Best practice for uncashed cheques?

[Derrick Hudson]

> The Present Balance in the account register in gnucash has the
> outstanding cheques subtracted, which doesn't match up with the actual
> balance of my bank account.

That is how it is supposed to be.  In the reconcile window it is easy to see all of the outstanding checks and see that the reconciled balance matches your bank statement.

-Derrick


Marc Sherman <msherman at projectile.ca> wrote:

>On 10/27/2012 11:54 AM, Phil Longstaff wrote:
>> I leave uncashed cheques where they are (and when they were
>> written).
>>
>> Why does your balance not match?  Cheques should remain with status
>> 'n' until they are cleared through your bank.  Then, change them to
>> 'c' (or 'y' if reconciling).  My balance always matches, even if I
>> have uncashed cheques.
>
>The Present Balance in the account register in gnucash has the
>outstanding cheques subtracted, which doesn't match up with the actual
>balance of my bank account. When the outstanding cheques are dated
>close
>to today, I can see the N's above the blue line in the register and
>realize what's going on. But when there a couple months back, and thus
>not visible in the current screen of the register window without
>scrolling, it's less obvious where the missing money went.
>
>On 10/27/2012 12:04 PM, John Ralls wrote:
>>
>> But I don't see the problem, particularly if you d/l transactions
>> from the bank to mark them as cleared: When you open the reconcile
>> window, those old checks will be at the top, and they won't be
>> marked, so they should stand out as clearly (or even more so) than if
>> you changed the dates. As long as you enter the balance from your
>> statement and not the register into the "reconcile information"
>> dialog box, reconciling should be almost automatic. What part of that
>> isn't working for you?
>
>Yeah, everything is fine in the Reconcile window, as you point out.
>It's 
>the account register (which I spend more time in throughout the month, 
>as opposed to reconciling only once a month) where things get more 
>complicated.
>
>On 10/27/2012 12:12 PM, Robert Heller wrote:
>>
>> You probably should not alter the dates on the checks.  It is
>afterall
>> the date you wrote on the check.
>
>That's true, but once the cheque finally does clear, importing the 
>transaction from the bank is going to update the date to the when the 
>cheque actually cleared at that point.
>
>I guess this is a philosophical difference between accounting on a Cash
>
>basis or an Accrual basis. For my purposes, Cash accounting is more 
>important -- I want to be able to manage and predict my cash flow in
>the 
>chequing account, so that I can keep it as low as possible and use the 
>excess to pay down my mortgage aggressively. To do that accurately (and
>
>avoid accidentally letting my balance fall below the "no fee minimum"),
>
>I need to accurately track when cash comes in and out of the account, 
>and predict my future cash transactions when they'll actually clear the
>
>account.
>
>- Marc
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