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

davidcousens49 at gmail.com davidcousens49 at gmail.com
Mon Aug 1 22:51:24 EDT 2022


Peter 
I do agree the Debit and Credit column headers appear to be reversed on the
Transaction Report in your original post . I have just run a Transaction report
 (GC 4.11) on one of my bank accounts and it reports my income (payments into
the account)  correctly as debits and expenses (payments from the account) as
credits. I thought it could possibly be related to the use of the non-accounting 
labels which I tend to use rather than the informal headers. I have just changed
to the informal headers in my preferences and rerun the transaction report and
the column headers are still correct so that does not appear to be the problem.
Did that transaction come out with debits and credits correctly in the account
register  when you selected the formal accounting labels preference?
David Cousens

On Mon, 2022-08-01 at 19:35 -0400, Peter S. Shenkin wrote:
> 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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