GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 631789
"Assets" in summary bar does not match assets displayed
Last modified: 2018-06-29 22:45:40 UTC
In the summary bar, the amount displayed for "assets" does not match the amount displayed in the account view. This has happened to me twice, for two different reasons: 1. I accidentally entered a transaction for a few years in the future. The accounts dutifully summed it up anyway, but the summary bar did not. 2. After fixing that, I entered some liabilities. The Assets accounts correctly display assets, and the liabilities accounts correctly display liabalities, but the summary for "Assets" displays Assets - Liabilities. In regards to 2, this may perhaps be the intended behavior, however the labelling is inconsistent. If it's displaying net worth, it should say "Net Worth" instead of "Assets", because those things are different. In general, there seems to be inconsistency between the summary bar labelling and account structure labelling, which isn't good. While on the subject, the labelling of the summary bar isn't very clear. "$,Grand Total" is clear enough, but "$:" isn't. Maybe if I had other currencies it would've been clear to me without a calculator that that means cash assets only, but I don't.
Thank you for your report. Regarding your first issue: although not intuitive, this is also intended behaviour. The summary bar makes a summary for your current accounting period. If your transaction in the future fell outside whatever is currently defined as your accounting period, the summary bar will ignore it. I can't comment on your second point as I don't know enough about these things. I do agree with your final comment though. It may be better to have a more elaborate label also.
Regarding point #2, I can state fairly confidently that the definition I gave is correct (quick source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_worth). I see what you mean about the summary bar issue, though.
This topic has recently also been discussed on the GnuCash devel mailing list. See the lower part of this list thread: https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-devel/2010-October/029786.html and a later reply in this message: https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-devel/2010-October/029820.html Apparently the more exact term should be "Net Assets", not "Net Worth".
Just to clarify, from the code, this is how the current "Assets" and "Profits" are calculated in the code: * "Assets" is the sum of all accounts of types Bank, Cash, Asset, Stock, Mutual Fund, Credit Card, Liability, A/Payable and A/Receivable, obviously taking the proper sign into account. So this is obviously more than only "Assets". * "Profits" is the sum of all Income and Expense accounts. Trading accounts and equity accounts are not counted at all. There is a note in the code that wonders if trading accounts should be treated as Income/Expense and hence be used in the Profits calculation. By the way, if "Net Assets" is the proper term, then this bug can only be fixed after the string freeze. Setting this term to "Net Assets" would introduce a new string.
Commenting on the reference in comment #2: This is a case of a well-intentioned effort ending up misleading the reader. There are a number of inaccuracies or misleading uses in that statement. In my opinion it needs to be updated. Note that the article has no references to authorities. Any rework should be based on and include such references. The present article suggests to me that the writer was influenced by popular usage which at times is accurate and at other times misses some less obvious but important differences. Hopefully, the rewrite will not be long in coming.
I have edited the wiki page referenced in comment 2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_worth). After doing the research to write that page, I have to say there is no monetary difference between using Net Assets or Net Worth. Given the GnuCash code calculation described earlier in these comments, the Net Assets designation more closely reflects that calculation. But Net Worth would not be substantially wrong or inaccurate. Perhaps the description on the summary line should be "Net Assets/Net Worth", which should satisfy both mind sets (see wiki page).
I do think "Net Assets" would be a much better term than "Assets" in the summary bar. It is much more descriptive, and "Assets" is used elsewhere (in the set of assets accounts which is just labelled "Assets") to mean just assets, without subtracting liabilities. By themselves each of these meanings is defensible, however they are inconsistent. I wasn't aware of the distinction between "Net Assets" and "Net Worth", I am also not an expert. I don't care too much whether it's "Net Assets" or "Net Worth", if I had seen either in the summary bar I wouldn't have been confused. "Net Assets/Net Worth" seems like too many words, I don't think anybody will get confused as long as "net" is in the name and the label is not the same as a label used somewhere else to mean something different.
I tend to agree with enginerd22@gmail.com that "Net Assets/Net Worth" is too long. Other than that, I have not preference from an accounting point of view. Purely practically speaking, if "Net Worth" is chosen, I can still implement it for 2.4. "Net Worth" is an existing string, so I wouldn't break string freeze by reusing this string in the summary bar. "Net Assets" on the other hand is a new string and can only be added after 2.4 has been released. So if you agree and since "Net Worth" is not wrong (according to comment 6), I propose to use that one.
(In reply to comment #8) > I tend to agree with enginerd22@gmail.com that "Net Assets/Net Worth" is too > long. > > Other than that, I have not preference from an accounting point of view. > > Purely practically speaking, if "Net Worth" is chosen, I can still implement it > for 2.4. "Net Worth" is an existing string, so I wouldn't break string freeze > by reusing this string in the summary bar. > > "Net Assets" on the other hand is a new string and can only be added after 2.4 > has been released. > > So if you agree and since "Net Worth" is not wrong (according to comment 6), I > propose to use that one. I prefer Net Assets simply because that directly reflects the calculation of the number. But I won't oppose Net Worth, especially for the reasons you note above.
Fixed in r20171. Thank you for your report.
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