Thanks for your perspective on that example, Christopher. I remind everyone my "top view" message is written at a high-level with high-level generalized concepts. The examples are not written as real-world workflows that apply any specific country's financial laws or accounting regulations.
Christopher, your implicit inquiries are valid. You are somewhat investigating the attributes/methods of a statement of facts and of a shared truth. These are very valid inquires...though lower level than the conversation I'm encouraging at this time. I don't want to shut down discussion, so I'll dive down into some details on two of your implicit inquiries for a moment. 1. Can a statement of facts be invalidated? Yes. And this highlights the concept of "fact". A true fact is something known in a specific moment now or in the past. Time moves forward and, at a different moment in time, a fact can be different. Therefore a statement of facts can be correct today and incorrect tomorrow. Real world: In the USA, the IRS can independently investigate and recalculate taxes and issue a statement of facts to a taxpayer. Conversely, a taxpayer can recalculate their taxes with form 1040X and issue an updated statement of facts to the IRS. The process that happens next is an abbreviated or highly detailed reconciliation process. I had a level 2 audit by the IRS many years ago. The auditor and I sat in a dimly lit room for two days doing a reconciliation process. The IRS compared transactions, receipts, sums, and statements of facts. In the end, we disagreed on $3.12 which was de minimis...the reconciliation was successful. Another example, US Bank reissued bank statements to me due to "clerical" and "computer" errors. USAA Bank has done similar. In Germany, German FinAmt (German tax authority) has a Bescheid process where each side repeatedly invalidates old statements of facts and issues new ones. And Deutsche Bank has reissued a monthly statement to me -- the individual transactions were the same, but they instead reissued a month as two separate statements of 7 days then 23 days -- each with their own "final balance". Creating a shared truth based on statements of facts is also between two people. It is not always one person + one financial entity. For example, it could be me with GnuCash + independent auditor. During an audit, errors are made/found on both the auditor and auditee until finally both sides create a shared truth together. No fraud during the reissue(s) of statements of facts. Instead, it is the healthy working of a reconciliation process to surface these errors. Or like Derek's example, it could be between Derek and his employer's expense department. 2. Can shared truths be altered? You inquiry also hints at something I also hint at in my pseudocode. My instinct tells me that shared truths can *not* be altered. Instead they are timestamped, signed, and sealed. So if a statement of facts is reissued...which proves a past shared truth to be false...then a new shared truth must be created. The old shared truth continues to exist but is now false/invalid. This idea of shared truths transitioning from true to false is evident throughout human history. For example, in the past it was a shared truth that the world was flat. We had facts that established it. However, one day the ancient greeks experimented and proved the earth was round. And it took many hundreds of years for human civilization's shared truth to change from "flat" to "round". The old shared truth of flat doesn't disappear. Instead, it is now known to be false/invalid and is archived in our history books. It is superseded with a new shared truth of "round". --Dale On Thu, Apr 16, 2020 at 3:48 AM Christopher Lam <christopher....@gmail.com> wrote: > > > On Thu, 16 Apr 2020, 2:57 am Dale Phurrough via gnucash-devel, < > gnucash-devel@gnucash.org> wrote: > >> Accounting example: >> On 1 April 2020 the bank and I believe it is the truth that my bank >> account >> contains $1000. Two days later, I discovered that an additional deposit of >> $500 should have been posted to my account. The bank found their error, >> reissued a statement, and I updated my ledger. Now the bank and I agree >> the truth is my bank account contained $1500 on 1 April 2020. >> > > I do not think a bank is ever allowed to amend a statement like this. It's > financial fraud. At most, they may issue a new transaction on the day of > the correction, and offer an adjustment for fees, interest etc also dated > on the day of the correction. > > > >> _______________________________________________ gnucash-devel mailing list gnucash-devel@gnucash.org https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
