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Bug 635003 - Restructure business GUI
Restructure business GUI
Status: RESOLVED OBSOLETE
Product: GnuCash
Classification: Other
Component: User Interface General
git-master
Other Linux
: Normal enhancement
: ---
Assigned To: David Hampton
Chris Shoemaker
: 507117 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2010-11-16 17:44 UTC by Geert Janssens
Modified: 2018-06-29 22:47 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---



Description Geert Janssens 2010-11-16 17:44:05 UTC
My main itch with the business features is that they seem to be bolted on instead of well integrated. This can be improved with two changes:

1. Give each business object an overview tab, just like the accounts have an overview tab. So this would introduce an overview page for customers, for vendors and for employees. I'm not sure yet if it would make sense to add this for invoices, bills and vouchers. Perhaps it does if it is combined with an owner filter. This overview page would be the place to add/modify/delete each object, just like it is now for accounts.


2. Provide the menu options relevant for each business object (new/find so far, but can be extended with edit and perhaps delete) only when the relevant object's tab is active, perhaps even in an object specific menu. This is an extension of the proposal in bug 634456.
Comment 1 Christian Stimming 2010-12-31 11:42:25 UTC
*** Bug 507117 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 2 Geert Janssens 2010-12-31 13:13:29 UTC
(In reply to comment #2 on bug 507117)
> or by giving a roll-down list of all the customers we have added in Business>
> Customers> New Customers. and also when we start typing the name of the
> customer their the list should auto search. just as in Google Search. the
> relevant result starts to show in the drop-down list as we start typing

It may please you to know that I did implement the auto search with drop-down list for GnuCash 2.4.0. So that requirement can already be marked as done.
Comment 3 Geert Janssens 2010-12-31 13:24:25 UTC
(In reply to comment #1 on bug 507117)
> There are far too many times dates have to be entered for one invoice which is
> plainly annoying.
> 
> In the New Invoice dialog there is a "Date Opened" field. What on earth is
> this? No one cares when you open an invoice. It should be "Invoice Date"
> 
I can agree on renaming this. It does seem to make sense to me as well.

> Bill tab: Even more dates. I could understand the invoice is an itemised list
> but it should autofill to the invoice date.
> 
This has been improved for GnuCash 2.4.0 already. Lines in Invoices and Bills are created with the Invoice Date ("Date Opened") now by default.

There is a valid use case though for having other dates. Suppose you run a service based company. It makes sense that you then create invoices for your customer where you have a line for each day you worked for your customer, containing the date and the hours worked that day.

So it is good to be able to change the dates. I did agree with you on the default date though, which is why I changed this for 2.4.0. 

> Post Invoice: "Date posted": This is definitely not required as the Post Date
> should be internally recorded. The date in GL should always be the Invoice
> Date.

In 2.4.0, the post date is by default the Invoice date, so again, you don't have to change it anymore in most cases.

But the post date is not necessarily the invoice date. I personally encounter the situation regularly where a vendor's bill is dated in a previous quarter, but should be accounted for in the current quarter. This is only possible if the post date can be changed independently from the bill date. The latter is what appears on the bill and should match for legal compliance, the former defines in which quarter the bill will be accounted for.

With the new defaults for the dates, I think your suggestions should be covered.

What remains is bug 507117's original poster's an improved interface that facilitates repeated invoice entry.
Comment 4 Geert Janssens 2011-05-12 10:25:27 UTC
I note that bug 593897 is related to my first point: creating overview pages for each business object.
Comment 5 John Ralls 2018-06-29 22:47:28 UTC
GnuCash bug tracking has moved to a new Bugzilla host. The new URL for this bug is https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=635003. Please continue processing the bug there and please update any external references or bookmarks.