> On Jun 30, 2018, at 12:00 PM, Christian Kluge <frakturfr...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Am 30.06.2018 um 05:37 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. > > I hope this will never happen because the American way of doing it > destroys the fundamental aesthetic of the balance sheet, that there two > numerically identical sides which have just one top label each. > >> 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.) > > To summarize which sections each company type has to use: > > micro-entities: capital letters > small sized: capital letters + Roman numerals > medium sized and large: capital letters + Roman numerals + numbers
Thanks. So it's just that larger companies have to report more detail? Regards, John Ralls _______________________________________________ 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.