[GNC] about these account-summary reports...

[Adrien Monteleone]

A) textbook style

I’ve played with it, but I’m not clear on what the target result is supposed to be. It looks like the subtotals don’t line up properly when using it.

It *might* have been designed to supposedly put lines *between* the last child account and the subtotal, rather than a line under the last child and then kick the subtotal off to the next column, all in the same line. Looking at some text examples, this is how they are arranged. (everything in one column with single and double lines between sub and final totals, and a blank line after each subtotal for readability) Though some texts use the method to kick subtotals and final totals to another column. (which makes for simpler spreadsheet formulas, but takes up more horizontal space)

If you managed to get that display right easy enough, I’d say keep it. I’d bet some people are exporting to a spreadsheet just to get that result. (I do this with a comparison P&L so I can add percentage and variance columns, thus I want all figures in one column for a period, not kicked off to the side)

This *I think* should be the result:

Parent A
  Child 1	$ 1.00
  Child 2	$ 2.00
		------
Total Parent A	$ 3.00

Parent B
  Child 1	$ 4.00
  Child 2	$ 5.00
		------
Total Parent B	$ 9.00

		======
Grand Total	$12.00


(subtotal and total ‘lines’ would be over lines or top-borders, not their own row in the table like shown above)


I’m not familiar with whatever ‘cononically-tabbed’ means.


B) parent-account-balances = do not show

My memory is fuzzy from the other thread, and maybe your changes will preserve the desired effect while not preventing non-placeholder parents from being invisible, but I wouldn’t get rid of this option on face.

The use case I’m thinking of is selecting to show zero amounts and not wanting the placeholder parent accounts to have a figure. (which is just visual clutter) This effectively turns the initial display of the parent account in to a heading —e.g.,


Parent A
  Child 1	$ 1.00
  Child 2	$ 0.00
  Child 3	$ 2.00
Total Parent A	------  $ 3.00


If you get rid of ‘do not display’ and still show zero figures you’d get:


Parent A		$ 0.00
  Child 1	$ 1.00
  Child 2	$ 0.00
  Child 3	$ 2.00
Total Parent A	------  $ 3.00

Without the ‘do not display’ option. To keep that visual clutter out, one would be forced to not show zero balance children. Some people strictly adhere to the *recommended* practice in the documentation that all parents be set as placeholders. This change would leave them with $0.00 figures for every parent. (yes, I’m one of those people) I may need all child accounts to show up, zero or not. (especially for exporting to spreadsheet for comparison reports) But I certainly don’t want a bunch of $0.00 figures for my placeholder parent accounts.

I’m not sure how to reconcile the display option with the case of intentionally or un-intentionally ‘hiding’ non-placeholder parent balances. How complicated is it to honor the ‘do not display’ if the balance is zero, but ignore it otherwise?

Or maybe it is the ‘omit zero balance figures’ option that is not working properly. (thus, you can get rid of the ‘do not show’ option, but since the balance is zero, it won’t display anyway)

Regards,
Adrien



> On Feb 13, 2020 w7d44, at 4:30 PM, Christopher Lam <christopher.lck at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Forwarding a post made in devel some time ago.
> 
> Some reports have an option 'Display / Parent account subtotals = textbook
> style (experimental)' and has been untouched for 15 years; I plan to remove
> this option because it's very buggy. Is anyone using it at all? The better
> option is 'show subtoals'.
> 
> C
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: Christopher Lam <christopher.lck at gmail.com>
> Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2018 at 04:37
> Subject: about these account-summary reports...
> To: gnucash-devel at lists.gnucash.org <gnucash-devel at lists.gnucash.org>
> 
> 
> I'll be aiming to replace and upgrade the following reports:
> 
>   - balance-sheet
>   - income-statement
>   - account-summary
>   - budget-flow
>   - cashflow
> 
> Basically all of above are using html-acct-table to create a 2D grid
> (vertical = accountlist, horizontal = indented amounts). I think I can
> upgrade to use a cleaner html-multicolumn-acct-table instead.
> 
> I will be merging their display/parent-balance-mode and
> display/parent-total-mode options into one. As far as I can see, there are
> only two valid combinations that will produce useful subtotal strategy:
> 
>   1. parent-account-balances = "Account balance", parent-account-subtotals
>   = "Show subtotals" - this matches my 'multilevel subtotal strategy (i.e.
>   each parent+children account family is followed by the parent+children
>   subtotal)
>   2. parent-account-balances = "Subtotal", parent-account-subtotals = "Do
>   Not Show" - this matches my 'recursive-bal subtotal strategy (i.e. parent
>   amount incorporates whole children amounts, and if parent has own amount,
>   display it as a child account on the next line)
> 
> The other options are invalid - i.e. Parent-account-balances = 'Do not
> show' will obligatorily lead to amounts missing whereby parent-account has
> an amount. And the Parent-account-subtotal = "Text book-style
> (experimental)" is internally known as 'canonically-tabbed', and the code
> is peppered with comments that "The canonically-tabbed option is currently
> broken."
> 
> Any other combination for subtotals will lead to duplication of amounts, or
> missing amounts.
> 
> Conclusion:
> 
> I will merge these two options into the saner 2-option recursive-bal vs.
> multilevel subtotal strategy. I'll try to maximise compatibility with saved
> reports, as well as set up a transitioning report for users wishing to use
> old reports (with another guid). But after 1 year I think it will be wise
> to remove old code.
> 
> Any queries please ask!
> 
> C