Following from a gnucash-user discussion here: https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2020-July/091978.html,I'm filing this bug for improving the User Interface/Experience for this setting. There are other issues dealing with the button(s) in the reconciliation dialogs pertaining to interest payments, but they will be addressed in a separate bug. The OP noted in a reply that they discovered the global register preference is not honored. In testing, I found this to be the case. Regardless of if the preference was checked or not, I was not prompted for an interest payment. If the user clicks the button to enter an interest payment and then enters an amount and proceeds, even if the reconciliation is cancelled, apparently a flag is set to activate this preference, but just for that account. A subsequent attempt to reconcile, brings up both the initial reconcile dialog, and the interest payment dialog stacked on top of it with the interest dialog receiving focus. So either the global preference is not working, and should be fixed, or it is not intended to work (and the transition is to per-account settings) and should be removed. For completeness, the preference is in the Register tab under "Reconciling" > 'Automatic interest transfer'.
I forgot to add: I propose as a fix, if the global preference is going to be abandoned, or somehow changed, and a per-account preference is to be retained, that the preference be added to the Create/Edit Account dialog. In conjunction with this, I'll file another bug concerning the interest payment dialog button(s) and how they affect the preference.
I'm going to take a look at this. Jean
I see no reason to have this global preference. Only a handful of assets and liability, but no income, expense or equity accounts are interest bearing. IMHO we should suggest the users to create a monthly/quarterly/yearly scheduled transaction instead for each interest bearing account.
I agree with Frank, the whole thing should go: preference, slot, interest transfer dialog, all of it. It's a wart.
I have thought about the interest dialog for years -- for the few accounts that draw interest it seems to me it was obviously designed to save typing in two ways: 1) When you use the Interest dialog AND the relevant transactions (if any) have cleared the account before the statement closing date, then the reconciliation dialog can accurately suggest the correct closing statement amount. So you might not have to type the digits, which depending on the account balance could save, maybe, three to twelve keystrokes each month? ;-) 2) During the reconcile workflow, it's slightly faster to key in and autocomplete the interest and the transfer accounts using the interest dialog -- IF you know that it follows similar autocompletion rules as the register. Because it can autocomplete the transfer account for your interest, it can save a tiny amount of brainwork and typing. (I make it easy by typing "int" for everything.) The autocomplete part is not immediately obvious until after the SECOND time you use it. ALL THAT SAID, I would only miss the Interest dialog a tiny amount if it went away. Most "regular" bank accounts I have don't pay much or any interest at the moment, and haven't for a few years.
This has been fixed properly hasn't it? By a proper eradication?
I intend to close this shortly since the preference has been removed. However, I do see in a new account window, a greyed out checkbox for "Auto interest transfer". I presume this is for backwards compatibility with books that had the preference set and a scrub hasn't been implemented in Check & Repair?
Never mind, apologies for the noise. I see after reading and testing more that the *Global* preference was removed and a per-account preference was retained. (which is now not erroneously set or reset via the reconcile dialogs, but rather properly by the Edit Account dialog.
