[GNC] First Day of the Week

[Adrien Monteleone]

John,

Thanks for the insights.

How does first day of the week affect reports in GnuCash? The only report I can think of that might be an issue is the Expenses/Income vs. Day of the week, but each day is reported separately, though Sunday is listed first in the key, it is a pie chart. All other date selections I can find are based on month or longer, or use specific dates. (do some reports give weekly subtotals for example? I haven’t seen or used that yet)

I didn’t think about the date picker as I always enter my dates manually, but certainly, I can see how that could be annoying.

Certainly, the software should be able to match your life. You shouldn’t have to change to work around a bug.

And please report any issues you find. While previous reports may not have received attention (yet) that does not mean some other issue won’t. It might be that someone else with developer skills and time might jump in and fix one or two. One issue may shed light on others. A discussion may ensue on how to address the issue for when it is actually fixed. So reporting isn’t a waste of time even if they don’t get fixed right away. (or even for an extended period)

I know some calendar issues were looked at in the move to 3.x. Perhaps one of the devs familiar with this part of the code might take a look or chime in. There might be a good reason why this is still an issue.


Regards,
Adrien

> On Aug 12, 2019, at 4:09 PM, John Morris <johnjeff at editide.us> wrote:
> 
> Hi Adrien,
>  Thank you for your interest. The first day of the week is, of course, a personal preference. However, because it is set to Monday everywhere else in my life, it would be more convenient if GnuCash were set similarly.
> 
>  Yes, I am aware of System Preferences > Language & Region; that is where I have set the first day of the week for the rest of my computer. Thank you for pointing that out.
> 
>  The main issue that makes life difficult with GnuCash using Sunday as the first day of the week is in our business. We have a small editing business, but we don't work conventional hours. Basically, we work whenever we can fit it in. That means we might be working at 11p on a Sunday or 6a on a Tuesday. However, we still find it convenient to break our time up into weeks. Reports from our time-tracking software help us know if we are doing enough income work to make our goals. Reports from our accounting software (GnuCash) help us know if our income is matching expectations and helping us reach our goals. However, it is just a little more difficult because the time tracking software is set to use Monday as the first day of the week, but GnuCash refuses to accept that setting. 
> 
>  A second place this problem makes trouble for me is entering transactions. Sometimes I type dates and sometimes I select them from the drop-down menu. That menu puts Sunday on the far left of the block instead of the far right where I expect it. Thus, I sometimes click the wrong date because I forget that GnuCash does this. Of course, this is just one example, but I think it gives the flavor.
> 
>  Naturally we could change our whole life around to use Sunday as the first day of the week, but we don't want to do that. Computers should adjust to the users' lifestyle, not the other way around. We can also just make do, accepting that the accounting week starts on Sunday and the time-keeping week starts on Monday. That is how we have functioned since we switched to GnuCash about five years ago.
> 
>  I understand that the developer pool is small. This is why I have not bother reporting the many bugs I work around every day. When I first started using GnuCash, I reported what I saw, but it quickly became clear that the developers feel they have bigger fish to fry. Given that I have no time to offer to this effort, I stopped wasting my time. I would love to help with the development. I even have some of the skill required and could probably get up to speed fairly quickly, but my to-do list is way too long for me to take on any new projects. Frankly, if I were going to get back into development, I would seriously consider starting from scratch rather than trying to fix the mess that is GnuCash.
> 
> Best,
> John