[GNC] Budget Report Liability "Act" VS Liability Report "Delta"

[Charles Crossan]

I believe I found the answer to this.

The Budget report (and the Transaction Report) are showing the "expected"
values for changes to liability account balances - how much debt I actually
paid off this month.

The Net Worth Report (and Liabilities Over Time Report) also show "arguably
correct" values for changes to liability account balances - How much debt I
added this month; ignoring any payments I made on the first day of the
month.

The discrepancy arises when transactions occur on the reporting boundary
days.  For instance, If I apply a $2,000 payment to a credit card on the
first of the month, and then spend $500 on that card throughout the month,
the Budget Report (and the Transaction Report) will show that a decrease of
that credit card account by $2,000; however, the Net Worth (and Liabilities
Over Time) report will show a Liability increase of $500.

It would seem that the Time-series reports use the balance of the accounts
at the "end of the day" for the reporting period boundaries(i.e. including
transactions from the beginning boundary day); whereas the
transaction-tracking reports use actual ingress and egress values from
transactions against the account during the reporting periods.

Is there a way to adjust the behavior of Time-Series reports so that they
choose the balance from before the first transaction of the reporting
period (and after the last transaction of the end of the reporting period)?

On Sun, Nov 28, 2021 at 8:47 PM Charles Crossan <crossan007 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hello!
>
> I've been using GNUCash (gratefully, and happily) for 10 years, and this
> is my first time reaching out to the mailing list.
>
> I recently noticed that the "Budget Report" for the current period shows a
> different "Act" value for "changes in Liabilities" than the
> manually-calculated liability delta from the "Net Worth Report" or the
> "Liability report" (using the same set of accounts) for the same one-month
> period.
>
> For instance, budget report "act" says "Liabilities Decreased by $1500",
> but the liabilities report says " Liabilities  increased by $3500"
>
> I feel like my comprehension of accounting is betraying me.  How is this
> possible?  Has anyone else seen something like this before?
>
> --
> Thanks,
>
>
> Charles Crossan
> @crossan007 <https://twitter.com/crossan007>
> 215-804-9851
> https://www.ccrossan.com
>
>

-- 
Thanks,


Charles Crossan
@crossan007 <https://twitter.com/crossan007>
215-804-9851
https://www.ccrossan.com