CommonCents said:

Sage tells me that it was the SAN members that requested to be allowed to post directly to the linked AP & AR accounts in a general journal entry

I believe the capability has been there since the first Accountants' Edition >10 years ago

CommonCents said:

why would they need to post directly to a linked account

In order to repair an imbalance with an adjustment to the G/L

CommonCents said:

But now just willy-nilly anyone can corrupt those two accounts.

Not anyone, only a SAN member with the Accountant's Edition.  It's not intended for use by the uneducated and unqualified.

CommonCents said:

I'm in shock....

I don't know what to say to that. 

When you are selecting the accounts, they are listed in Blue and there is a clear message at the bottom of the Select Account dialog that you should not post to the Blue accounts unless you are adjusting the balances and that it is only available in the AE version.  When you post there is also a good warning message that explains the effect on the data integrity as I am sure you saw when you tested it.

QB is a different animal with different problems.

Sage 50 requires this kind of thing because

1) Accountants still tell users to write off customer invoices by unlinking the A/R account and posting the year end journal entry as they have listed it in the adjusting entries,

2) the program still has problems maintaining proper inventory balances on the balance sheet compared to the inventory module, especially when using foreign currencies (which is why you can't see it in the data integrity dialog), and

3) I've seen people give employees an advance through payroll, but get the money back in cash.  Because depositing an employee's money "is not a payroll entry" they found a way to unlink payroll to deposit the money and show the advance as not owing on the books anymore, but the employee's summary still shows it owing because the entry was not done on a paycheque as it should have been done.

So the reason we are able to post entries like this is to fix the problems without having to unlink the accounts and wiping out unrealised currency exchange history (A/R and A/P).  It's a quick way of getting the books back to the balanced state they should be without having to do data repair.

I personally think it should be in the program but I agree not all consultants/accountants are trained properly on it's use.