[GNC] Entered Date, UX Question

[R. Victor Klassen]

For the business features there is the entered date and the posted date, and they may differ in either direction.  That way I can enter something in January, but post in last December because it really belonged then, but I hadn’t gotten to it, and it shows up correctly under the rules accrual based accounting.  And I can fake it by posting it to the first of January if it is paid in January and I’m using cash based accounting for tax purposes.   In this case I could see having the entered date the date of import, so long as the posted date is the date I had set when I posted it.  Not sure what Quicken does here or allows me to do (been well over a decade).

If I just enter the transaction directly in a register and I want to get it connected to the right date for cash or accrual basis, I want the date that appears to be in the register to match what it was when I put it in.  Because to me that is the posted date. 
If GnuCash has a separate entered date for all transactions (and I think it does), and that date is not visible (except for when probing the database directly), I would be happy to have the entered date be the imported date, so long as the posted date isn’t mucked with.  But that’s just my two cents.

> On Feb 4, 2023, at 8:00 AM, ml at tgr66.me wrote:
> 
> Hello!
> 
> I’m writing an app to help people migrate to GnuCash (primarily from Quicken, in my case Quicken for Mac), and I’m using PieCash to write sqlite3 file. I’ve read/searched the docs, and so I believe I understand the concept of a transaction entry date into an accounting system, and that users generally won’t ever see it, or perhaps I should just say “edit it”.
> 
> I’ve realized that I can export entered dates from Quicken, and so here is my question.
> 
> As a user of GnuCash, if you were to migrate data from another system, would you expect the entry/entered date to be when you migrated the data or when you first entered it into your personal financial management system?
> 
> I know some of you are experts in the field of accounting AIS, and so I welcome your thoughts too. If, one of the two approaches *must* be followed because of accounting rule (especially for businesses), please let me know.
> 
> Thank you for your help.
> 
> Tim
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