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[jlinkels <784339@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I am affected by this bug too.
Server version 6.0.3

I have a P/L account Foreign Exchange Loss.
Losses, so it is an expense.
When I receive a foreign payment and the exchange rate happens to be in my advantage, the loss is negative.

So when booking the payment, the difference is Credit.
The balance of the Foreign Exchange loss is negative in the G/L

When I create the P/L sheet, the sign on the Foreign Exchange Loss acct is lost, and 
this amount is substracted from my net profit. That is stupid.

What is worse is that my Balance sheet is now out of balance, and shows two different totals.
That is because the Net Profit is calculated incorrectly.

Apparently the Net Profit is calcultated first and then transferred to the Balance sheet.
The other accounts are transferred to the balance sheet as well and calculated independently.
With the wrong figure for Net Profit it is apparent the wrong balance totals will appear.

I can't believe this is a DISCUSSION whether this is a bug or not. In double accounting ALL
accounts can have a negative value. It is preferred that it is not PRESENTED as such,
but it is incredible that a CALCULATION goes wrong on this.

What am I to do? Create 2 accounts, one for Foreign Exchange Losses and one for Foreign Exchange Gains, and book on
each of them (only debit on one, only credit on the other) dependent on the exchange rate?

jlinkels

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/784339

Title:
  [stable 6.0.2] Account Balance Sheet parser logic error leads to
  incorrect totals amounts and developer confusion

Status in OpenERP Addons (modules):
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  If you look at the section where it calculates sum_dr and sum_cr it is
  incorrect.  Well it is technically correct, but in the sense of having
  a balance sheet that balances it is incorrect.

  Take the accounting equation property = property rights expanded to
  assets = liabilities + equity

  In the case of a net profit we incorrectly add the result to sum_dr,
  our equity has increased afterall, so sum_cr should increase, (this
  behaviour is correct, except the function is named wrong) however in
  the case of a net loss we subtract the amount from sum_cr (which
  should be sum_dr) which is incorrect as our equity has reduced.

  However here is the first bug - sum_dr and sum_cr are around the wrong
  way - sum_cr is increased for asset accounts, and sum_dr is increased
  for liabilities - it should be the other way around

  Put another way, for a balance sheet, we don't really want the totals
  to be the sum of dr's and cr's, we want it to be the total of the
  stuff on the left (Assets) and the total of the stuff on the right
  (Property Rights).

  So in the case of a Net Profit we must increase equity (credit) and in
  the case of a net loss we must reduce equity (credit).  At no point
  should we be changing debits.  The value of our Assets has not changed
  (in so far that a net loss already reduces our assets), it is our
  equity that has reduced.

  Now to make this one step more confusing, and for some unknown reason
  it has been decided to leave liabilities as a negative balance, and
  then on the report use absolute value which is also incorrect.  Many
  assets and liabilities should have a balance opposite of the standard,
  Accumulated depreciation for example in Assets,  VAT Paid in
  Liabilities, Bank Accounts temporarily in overdraft.

  In my own parser, which I have written, to resolve this we declare a
  dictionary called signs and at the point we compute the
  account.balance we multiple it by the sign.

          sign = {
              'fixed_asset': 1,
              'asset': 1,
              'liability': -1,
              'fixed_liability': -1,
              'equity': -1,
              }

  We use more types than standard but you get the idea.  Assets are
  their balance, liability is their balance *-1.

  Then all we do in the for account in accounts loop is make the
  balance: account.balance * sign[typ]

  So in summary
  sum_dr and sum_cr are round the wrong way.
  Adding a net loss to Assets is incorrect - it should be subtracted from Equity.
  values (already reported bug) should not be absolute, but rather their inverse for liability and equity accounts.

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