[GNC] automatically account for gst on random purchases

[Michael or Penny Novack]

On 6/18/2023 9:14 AM, Brad Morrison wrote:
> Thanks flywire!
>
> That GitHub Pull Request link takes me to a comment from John Ralls 
> that very succinctly summarizes the difficulties of using GnuCash for 
> larger or more complex enterprises.
>
> The rest of that comment is: "Adding those modules is a non-starter: 
> Consider that it's been 10 years since we began working on separating 
> libgnucash from the application, converting from GObject to C++, and 
> changing from a program that can load its data from a SQL database and 
> put it back to one that is built around SQL queries. We haven't gotten 
> very far. 

There are many parts (component) to a full accounting SYSTEM and which 
of them needed depending on the sort of enterprise. ONE of those 
components would be the one that usually goes by the name "general 
ledger". THAT is what gnucash is, all that it is. A full SYSTEM  might 
include components doing "point of sales" (POS) , handling inventory, 
handling payroll and keeping HR records, etc. In a small, not very 
automated system, these might just produce reports of transactions to be 
manually entered into general ledger. In larger systems, would be 
automated, with these systems creating FILES of transactions to get 
imported.

Look -- if you are a small enterprise in the sense of number of 
transactions, gnucash alone might work for you.

But if you are a large enterprise in the sense of number of 
transactions, employees, quantity and variety of good sold, multiple 
locations, etc. then you will want components to handle inventory, POS, 
payroll, billable hours, etc,  Notice that thinking of these other 
components as PART of general ledger is the wrong way to think. They are 
doing other things as well, "talking" to each other and other 
departments as well as general ledger. Thus POS might send a "sales" 
transaction to general ledger and send a "widget transaction" to 
inventory. Inventory would then send a "cost of goods sold" transaction 
to general ledger but also check the number of remaining widgets against 
the "reorder number" and maybe send something to "ordering" to tell that 
department to order more widgets, etc.

Michael D Novack