[GNC] Transaction Report Sign Reverses

[David T.]

Well, it seems odd to me that "Double" display (as Adrien noted)(thank 
you, Adrien!) is able to display the figures as the user prefers. It is 
also odd to me that the report knows to switch the values of the 
individual transactions, but is unable to remember that fact when it 
comes to the totals. That right there is the problem.

As for the FAQ, it seems to me that there is a mistake in the example 
there: the GnuCash option is to change signs for Income *and* Expenses. 
But the example provided reverses Income but not Expenses. Were it to 
reverse both sets of accounts as the preference indicates, then the math 
should work out correctly ($100+10-20=$90). Or am I missing something here?

Why is it not possible to perform the calculation for totals and then 
apply a display modifier so that the user sees numbers as they prefer?

The current solution is a poor one.

On 8/12/2019 11:12 AM, Christopher Lam wrote:
> https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ#Q:_Why_does_the_Transaction_Report_.27Sign_Reversal.27_setting_not_work_on_subtotals 
>
>
> This issue could be fixed if the scenario addressed in this FAQ can be 
> resolved. I don't really know how to handle that particular case.
>
> On Mon., 12 Aug. 2019, 13:02 David T. via gnucash-user, 
> <gnucash-user at gnucash.org <mailto:gnucash-user at gnucash.org>> wrote:
>
>     Hello,
>
>     I am trying to create a YTD Capital Gains report, and am
>     encountering a
>     problem with how the Transaction Report implements the Sign Reverses
>     setting.
>
>     I recall some time back a discussion about the fact that the Sign
>     Reverses setting reverses signs in these reports in a confusing way.
>     There was some discussion about reversing the individual transactions
>     but not the totals. Although I do not recall the specifics of the
>     discussion, I am encountering the same situation now, where the
>     transactions themselves respect the user setting, but the totals
>     do not.
>     To say this is confusing is an understatement.
>
>     It seems to me that other financial applications must have
>     encountered
>     the problem of displaying income to users as a positive value (since
>     that is how most of us view income!) while still finding a way to
>     display the correct accounting information.
>
>     To display my YTD report of Capital Gains, I ran a Transaction Report
>     and selected the Income:Realized Gains accounts for the current year.
>     The result shows losses as positive numbers, and gains as negative. I
>     don't know about you, but my expectation is reversed from this. If I
>     change the Sign Reverses setting to Income and Expense, then the
>     transactions switch, but the totals do not. This result was the
>     gist of
>     the discussion in an earlier thread. Bleah!
>
>     Now, I know that I can copy the data, paste it into another
>     program and
>     change all the settings to my heart's content, but I am looking for a
>     way to run a report in GnuCash that directly and unambiguously
>     shows me
>     whether I have gained money (a positive) or lost it (a negative) over
>     the current year. Does anyone have suggestions?
>
>     FWIW, I attempted to turn this report around and have a report that
>     lists transactions in the asset accounts, filtered by the
>     Income:Realized Gains accounts, but that seems to report only the
>     Asset
>     account currency--in this case, the mutual fund or stock shares
>     involved
>     on the Gain/Loss transaction. Unfortunately, that's not the actual
>     Gain/Loss value...
>
>     It would be nice if the sign reverses setting could be fixed. Barring
>     that, does anyone have a workaround report setup that can give me a
>     sensible YTD Capital Gains total as described?
>
>     David T.
>
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