GnuCash 3.0 initial observations

Deva - pobox.deva at outlook.in
Fri Apr 6 10:40:19 EDT 2018


Christopher,

I think the list converts any attachments into links at the end of the mail - at least, that’s how I have been looking at others attachments. Anyway, Adrien helped with some answers, so I’m good.

It’s unfortunate that eguile balance sheet is going to see its demise soon - a veritable case of chronicle of a death foretold! Though I take your point about regular balance sheet showing unrealised gains, I liked the eguile version because it kept the income and expense detail at account level instead of grouping them into a single line item called Retained Earnings.

The eguile format helped answer questions, both financial and philosophical, such as -

a. what is my contribution to my family?
b. what is my contribution to society (gifts/charitable contributions made)?
c. what have I received from society (gifts received)?
d. and more philosophically, what is the value of my life?

Having maintained nearly 2 decades of my life in numbers and with no intention of backing out now, I hope to find the answer to that last ponderance, at least as a financial metric, before my time is done.

Bob Dylan said it best when he sang -

how many roads must a man walk down
before you can call him a man
how many years must a mountain exist
before it is washed to the sea
…
the answer is blown’ in the wind

And the last thing I want to see as the wind blows is GnuCash’s eguile balance sheet! So please keep it alive!

Cheers,
Deva

On 05-Apr-2018, at 9:07 PM, <gnucash-user-request at gnucash.org<mailto:gnucash-user-request at gnucash.org>> <gnucash-user-request at gnucash.org<mailto:gnucash-user-request at gnucash.org>> wrote:

Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2018 18:38:13 +0400
From: Christopher Lam <christopher.lck at gmail.com<mailto:christopher.lck at gmail.com>>
To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org<mailto:gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
Subject: Re: GnuCash 3.0 initial observations
Message-ID: <2ba7cda3-a5eb-4e43-96fd-9577d03d8087 at gmail.com<mailto:2ba7cda3-a5eb-4e43-96fd-9577d03d8087 at gmail.com>>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed

Hi Deva

First you forgot to attach screenshots.

I'll assist where I can:

On 05/04/18 16:43, Deva - wrote:
Hello,

Firstly, thank you all for this new and much awaited version.

I have just installed GC 3.0 on Mac OS High Sierra 10.13.4 and have been browsing through what?s new and what?s improved and these are observations from my initial test run?

1. When I first moved from 2.6.6 to 2.6.19, I ran into an issue with average cost as a price source on my mutual fund account. See https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=775368. I thought this was fixed in 3.0, but it doesn?t seem to be. Note, however, that the use case I gave in that bug report earlier has been fixed, but other investment accounts seem to have issues. Upon reviewing the account with the cost issue, only thing I can see is that when a mutual fund account has both purchases and redemptions, the balance sheet report using average cost price source doesn?t report the cost correctly. When there are only purchases, the cost is computed correctly. Is anyone else seeing this problem? I am keen on moving to 3.0 due to other features introduced in this version, but this is keeping me grounded. I can share an account report and the balance sheet report privately to whoever is interested in diagnosing this problem.


2. The currency symbol (INR in this case) is printed in bold (looks that way from its appearance), which makes it look like a blob on the reports. On the main CoA page, the currency is distinctly clearer. Is there a setting to make it look like the way it appears on CoA? (see screenshot attached)
Can't see :)
SNIP

4. When I first came across balance sheet (eguile) report in 2.6.6, I took a liking for this report more than the regular balance sheet report. However, the eguile report contained a warning as a footnote saying - Development version - double check the numbers?
In all the time I have looked at this report since, I haven?t come across any differences between the eguile and the non-eguile versions. I haven?t scrutinised this on an account by account basis, just on an overall equity, assets, liability, etc. and the numbers always matched.
But I see this warning even in the 3.0 version! Has anyone ever had problems trusting the numbers on the eguile report?
From my understanding of eguile balance sheet, it should be broadly
similar to the regular balance sheet. However the regular balance sheet
has more processing and will note unrealized gains/losses. The eguile
one doesn't. This is one difference that I've noted. Unfortunately the
eguile report developer is no longer active and the eguile reports are
too complicated to debug, and may be removed in the future.
5. Having said that, v3.0 does seem to have a problem with the eguile balance sheet report (see screenshot attached). Towards the end, where it prints the exchange rates used for stock prices, it?s showing some sort of internal report error.

6. Despite these observations, if I start using GC 3.0 and later decide to go back to 2.6.* versions due to balance sheet inconsistencies, is that possible? I seem to recall reading some notes on the release stating that latest versions change folder locations and some internal structural changes, so I worry that once I save a datafile in 3.0, it may prevent me from opening it in 2.6.11 (say) - my last stable version where the balance sheet numbers are still shown correctly.
I believe 3.0 datafiles opened in 2.6.19 or earlier would be readonly.




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