> Message: 1 > Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2017 09:17:57 +0500 > From: "David T." <sunfis...@yahoo.com> > To: GnuCash Developers <gnucash-devel@gnucash.org> > Subject: Issues with Placeholder Accounts > Message-ID: <875e65ef-1a79-4c3a-adeb-8bdce8ca3...@yahoo.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 > > Hello, > > I will preface this email with a reminder that I am not a developer, and > apologize ahead of time if my understanding of GnuCash functionality is > flawed. That said... > > In the course of trying to corral a problem with Unrealized Gains reporting, I > have been dealing with accounts that have had the Placeholder flag set. As > folks here are no doubt aware, this flag sets the account to read-only status, > and indeed, when I open one of these accounts, I am informed of that fact in > a dialog box. > > However, there are numerous situations in which GnuCash does not respect > this. For example: it is possible to create multiple transactions in a > Commodity type account by using the lots feature and scrubbing the > account. Similarly, one can edit the split in a placeholder account by accessing > the transaction from the far account, which is not set to placeholder. I don?t > know whether there are other such exceptional circumstances. > > Both of these undermine the concept of a placeholder account, and raise > some interesting thoughts for me. > > First, I think the lots feature needs to take this flag into account; it is quite > easy to scrub an account and generate numerous gains transactions in a > placeholder account, which might cause major problems for an unsuspecting > user. > > Second, I wonder where the placeholder flag is evaluated; it appears to be at > the register or perhaps transaction level, but really, it should be evaluated at > the split. Changing this is, I am sure, likely to be a painful fix, but I think it > ultimately would yield a more consistent result. Evaluating at the split would > prevent my second scenario from going through. > > Third, I wonder if this ?Placeholder for people but not processes? concept > might not be leveraged to address the fragility of A/R and A/P business > features. That is, have these accounts sets to Placeholder so that users do > not edit these transactions directly (something that Derek notes he has been > repeating on the lists for ten years), but use processes to modify the data > entered into these accounts. Please be aware that I am not a business user, > so I only am going on third party information on this. If this is in fact how it is > set up, or if the idea is fundamentally dumb, I apologize. > > David >
Hi David, The Help manual says: A Placeholder means this account is not used for transaction data. Transactions may not be posted to this account, only to sub-accounts of this account not marked themselves as Placeholder. My feelings are... Maybe the manual should be changed to say you cannot add *additional* transactions via the register (or import?). I assume since you have a placeholder stock account with transactions, that the UI doesn't check if there are existing transactions before allowing it to be changed to a placeholder account. I think that is useful functionality that should remain. If a placeholder stock account already has transactions, then presumably you have made it a placeholder to stop yourself adding new transactions. Adding capital gain transactions via scrubbing is really just properly completing the sale transaction, so I don't see a need for a change there. Regards, Chris Good
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