On Wed, 2022-08-03 at 20:28 -0400, Peter S. Shenkin wrote:
> Adrian,
>
> I do have full account names turned on. I forget where I did that. I have
> no customized sort that affects the order of accounts within a transaction
> in either register view nor in the transaction report. (I prefer to sort
> the transactions by date in the transaction report, but that's just me.)
>
> You point out correctly that in the register view, where transactions are
> entered, each line of the transaction (which is shown completely in my
> screen shot) shows the debit first (on the left) and credit second, as is
> customary. I had the labeling of the columns set to the out-of-the-box
> defaults of Increase and Decrease, respectively. This is highly misleading,
> because in fact both of these accounts increase as the result of the
> transaction. I later changed the labels to Debit and Credit, an available
> option, which is less misleading, but other than the labels, the
> transaction looks exactly the same in both the account register and the
> transaction report. That is, the Credit and Debit labels are still reversed
> in the transaction log.
Peter,
This seems to be counter to everyone else's experience with GnuCash and
definitely is not what occurs in the transaction report in GnuCash 4.11 on Linux
Mint 20.3. I suspect if it was occurring specifically on either a MacOSX or
Windows systems we would have a large number of experienced users (and some of
us are accountants and pretty pedantic about such aspects) complaining pretty
loudly. So we need to work out why your experience is completely opposite to
everyone else's or whether it is just a misinterpretation of what is being
displayed in the transaction report. In the transaction Report options there is
an option in the Display tab to display one transaction per line or one split
per line. Using the second option one split per line, both debit and credit
entries for the transaction will be displayed but entries not to the accounts
selected in the transaction report will be in the second(and subsequent lines
for transactions with more than two splits) and the different selected account
entries will be listed in sections with the account name at the head. The
transaction report is possibly the most general of the reports and is highly
customizable from the report options
>
> You seemed to express uncertainty about the account register. The way I
> enter transactions is to pick an account (for instance, by clicking on it
> in a balance sheet). That opens the register tab, set to that account. If I
> am remembering correctly, it will always list that account on the first
> line of the transaction, then you can add your currency total in either the
> Debit or the Credit column for that account. For the balancing account or
> accounts (in the case of a split), you similarly enter the currency total
> for each account on a succeeding line, in either the debit or the credit
> column, and select the account from a pulldown you can invoke from that
> line.
While this works, A balance sheet, depending on the report options may not show
all the accounts in your chart of accounts so it is limiting in which accounts
you can choose to open. How you open the register tab for an account does not
affect the order of display of the lines as it invokes the same routine to open
the register. Double clicking on the icon for the account (looks a bit like the
front of a colonial bank) in the Accounts tab will give you access to all non-
hidden accounts (hidden accounts can be found with the Edit->Find Account
dialogue).
>
> There is no specified order in the register view for the accounts involved
> in a transaction; the account you selected to open the tab will always be
> listed on the first line nd the succeeding lines will appear in the order
> in which you entered them.
This is not necessarily the case. If you open an existing transaction in an
asset register in either Auto-split or Transaction Journal mode if it is a
credit transaction to the asset register (eg a bank account), the entry to the
account for the register which is open will appear on the last line not the
first. On the other hand if it is a transaction which debits an open asset
account register it will appear first. I.e. the debit components of the
transaction is listed in the lines before the credit components in all cases.
When you are entering a new transaction, if you do not specifically select an
account in the Account column where "Account "is displayed in Italics in the
first split entry, GnuCash will assume that it is the account of the register
that is open (but you can explicitly select another account for the first line,
in which case you have to explicitly select the account associate with the
currently open register in another line of the transaction to complete the
transaction. If you leave a subsequent line blank and press enter the
transaction will not be saved in the register.
You can al
