Tested with Homebank 5.1.4 on Fedora 25
In account properties, there are two sets of option: a checkbox to say "This account is closed" and three checkboxes that control whether it is displayed summaries in summaries or factored into reports, particularly the "Exclude from all reports" option.
The first one, "closing" an account, matches a real-world action: actually closing down a bank account. This is something that happens every now and then in life; when you change banks, change countries, cash out on a term-based investment, etc. So it makes sense to be able to identify that account as "closed" so that its transactions are locked down and that it stops showing up as a choice in the "Edit transaction" dialog and accounts summary. Everything good so far.
Even when closed, that account is a part of your financial history, though. For accuracy and completeness of accountancy, it *should* be allowed show up in the reports (unless you explicitly don't want it to). I very frequently look at reports spanning over a decade in Homebank to get the "big picture", so I want to be able to have the combined effect of all accounts across all time. Until now, I thought Homebank was doing exactly that, but it turns out that it actually excludes "closed" accounts from all reports, even if those accounts actually don't have the "Exclude from all reports" option checked.
I believe if the user really wants that account to not show up in any reports, then the user should explicitly toggle the "Exclude from all reports" option. Otherwise, not only is it forcing a legitimate part of history to be ignored, it makes the reports exclusion option confusing (because there is no indication that it gets overridden by the account activity status).
Generally, I'm also looking at this from a legal standpoint: in many countries, the government can come and reassess your tax filings, request explanations or proof of everything, even if it was years and decades ago. If your reports numbers suddenly change when you re-report at a different point in time, you might get needlessly into extra trouble. *Really* big trouble.
I hope this can be considered.
Thanks again for the super awesome software :)
Well, all you say really make sense.
I added the exclude option later on the closed status, so yes it is now unclear and lead to confusion with exclusion flags.
actual behavior:
- excluded into 'Your accounts' (in addition (OR) the nosummary option)
- excluded from stats, trendtime, balance and budget report (in addition (OR) the noreport option)
- excluded from account combobox and filter listview
future behavior;
- remove any exclusion, and only rely on other exclusion flags
unchanged behavior:
- closed acount are not editable (read only) into the register window
nota: I should maybe consider a mark to indicate closed account in some place