[GNC] Fwd: The two modules

Stephen M. Butler kg7je at arrl.net
Thu Jun 28 13:22:29 EDT 2018


On 06/28/2018 10:10 AM, Geert Janssens wrote:
> Op donderdag 28 juni 2018 18:47:18 CEST schreef Stephen M. Butler:
>> On 06/27/2018 04:41 PM, DaveC49 wrote:
>>> An active non-placeholder account should not have child/subaccounts,
>>> although I don't think GnuCash actually prevents this. In this case, the
>>> parent account total is the sum of the child subaccount totals plus the
>>> sum
>>> of any transactions into the parent account itself. This will make a
>>> report
>>> look to be incorrect as the sum of transactions into the parent account is
>>> not presented separately and its total will not be the sum of the child
>>> account totals. I can't think of a use case where this would be desirable,
>>> but some people may be happy with that behavior. I don't think this
>>> behavior has changed since I first checked it out in an earlier version
>>> (around 2.2 I think).
>> This is a problem.  In a good report the parent with transactions should
>> show a line for the parent so that the column total for that parent (on
>> the balance sheet) is correct.
>>
> This seems to make most sense to me:
> If a parent has transactions put it twice:
> Once as aggregate account and once as an account on it's own. That would meet 
> both needs. The aggregate will total it's own transactions with those of its 
> child accounts. Or put differently the aggregate account would treat itself as 
> a child account.

I like that approach.
>> Maybe the financial folks can band together to get the developers to
>> enforce no-transactions to a parent account.
> I think we should modify the concepts. "Placeholder" is ambiguous and for the 
> lack of a better solution is has been abused to make existing accounts read-
> only.

Surprise!  Given enough rope we will tie knots.
> Perhaps it's time to introduce a "View" type account which is only used to 
> structure the account tree (and as aggregate account in reports) and next to 
> that introduce a read-only attribute to normal accounts. Placeholder could 
> then be phased out in favor of these two. We could even try to automate this 
> using some heuristics:
> - if a placeholder account has no transactions, convert it into a view account
> - if a placeholder account does have transactions, make it read-only instead.
> Add in an informational message to the user about what was done so the user 
> can make corrections if needed (like adding view accounts if an account was 
> being used for both functions).
>
> Geert
>
>
This would help the non-accountant to setup their books in a more
traditional form.  Especially if GnC enforced parent accounts to become
"View" accounts.
It would also help the report writers to present the information
logically without having to resort to extra decision making about how to
handle a parent who has transactions.
--Steve


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