Michael: On 2021-05-31 14:36, Michael or Penny Novack wrote:
I suspect you were not seeing the behavior you thought you were seeing.…
I see the same behaviour as David, in GnuCash 4.2. I just created a credit card transaction, and intentionally left the other Account field blank. GnuCash filled in the account: "Z Specials:Imbalance-CAD". Note: Note "Imbalance-CAD" at the root, but the imbalance account under the "Z Specials" root-level account.
I value this behaviour for the same reason that David stated: I don't want those accounts cluttering up the root of my Chart of Accounts tree.
On 2021-05-31 14:36, Michael or Penny Novack wrote:
…An account is NOT defined by its name but by its name within the context of its position in the tree (the CoA).…
That is ONE way that accounts are identified (a name within context of its position in the CoA tree). But it is not the only one. Each Account also has a unique, arbitrary identifier ("GUID"). GnuCash generates this identifier when it creates the account. Transactions link to this unique identifier, not to the name within context of the CofA tree.
Remember, you can change the name of an account, or move the account to a different parent in a different part of the CoA tree. All the transactions in that account remain with the account. That is because the accounts are linked to the account's unique identifier, not to the name and CofA context.
My model of how GnuCash operates is that it has a list of Imbalance and Orphan account unique identifiers, indexed by currency (and maybe security) codes. When GnuCash needs to use an Imbalance account in a transaction, it looks up the transaction's currency in that list. If there is an entry in that list for the currency, GnuCash retrieves the unique identifier and uses it in the transaction. If there is no entry, GnuCash creates it in the root of the CoA tree, with the name "Imbalance-XXX", creates the unique identifier, then adds that to the list, and uses it in the transaction.
My model of what David's report means is that recently, GnuCash changed its behaviour to store the account name and CoA context in that list, instead of the unique identifier.
There may be advantages to that change, but I agree with David that cluttering up the root of the CoA tree is a disadvantage.
Best regards, —Jim DeLaHunt _______________________________________________ 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.
