[GNC] The meaning of Running Balance in Transaction Report: bug or enhancement request?

[Adrien Monteleone]

Perhaps a clarification as you mentioned would be best and easiest for now.

I'd dare ask, if you're sorting primarily by date, with multiple 
accounts selected, what do you want the running balance to be? Just 
those accounts? (is that even useful?) Or the entire Book?

Any of those could get quite messy in code, and may even be less clear 
when chosen as an option.

Personally, I don't use the option at all, but if I did, I wouldn't 
expect anything other than by-account to work or make sense.

Regards,
Adrien

On 10/26/22 2:42 PM, Vincent Dawans wrote:
> Hello. Seeking some feedback on this particular question.
> 
> The transaction report has a "Running Balance" option in the display
> settings. Also by default the transaction report sorts and groups
> transactions by account. In that context, the "Running Balance" option
> shows the running balance within each underlying account, even adding a
> first line showing the starting balance preceding whatever date period is
> selected. So that works quite well. See attached screenshot TR sorted by
> account.png for an example.
> 
> However, the transaction report can be sorted other ways under the general
> settings. Another way is to use the date as the primary sort in which case
> it will sort all transactions by date regardless of account, so mixing all
> the accounts, as in a ledger. This can be useful for some other purposes.
> However in that context the running balance information for each
> transaction remains the same as in the previous report. It's the running
> balance of that transaction in the underlying account (not the report
> itself). See attached screenshot TR sorted by date.png for an example.
> Compare the running balance numbers with the previous report: they are the
> same for each transaction but they don't function as a running balance of
> transactions as displayed in the report itself.
> 
> There is a bug about this listed in
> https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=765920 but oddly enough it's
> really old (version 2.6) with very little activity and no recent one
> (except for a comment I posted). Possibly because this is not really a bug
> but simply a confusion in the term "running balance"?
> 
> So I am trying to figure out what is the best way to report this since that
> big report is definitely not going anywhere. Possibly a first quick fix
> would be to clarify what "running balance" means right now? So I am
> thinking about creating a bug report just about adding some text next to
> the option explaining that it is the running balance for the underlying
> account, not the report itself, and the option should probably not be used
> unless the report is sorted by account. That would be a quick fix and at
> least would remove the confusion.
> 
> Then I would open an enhancement request for something that doesn't seem to
> exist right now: A running balance for the report itself, useful when
> mixing several accounts with all transactions sorted by date (in as my
> second example).
> 
> Does that make sense or am I missing something and that second feature
> actually already exists but I am not seeing it?