[GNC] New Imbalance-XXX Behavior

[Michael or Penny Novack]

On 5/31/2021 1:08 PM, David T. via gnucash-user wrote:


> Please re-read my email. In it you will see that I am NOT/NOT asking 
> about how to handle entries that are automatically added to 
> Imbalance-USD. I am fully aware of Gnucash behaviors in regard to the 
> creation of entries into Imbalance-USD, and I have a long-established 
> workflow in place for handling such created entries.
>
>
> What I was noting is a CHANGE IN BEHAVIOR from earlier versions of 
> Gnucash. In earlier versions, entries to Imbalance-USD would be added 
> to the EXISTING Imbalance-USD account, regardless of its placement in 
> the Chart of Accounts. In my books, I moved Imbalance-USD to be a 
> child account of a new Top Level account that I created called 
> "Special Accounts." 


David, for a very good reason, I suspect you were not seeing the 
behavior you thought you were seeing. An account is NOT defined by its 
name but by its name within the context of its position in the tree (the 
CoA). Does you CoA not have ANY account names that are duplicated except 
for their position in the tree? For example, suppose among your expenses 
you were tracking the costs associated with automobiles, with one of 
these being fuel.

Expenses

     Automobile expenses

            Auto 1

                   fuel

            Auto 2

                   fuel

Now those two accounts for fuel have the same name but they are NOT the 
same account. You would not expect to simply specify "fuel" as the 
account affected by a transaction but also which one you meant.

But you are saying you had this working for the name "Imbalance". That 
you moved this to a different place in the tree but gnucash still 
treated it as the same account as the normal (special account) Imbalance.

Michael D Novack