Am Samstag, 30. Juni 2018, 05:37:28 CEST schrieb John Ralls: > > On Jun 29, 2018, at 3:26 PM, Christian Kluge <frakturfr...@gmail.com> > > wrote: > > > > Hi, > > > > Am 29.06.2018 um 19:26 schrieb John Ralls: > >>> On Jun 29, 2018, at 9:52 AM, Geert Janssens <geert.gnuc...@kobaltwit.be> > >>> wrote:>>> > >>> Op vrijdag 29 juni 2018 16:59:07 CEST schreef John Ralls: > >>>> Stock accounts need to have a parent denominated the currency in which > >>>> the > >>>> stock trades in order for the asset roll-up to work correctly on the > >>>> Accounts page. Three-commodity transactions are possible using trading > >>>> accounts, but I haven’t dealt with that stuff in a while and the > >>>> details > >>>> have gone fuzzy on me. > >>>> > >>>> Stock accounts aside, let’s not conflate different purposes. We > >>>> *should* > >>>> have an account type to accommodate the European Passive account with > >>>> Liability and Equity children, so let’s create that. We’ll need to > >>>> tweak > >>>> some of the reports a bit to accommodate it, but otherwise it won’t > >>>> have > >>>> much impact. It should, of course, be what we now call a placeholder > >>>> and it > >>>> should be able to have only Root as a parent and only one each > >>>> Liability > >>>> and Equity placeholder children. > >>> > >>> I was in fact deliberately trying to come up with a solution that's more > >>> flexible than fitting the currently known use cases. The European > >>> Passive > >>> account was just one example. > >>> > >>> However we may be spending more time on it than necessary. I checked in > >>> the > >>> current version of the commercial accounting package* I also have to > >>> deal with and it doesn't define a Passive type at all. "Passive" it > >>> doesn't even appear on its default balance sheet. That is a bit > >>> uncommon though as the reports I get from my accountant do have a > >>> passive section. However just like gnucash this package is targeting a > >>> worldwide audience (though with country specific extensions). That may > >>> explain why they didn't bother adding the Passive section. > >>> > >>> Let me add that contrary to other accounting packages I have played with > >>> in > >>> gnucash the chart of accounts takes a very central place. So whether or > >>> not we want our own Passive type to group liabilities and equity > >>> hierarchically on the chart of accounts as well is up for debate. > >>> > >>>> I don’t think that creating a generic placeholder type account that can > >>>> have children of any type is a good idea, > >>> > >>> Here's another example: a household that wants to track its finances, > >>> but > >>> would want to keep separate account hierarchies per family member. > >>> Standard > >>> response: create two files. However they would benefit from common > >>> reporting which is cumbersome with two separate files. So what if we > >>> would allow to create two independent account hierarchies in one file. > >>> With a view type account one could create two top-levels ("Husband" and > >>> "Wife") and create a independent hierarchy for each. While this could > >>> also be solved if we would allow multiple root accounts and make that > >>> root visible I'm using it here to illustrate there are use cases we are > >>> not covering well. > >>> > >>> I borrowed the idea of a view type account from an old version of the > >>> commercial package* we have to use. Looking more closely it turns out > >>> the > >>> current version has dropped view accounts and instead is organizing > >>> charts/ > >>> reports using a combination of account type (roughly like we do) and > >>> hierarchical account numbers. So I must admit perhaps the idea was not > >>> so > >>> bright after all :) > >>> > >>> The package also doesn't have a hierarchical account tree. It's flat and > >>> hierarchy is only added in reports as explained above. So there is no > >>> such > >>> thing as a parent account in that package and hence no restriction on > >>> which > >>> account type a certain account can be. > >>> > >>> Again in gnucash the chart of accounts is very central and visible so we > >>> probably shouldn't drop its hierarchical structure just yet. > >>> > >>> The downside of this hierarchical structure is then of course we have to > >>> think about issues like whether or not we should allow accounts to > >>> have any type of child or not. I believe parts of gnucash rely on this > >>> (I seem to remember a relatively recent issue in the export code that > >>> it didn't find all liability accounts if they had a non-liability > >>> parent or such). > >>> > >>>> and I think that we already have too > >>>> many overlapping account types with subtle behavior differences that > >>>> are > >>>> neither documented nor easily discoverable in code. > >>> > >>> I'm all for clearing this up. If we can reduce the number of account > >>> types > >>> that would be great. > >>> For reference this is the list of 17 account types supported by the > >>> commercial package*: > >>> Receivable, payable, bank and cash (one type), current assets, > >>> non-current > >>> assets, prepayments, fixed assets, current liabilities, non-current- > >>> liabilities, equity, current year earnings, other income, income, > >>> depreciation, expenses, cost of revenue, credit card. > >>> > >>> Gnucash currently has 15 of which a few are internal only: > >>> Bank, cash, credit, asset, liability, stock, mutual, currency, income, > >>> expense, equity, receivable, payable, root and trading. > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> The leftovers from this long discussion for immediate use may be > >>> summarized > >>> as: > >>> - on reports display placeholder accounts once as aggregate account and > >>> once as its own account if it has splits. > >>> - work to be more pedantic about the meaning of "placeholder". It should > >>> become an empty account used for structuring the account hierarchy and > >>> for > >>> collecting (sub)totals. > >>> - introduce a read-only status for accounts one doesn't want to > >>> accidentally modify, but that should still appear in the chart of > >>> accounts in various places > >>> - replace "hidden" combined with current "placeholder" with "inactive". > >>> - consider introducing a passive account type to be able to structure > >>> the > >>> chart of accounts and reports conform European habits. > >>> - think of ways to have more than one chart of account in one file (only > >>> mentioned first in this message). > >> > >> There’s been an effort over the last several years between the IASB and > >> the US’s FASB to reconcile IAS and US GAAP for the obvious reason that > >> it’s a royal PITA for international businesses to have to present their > >> books in different ways to different regulators. I discovered when > >> looking for an IAS example CoA earlier today that it’s apparently come > >> to fruition as IFRS and that the standard CoA doesn’t have a “Passive” > >> super-category [1], so perhaps the rest of the world is catching up with > >> GnuCash. ;-)> > > Not the whole world. Section 266 of the German HGB requires the balance > > sheet to split in active and passive and that’s how it’s displayed in > > every German accounting software. > > > > https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/hgb/__266.html > > <https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/hgb/__266.html> > > > > Also while you add it think about new account structures and the > > placeholder concept could you also consider the equivalents of the other > > types mentioned in the document above. > > No surprise that individual country’s legislation hasn’t caught up. That > will likely take several more years.
No, it is already there. It is hidden behind the EU directives in the liberating §§ 291f: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/hgb/__291.html So IFRS is primary only applicable for share corps. > I don’t see any account types there other than the Active/Passive sections > that GnuCash doesn’t already support. What I can’t figure out is what parts > of the CoA small companies are allowed to leave out. (And no, my German > isn’t good enough to thoroughly read the document. I used Google translate > and so I may have gotten some of it wrong.) > > Regards, > John Ralls Regards Frank _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.