Sign errors in Transaction report with Include Sub-Accounts
In MD2011(791), the Transaction report option "Include Sub-Accounts" seems to get confused about which way transactions are going. Transactions in the parent account (or category) get the opposite sign as the same transactions in a child account (or category). This results in strange-looking reports and meaningless totals.
You can show this in two ways: nested accounts, and report on
the parent account, or nested categories, and report on the parent
category. Here is the second case. Start with a new file using the
standard account set. Change the Checking account to have an
initial balance of $100. Create 2 transactions in Checking:
1) Category=Bills:Cable Payment=$60
2) Category=Bills Payment=$40.
Now do a Report, Transactions, Account = Bills, Date = This
year, check 'Include Sub-accounts'. The report will show:
1) Account=Bills:Cable Category=[Checking] Amount = $60.00
2) Account=Checking Category=Bills Amount = $-40.00
Total = $20.
It subtracted one amount from the other, even though both are payments from the same account into expense categories. You can get similar results using another bank account whose parent is Checking, report on Checking with Include Sub-Accounts. Expenses from the parent account will be shown in red as negative amounts, but expenses in the child account will be shown in black as positive amounts. The total will be meaningless.
Sorry to say, I checked and the MD2010 "Search" report had the same problem. (Not noticed before, because I used the MD2010 Transaction report, which didn't have this problem.)
2 Posted by buttersh on 23 Jul, 2011 03:59 AM
Ditto. It has rendered all my reports useless. Graphs are fine but all reports now produce meaningless totals because the signs are wrong. Also, it is not including all the transactions in the sub-accounts so even if I correct the signs, there are still transactions missing. Very frustrating. Worked fine in the previous version.
3 Posted by buttersh on 23 Jul, 2011 02:32 PM
Update: Assuming all the transactions are actually expenses, the sign is negative on any transaction in the "super" category and positive in any transaction that is in a sub category below that "super" category, just as the OP states. Clearly the same issue. Still looking into why some transactions are missing altogether. I say that because even if I correct the signs and add them up, I get a lower number than a graph of the same category produces, and the graph is correct.
4 Posted by ljb on 23 Jul, 2011 07:31 PM
I'm not missing any transactions in my report - only the amount signs are wrong, so the totals are wrong (Running Total, subtotals, and grand total). Do you have any more details about what is missing? Some way to duplicate it?
5 Posted by leehileman on 24 Jul, 2011 10:25 PM
Hi ljb,
Sorry, I made a mistake. I finally got a chance just now to put it all
into excel, make all signs positive and sum it up. When I do that, it
does match the graph. Sorry for the confusion. So the only problem is
the sign issue.
6 Posted by buttersh on 24 Jul, 2011 11:16 PM
Maybe a clue: I just noticed that in the far left column of the report (the"Account" column), any transaction that is in the "super" category is listed as the name of the bank account is was transacted from, not the name of the category (broken - not how it used to work), but any transaction that is in a subcategory correctly shows the name of the category and subcategory in the "Account" field. Hope that's a helpful clue...
Support Staff 7 Posted by Jessica Little on 25 Jul, 2011 08:00 PM
Hi All,
I'm sorry for the trouble here. There are a number of bugs in the new transaction report that we are in the process of fixing for the next release of MD 2011. I'll add this one to the list, though I think it might be taken care of by another fix we have in the pipeline.
I'm sorry again for the inconvenience. I don't have a current timeline for it yet, but we'll let you know once the new release is out.
Jessica Little
Moneydance Support
8 Posted by buttersh on 15 Dec, 2011 04:00 AM
Hi Jessica,
I just installed the latest MD 2011. Looks like there are some good updates there. But it looks like some transactions still have the wrong sign depending on what category/account they belong to. Do you know if this issue was meant to be addressed in the leaves release?
Thank you for your help.
Lee
9 Posted by leehileman on 15 Dec, 2011 04:09 AM
Sorry, I meant "latest" release. Darn spell checker…
Lee
Support Staff 10 Posted by Ben Spencer on 25 Dec, 2011 06:03 PM
In MD2011r2 the the transactions report that was in MD2011r1 is now called "Transactions filter". We have reinstated the transactions report that was in MD2010. This is now called the "Transactions" report in MD2011r2. If you are running MD2011r2 make sure that you are using the "Transactions" report and not the "Transactions filter" report.
Ben Spencer
Moneydance Support
11 Posted by buttersh on 29 Dec, 2011 06:22 PM
Excellent. That was it. Thank you!
Lee
Jessica Little closed this discussion on 29 Dec, 2011 10:46 PM.
ljb re-opened this discussion on 30 Dec, 2011 03:56 AM
12 Posted by ljb on 30 Dec, 2011 03:56 AM
Post 11 notwithstanding, the original issue for this thread is not at all resolved. The bug moved from the Transaction report to the Transaction Filter report, where Moneydance still has a sign error that results in incorrect report results. Could we leave this discussion thread open then?
Support Staff 13 Posted by Ben Spencer on 14 Jan, 2012 08:32 PM
I am leaving the thread and the ticket open.
14 Posted by robf99 on 26 Mar, 2013 01:26 PM
Any idea when this will be fixed ?