creditcard reconciliation impossible

[A.J. Bonnema]

HI all,

I am a first time user of gnucash and have encountered a problem that 
you guys (and gals) may have solved gracefully. I will give you the data 
first followed by the problem description.

== Data ===

In words I get into trouble because the credit card company issues a 
statement over a month and then waits about a week before obtaining the 
payment from my bank. In the meantime the next period starts and I might 
have payed other amount with the credit card.

I depict the situation in a schema:

x1--------------S1     P1
                    x2--------------S2     P2

Transfer P1 cannot be reconciled

x1 = start of credit card payments
      for period 1 (about a month)
      that is when I first pay using
      the credit card.

S1 = date of statement from the credit card company
      for period 1

P1 = date of payment by my bank to the creditcard company
      for period 1
      remark: this payment is automatic and generated by
              the creditcard company about a week
              later than the statement (S1)

x2 = start of credit card
      for period 1 (about a month)
      that is when I first pay using
      the credit card.

S2 = date of statement from the credit card company
      for period 2

P2 = date of payment by my bank to the creditcard company
      for period 2

Remark:
x1 < S1 < x2 < P1
sum of amounts from x1 to S1 is equal to amount of P1.
P1 is a transfer of money from my checking account to the credit card 
company account.

== Problem description ==
Because I entered these data later, it is impossible to reconcile the 
statement from the creditcard company.

What I *can* reconcile are the amounts from x1 to S1 and GNUCash 
automagically generates a transferdialog, which I have to cancel, 
because I know it is being payed automatically.

What I *cannot* reconcile is the amount payed on date P1, because the 
amount x2 starts before P1.

Even if I lie about the date of the creditcard statement, and say I 
received it on date P1 in stead of S1, I have an imbalance, because the 
creditcard payment x2 is in between.

== my idea of a solution ==
The only solution I see, is having a fake account that "loans" the money 
to the credit card company until the payment is received and then gets 
it back from the credit card account.

I find it is not a nice solution but I see no other solution.

Any one of you guys have a better solution? Maybe GNUCash has some 
standard solution, because many credit card companies (at least in 
Holland) work this way?

Guus.
-- 
A.J. Bonnema, Leiden The Netherlands,
user #328198 (Linux Counter http://counter.li.org)