[GNC] Confusing and inconsistent headers in transaction entry and report forms

[Peter S. Shenkin]

Hi,

I made up the name "transaction entry" because I didn't know what to call
it. 😊 I didn't know there was such a thing as a transaction entry window.

If I had the Donations account open, I would have had the same kind of
problem.

Per Gyle's suggestion it looks like I can switch to the good old Credit /
Debit labels.

Also, the second part of my question involved the Transaction report. There
the headings at the top seem backwards. They are labeled Credit and Debit,
but where I entered a Debit, it appears in the Credit column and vice
versa.  Any comment on this?

-P.

On Mon, Aug 1, 2022 at 6:23 PM <davidcousens49 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Peter
>
> The terms Increase and Decrease in the header only apply to the account
> whose
> register you have open not to the accounts which are the target of the
> individual split(entry) of the transaction and not to the account which is
> designated in the second split. It would appear that you have the register
> for
> your checking account open and a debit entry is an Increase in that.  If
> there
> was a credit split/entry to your checking account it would appear in the
> decrease column. The second line of the transaction is the corresponding
> credit
> entry to the revenue account. This is why we accountants find the headers
> Increase/Decrease confusing.
>
> You are not making entries in a "transaction entry" window in GnuCash but
> you
> are performing the transaction entry directly into the register for that
> account
> itself.
>
> David Cousens
>
> On Mon, 2022-08-01 at 17:13 -0400, Peter S. Shenkin wrote:
> > Hi, I'm using Gnucash 4.11 on MacOS 11.6.8.
> >
> > There are two images attached, labeled Transaction entry and Transaction
> > report. They are two different views of the same transaction, to a non
> > profit that I am doing the books for.
> >
> > The transaction involves a deposit to our checking account from Wepay.
> It's
> > a donation, which we account for under Revenue:Donations, which increases
> > with a Credit, and the bank account will increase with a Debit, so this
> > should be properly balanced.
> >
> > However, from the Transaction-entry screen shot, where the column labels
> > are Increase and Decrease, I have to enter the Donation as a Decrease in
> > order to make the Donation record increase. This is bizarre, is it not?
> >
> > You can see in the same image that the checking balance goes up. so it
> > seems to be properly recorded as a debit; in addition, though not shown,
> > the sum of Donations does goes up, which seems contrary to having to
> enter
> > it as a Decrease.
> >
> > Now look at the second screenshot, the Transaction-report view for this
> > transaction. What is especially strange here is that the labels of the
> > Debit and Credit columns are exactly reversed. It says that the Checking
> > side of the transaction is a Credit and the Donation side is a Debit,
> which
> > is exactly backwards.
> >
> > Any insight, including any aspect due to my own foolishness and/or
> > inexperience, would be appreciated.
> >
> > -P.
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