bug :-)
> > 
> > Cheers Dave H.
> > 
> > 
> > On 6 May 2017 at 06:39, David Carlson <david.carlson.417 at gmail.com <mailto:david.carlson.417 at gmail.com>> wrote:
> > Adrien,
> > 
> > It appears that we are still not quite on the same page in our
> > interpretation of the issue.  Are you saying that in a given account the
> > payment and transfer button transactions sort differently than transactions
> > created by other methods?  If so, that may be a bug.  Or not.  A developer
> > may know.
> > 
> > I am a long-time user, but not a user of business features.
> > 
> > In general, GnuCash does not claim to manage intra-day balances.  It
> > essentially claims to balance at the end of the day.  IMO, If you actually
> > have a need to have that level of granularity you may need to look
> > elsewhere.
> > 
> > David C
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > On Fri, May 5, 2017 at 12:59 PM, Adrien Monteleone <
> > adrien.monteleone at gmail.com <mailto:adrien.monteleone at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >   
> > > Sorry I wasn’t clear.
> > >
> > > If I enter three transactions (not using the post payment or transfer
> > > button functions) they retain the order in the register in which I entered
> > > them. (we’re talking transactions all posted with the same date here) If I
> > > entered them out of actual time order, I simply use the NUM field to fix
> > > this. Payments posted using the business features and the Transfer button
> > > don’t behave this way.
> > >
> > > Let’s say I enter some expense transactions, then I post a customer
> > > payment to me, then I enter a transfer from a savings account to cash, even
> > > though all have the same date and even though I put in sequential numbers
> > > in the NUM field to intentionally order them in the register, GC will list
> > > these transactions in the following order:
> > >
> > > Transfers
> > > Payments
> > > Expenses (or any other transactions)
> > >
> > > It does not matter if I enter the other transactions before posting the
> > > payment, the payment always jumps to the first transaction of the day in
> > > the register. It also does not matter if I put a 1 in the expense
> > > transaction NUM field and a ‘2’ in the payment NUM field. Those numbers are
> > > there, but GC refuses to place the expense transaction before the payment
> > > transaction.
> > >
> > > The same goes for transfers using the transfer button. (but manually
> > > moving money from one asset account to another, or any other ‘transfer’
> > > DOES show up in the order it was entered and DOES respect the ordering of
> > > the NUM field)
> > >
> > > This has been an issue for me because I may have issue finding ‘missing
> > > money’ or even just reconciling my cash, and I usually resort to matching
> > > up how much I had on hand after particular transactions. If they refuse to
> > > appear in the correct order, that can be difficult to impossible.
> > >
> > >  
> > > > On May 5, 2017, at 12:27 PM, Derek Atkins <derek at ihtfp.com <mailto:derek at ihtfp.com>> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Adrien,
> > > >
> > > > On Fri, May 5, 2017 1:09 pm, Adrien Monteleone wrote:  
> > > >> Something that’s been nagging me for some time, and my apologies if  
> > > there  
> > > >> has been discussion of this in the past, but is it intended behavior for
> > > >> transfers and payments to always appear as first entries on a particular
> > > >> date instead of the order of when they are actually entered? Is it also
> > > >> intended behavior to have transfer and payment transactions ignore the  
> > > NUM  
> > > >> field so that they cannot be manually ordered? Or is this a bug?  
> > > >
> > > > Default sort order is:
> > > > * Post Date (i.e., the date you select in the register)
> > > > * Number (this is a numeric compare; any non-numeric entries get treated
> > > > as 0)
> > > > * Date Entered (this is the order you enter your transactions).
> > > >
> > > > So yes, by default your entries are sorted based on the date you assign  
> > > to  
> > > > them, not when you enter them.
> > > >  
> > > >> Thanks,
> > > >>
> > > >> Adrien  
> > > >  
> > > >> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> > > >> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.  
> > > >
> > > > -derek
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > >       Derek Atkins                 617-623-3745 <tel:617-623-3745>
> > > >       derek at ihtfp.com <mailto:derek at ihtfp.com>             www.ihtfp.com <http://www.ihtfp.com/>
> > > >       Computer and Internet Security Consultant
> > > >  
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________

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