[GNC] Ghost Equity Accounts

D. sunfish62 at yahoo.com
Fri Apr 9 11:23:53 EDT 2021


Frank, 

Thank you for an explanation. I have tested your advice and found it wanting. 

Here are my observations after a morning of tests:

* The new code creates a new equity account whenever the new account has a different currency/commodity than the base currency of the book regardless of the underlying type of the account. Because Stocks and Mutual Funds have a different currency/commodity from the base currency, these are the first times I have seen this.

* The Opening Balance setting on the Equity:Opening Balances account has **no effect** on the behavior of this code. New Opening Balances accounts are created under exactly the same circumstances as when this setting is left unchecked.  

* The new code automatically creates the Opening Balances - XXX account every time an account with a different currency is touched. This includes deleting an account--so, for example, when I created a dummy account that triggered the new equity account creation, deleted the Equity account, and then the dummy account, the new code re-created the equity account before deleting the account for which the equity account was required in the first place. This is truly an ugly corner of this code.

I believe the patch needs to be reconsidered more fundamentally to only be invoked on a new file. I don't want the program deciding that I need an equity account for every new asset I add to the account structure. I can't understand why an opening balance equity account is needed for an asset in which I identify the source of the opening balance. 

There is another problem with the logic in this change, though. In my case, the program created a new equity account-- and then didn't assign any splits to it. That suggests strongly that it shouldn't have created the account in the first place. 

Finally, to do all this without even a dialog alerting the user of this action is extremely disturbing. I personally don't look at the Equity portion of my account tree very often; I only happened to notice it in a combo box. 

I repeat my recommendation that this change be limited to new or empty files only. Either that, or the change should be reverted until a better solution is found. As it stands, there is no way I can prevent this stupidity from happening EVERY TIME I ADD A NEW STOCK ACCOUNT. 

Yikes. 

David


-------- Original Message --------
From: "Frank H. Ellenberger" <frank.h.ellenberger at gmail.com>
Sent: Thu Apr 08 23:16:27 EDT 2021
To: "D." <sunfish62 at yahoo.com>, ralf.habacker at freenet.de
Cc: Gnucash Users <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
Subject: Re: [GNC] Ghost Equity Accounts

Hi David,

let me try to explain, but Ralf may correct me: An new account property
"Opening Balance" was introduced to avoid some other problems. And each
book needs (at least) one account with the property set.

While you created the account, the program could not find such an
account and created one.

You should be able to avoid this behaviour by marking your existing
[Equity:]"Opening Balance" – whatever it is named – with the flag in
Edit Account.

Probably the current checks should be improved in a few ways:
Run only on file load or delete of the last as Opening balance marked
account.
Instead of automaticly creation display a dialog with the list of
current equity accounts ands ask to select or create one, which gets the
flag set.
Finally it should be documented in
https://github.com/Gnucash/gnucash-docs/blob/maint/help/C/Help_ch_Account-Actions.xml
and probably other places.

Regards
Frank

Am 08.04.21 um 14:30 schrieb D.:
> Frank, 
> 
> We should keep this on the list. 
> 
> I've read through this bug, and a related bug mentioned in the comments there, and I admit I do not understand the various points of the discussions there. 
> 
> If my experience can be explained by these changes, though, I'd like to point out that in my use case, I am neither attempting to use the New Account Hierarchy nor creating a new file. I am simply creating a new account in my existing CoA. I am adding a comment to that bug to have my problem considered in relation to it. 
> 
> David T. 
> 
> 
> -------- Original Message --------
> From: "Frank H. Ellenberger" <frank.h.ellenberger at gmail.com>
> Sent: Thu Apr 08 02:05:32 EDT 2021
> To: "David T." <sunfish62 at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [GNC] Ghost Equity Accounts
> 
> Hi David,
> 
> I suspect, it could be related to
> https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=798070 and its ancestor.
> 
> Regards
> Frank
> 
> Am 08.04.21 um 03:28 schrieb David T. via gnucash-user:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I thought I saw something about this not too long ago, but cannot put my
>> finger on the thread.
>>
>> I am using GC4.4 on Windows 10, and have been using GnuCash since 2005.
>>
>> Basically, I recently purchased shares of a new stock, and I followed my
>> usual procedure in GnuCash: I created a new asset account of type Stock
>> for the new equity under my brokerage account (Assets:Brokerage:XXX
>> Stock). While creating the account, I used the new commodity option to
>> create the entry in the security database. Having done this, I then
>> opened the register and entered the buy transaction in the usual way.
>>
>> All good to this point.
>>
>> However, now I find a new account in the Equity hierarchy for the new
>> commodity: Equity: Opening Balances - XXX
>>
>> This account is empty, so I can just delete it, BUT...
>>
>> Why is this account getting created? I didn't set up an existing
>> holding, which might ostensibly have required an opening balances
>> transaction (but which I would not have done in this way anyhow). And I
>> didn't explicitly ask for a new equity account to be created.
>>
>> Will I get Equity accounts created when I add other kinds of accounts?
>> I'll note that I also have a new Equity account for a mutual fund
>> account I added at the same time. But, what about Bank accounts?
>> Liabilities? And if not, why not?
>>
>> And why am I only seeing this NOW? As I've said, I've used GnuCash for a
>> long long time, and none of the OTHER equities I've created over the
>> years (and there have been a LOT!) have generated these spurious Equity
>> accounts. So, why now?
>>
>> Finally, Is there some way to NOT have GnuCash create these accounts
>> every time I create a new Stock or Mutual Fund Account?
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> David T.
>>
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