Michael, I disagree. The importer shouldn't put transacting into an account that is--by definition-- write protected.
My counter example would be a write-protected file folder. An operating system that allowed a user to put data into a write-protected folder would come in for serious criticism. Temporary records should go somewhere, for sure. It's been my experience that GnuCash uses Imbalance-xxx for such transactions. Why would you ever expect to put them in write-protected accounts? David T. On Apr 29, 2023, 4:52 PM, at 4:52 PM, Michael or Penny Novack <stepbystepf...@comcast.net> wrote: >On 4/29/2023 2:39 AM, David T. via gnucash-user wrote: >> There's no hard rule either way. Some users feel strongly about not >having any transactions in placeholder accounts, though, and advocate >loudly on the list in support of it. But there's nothing in the >software preventing a placeholder account having transactions in it. >> >> That said, the importer really shouldn't put transactions into a >placeholder, since the whole point of the placeholder designation is to >prevent transactions from being put there. That sounds like a bug. > >I wouldn't go so far as to call it a bug. Do we really need a prevent >stupid mistake fence here? A hard fence? << a soft fence that can be >enabled/disabled as a user option significantly more work >> > >In the normal course of things, the logical INTENT of having a >placeholder account is that it is an account concept (sort of account) >that has a number of child accounts dividing that concept up in finer >detail. That said .... > >Consider the work flow ... you are entering transactions and in that >process find you have a number within that concept that do NOT properly > >fit any of the existing child accounts. Yes you can create accounts on >the fly BUT you might immediately see that once you have created this >new child or children, SOME of the transactions currently recorded in >one or more of the preexisting children really should be moved to one >of >these new children. > >In other words, you have work to do, and maybe in the middle of >entering >transactions not the best place to do that work. I, for one, do not >want >to ever interrupt the task of entering a stack of transactions because >THAT is a possible source of error, one that gnucash or any other >accounting app does not protect us from << getting wrong where we were >when resuming entering that stack; do one twice or miss one >> > >SO .... I like it that I could temporarily enter these transactions >into >the parent and leave the clean-up for a later time. The presence of >transactions in the parent that is logically a placeholder serves as a >reminder "you've got work to do here" << for THAT reason I would use >the >following work flow for that --- first create the new child/children, >second move any in the preexisting children that better fit here, and >only last distribute those in parent to the proper children. That way, >if this task is interrupted, the transactions remaining in the parent >serve to indicate "not done yet". And in exceptional situations maybe >you want to leave an oddball transaction there (in the parent) because > >you do not expect there to be others oddball in the same way. > >So I would prefer using gnucash with the option "allow" (transactions >in >parent intended as a placeholder) trusting my good sense from keeping >me >from ACCIDENTALLY entering a transaction there. > > >Michael D Novack > > > > >_______________________________________________ >gnucash-user mailing list >gnucash-user@gnucash.org >To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: >https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user >----- >Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. >You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
