2020-02-10 GnuCash IRC logs
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11:33:42 <warlord> Of course after this fiasco last night, I see that: 1) there was a kernel oops -- I got email about it this monring, and 2) there is a kernel update available, so I'd like to shut down again quickly shortly to reboot into the new kernel.
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12:29:05 <warlord> Okay, reboot successful, and script re-verified to start all VMs again.
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13:55:59 <TownsendHardware> We had to update a bunch of bills because they were posted to the wrong transfer account. Now our bill-due notification shows hundreds of bills that have already been paid (we didn't touch the payments). It appears the unpost-repost process broke the link between the bill and its payment. How can we restore that link without deleting and re-creating every payment?
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13:57:14 <ArtGravity> @TownsendHardware: I have dealt with similar, although in considerably lesser quantity.
13:57:14 <gncbot> ArtGravity: Error: "TownsendHardware:" is not a valid command.
13:57:51 <TownsendHardware> How did you deal with it?
13:58:30 <ArtGravity> I was able to pull up the dialog to apply a payment, and while the balance was already at zero, I just applied that null "payment"
13:59:04 <ArtGravity> As usual YMMV, but I'd give that a shot to start
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14:09:17 <warlord> TownsendHardware, you unfortunatelty will need to re-apply all the payments to map them to the bills in the Payment dialog.
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14:21:13 <TownsendHardware> Warlard, does that mean we need to delete them all?
14:22:22 <warlord> TownsendHardware, no, just need to right-click apply-to-vendor
14:22:32 <warlord> i.e., just need to re-attach them to the bills
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14:46:39 <TownsendHardware> Warlord, where do I right click? The Process Payment window shows the payments as "pre-payment," but I can't right-click there. The "Vendor Report" lists all the bill & payment links, but they're just links, so right-clicking brings up a Windows menu.
14:48:14 <warlord> Oh, sorry, I meant from the register. But in the Process Payment window you just need to click on all the payments and all the bills.. Or perhaps one-at-a-time.
14:48:36 <warlord> I honestly don't fully know how that interface works. Maybe gjanssens can help as he did most of the current design.
14:54:53 <TownsendHardware> Warlord, it's working through the Process Payment dialog. Click on the "pre-payment" then click OK. Re-open the window and it's gone. While I have you on the phone, we're not running the latest version. After backing up my data, can I simply install the latest version on top of the old one?
14:56:31 <warlord> yes
15:01:15 <TownsendHardware> Thanks. I appreciate your help!
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17:10:48 <TownsendHardware> We've run into a problem. Our previous issue in a nutshell: We discovered that our bookkeeper had been using the wrong transfer account for bills since about week #2 of our business opening. Not seeing any other option, we unposted every bill, modified the transfer account, then reposted the bill. This had the affect of "disconnecting" the bill from the payments. (*continued*)
17:12:23 <TownsendHardware> We opened the "Process Payment" dialog and found that all the payments were now listed as "pre-payment." We selected each, then clicked the "OK" button, which caused each payment to disappear from the "Process Payment" dialog. It appears there was a consequence. Every payment is now listed in our bank register as a deposit. I wish we had the $50K+ that the account now shows. (*continued*)
17:13:56 <TownsendHardware> It's frustrating that something as simple as the transfer account required unposting every bill, which caused the disconnect with the payments, which led to what appears to be days of work pretty much deleting and re-creating every payment. Does anyone know if there's a simpler solution? As an enhancement request: unposting a bill should *never* disconnect an associated payment. I'm not convinced "posting" bills (locking out changes) even make
17:14:37 <warlord> TownsendHardware, that ended at "(locking out changes) even make:
17:14:39 <warlord> "
17:14:53 <TownsendHardware> ...even make sense.
17:15:02 <warlord> And yes, I understand it is frustrating.
17:15:52 <TownsendHardware> Do I have any option other than deleting 6 months of payments and re-entering them? Will I be forced to delete 6 months of bills with them?
17:16:04 <warlord> But you have to understand that Bills (and Invoices) exist outside the Chart of Accounts. POSTing it is what applies it by creating the actual transaction. If you unpost it, the system doesn't know WHY you unposted it. Maybe it was completely posted in error.
17:16:27 <warlord> Regardless, unposting implies deleting the transaction associated with the Bill/Invoice. So there is nothing to tie to payment to anymore.
17:17:18 <TownsendHardware> That's my point about the enhancement request. Posting a bill shouldn't lock out the transfer account assignment, only the capacity to delete a component of the bill entirely.
17:17:28 <warlord> There USED to be a feature that when you posted an INvoice or Bill, it would automatically apply any existing pre-payments. So if you unposted, edited, and re-posted immediately (without making additional changes), the payment would be re-applied.
17:17:36 <TownsendHardware> Had I simply had the ability to modify the transfer account, none of this would have happened.
17:18:01 <warlord> Which transfer account? AP? Or the Expense?
17:18:24 <warlord> Can you revert to the backup before you started unposting all your bills?
17:18:34 <TownsendHardware> The incorrect transfer account was an expense. In all cases, the correct transfer account was current assets: inventory.
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17:18:56 <TownsendHardware> We're looking into how much damage reverting to the backup will cause.
17:19:12 <warlord> Unfortunately no, what you're calling the transfer account is the Bill's Line-item account. You cannot change that without modifying the bill.
17:19:32 <warlord> And you cannot modify a bill without unposting it.
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17:20:04 <warlord> Now, assuming that auto-reapply feature still exists (I THOUGHT it did), you should be able to unopst/modify/post and have the payment re-apply.
17:20:14 <TownsendHardware> My point is that's only true because it's programmed that way. I can't think of a reason for locking out the account assignment. I can understand why you would lock out the ability to change monetary values or delete lines entirely.
17:20:49 <TownsendHardware> Unpost-modify-post did not do anything. It simply left us with a mile-long list of "pre-payment" payments.
17:20:55 <warlord> TownsendHardware, look at Edit -> Preferences -> Business
17:21:06 <TownsendHardware> What am I looking for there?
17:21:09 <warlord> There is "Process Payments on Posting", which I believe if the feature you want.
17:21:21 <TownsendHardware> Does that help me now or only in the future?
17:21:38 <warlord> It only helps you if you can revert to the backup
17:21:43 <TownsendHardware> OK.
17:21:45 <warlord> (before you started unposting)
17:22:00 <warlord> As for why it's done this way, well, it's because Bills and Invoices are not transactions.
17:22:28 <TownsendHardware> I apologize, but that's just sophistry.
17:22:32 <warlord> Bills and invoices CREATE a transaction, but you cannot modify that transaction without modifying the bill... And that's a one-way capability..
17:22:58 * warlord is taking it personally because I created the business functions.
17:23:11 <TownsendHardware> Sorry. We're looking at a lot of lost time.
17:23:42 <warlord> And I'm sorry you wasted lots of time.. You should have tried it with one and stopped there when you had trouble.
17:24:15 <TownsendHardware> If the software is so untrustworthy that we must stop with every action to be sure it didn't cause trouble somewhere else....
17:25:35 <warlord> I am fairly sure that this is the documented behavior, that payments get disconnected during unposting.
17:25:49 <warlord> (although I'd have to search to verify that that's the case)
17:26:09 <warlord> But yes, we ALWAYS suggest that you start with small operations and verify results before running large processes.
17:26:15 <warlord> We say that with importing, too.
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17:26:58 <warlord> Again, I am sorry you spent a lot of time on this only to get to this point.
17:32:52 <warlord> And I note that it's not a question of trust in the software. The software is doing exactly what you're telling it to do. It's more a question of are you SURE that that's what you want it to do. This is also why we have backups!
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17:44:55 <TownsendHardware> That's just another way of saying I can't trust the software. We've encountered a user model the designers didn't (and likely couldn't without tremendous QA) account for. My sincere hope is in the future something be done about it - even if what's done is a popup at the unposting moment that says, "you're uposting something that has a payment attached. This will delete that association. You will need to do something about that."
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17:45:47 <TownsendHardware> And I don't mean to be mean, but the software is doing what you told it to do. Not me. All I wanted to do was change that account. We used to use Peachtree Accounting. It never had problems with this (but had problems in other ways that make it worse even after today's heartache).
17:53:42 <chris> wouldn't it be safer to do things in series rather than parallel? 10 unpost bill, 20 fix, 30 post bill, 40 reapply payment. 50 goto 10.
17:54:23 <chris> a warning may be useful - file an RFE
18:02:01 <warlord> chris, this implies one knows to do step 40
18:03:44 <warlord> TownsendHardware, for what it's worth, when I programmed it originally, it did auto-reapply payments. That was changed down the road by another developer.
18:05:37 <TownsendHardware> I apologize for being sore. I keep chanting to myself, "it's free and I'm grateful for people willing to share." I am grateful. It's been rare to encounter issues and the group's been willing to help us get through them. This one was just... bigger than hoped for.
18:08:13 <warlord> And I keep repeating, too, I am very sorry this functionality flow bit you so hard.
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20:01:41 <ArtGravity> Is there a way to get a trial balance to not consider transactions before a specific date?
20:02:42 <ArtGravity> I'm trying to sort out some conversion balances using the trial balance report, and instead of it showing the total of an expense for a particular accounting period, it show me the running total for all time.
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20:05:47 <ArtGravity> Maybe Trial Balance is not suite to my objective
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