Deposit Slip

[David Raleigh Arnold]

> > I saw your screen shots.  You have no deposit slip.  You should have a
> > deposit slip, where cash and checks can be entered in a batch and then
> > the appropriate deposit slip(s) and cash report are printed.  This is
> > really only a sort of temporary account, but no postings are done until
> > after printing.
> >
> > Your program is useless for many people without it.  The reason you
> > don't have it is because you slavishly imitate the commercial checkbook
> > programs, which don't have it because the publishers think they don't
> > have to have it.  Thus you imitate them in dishing out what *they* say
> > users should want.  If you had a deposit slip, which searches the
> > previous entries of course, you would quickly get serious numbers of new
> > users, because they would drop the likes of Quicken like a hot rock.
> >
> I still use Quicken (99 DeLuxe) for a several reasons (not in order of
> importance):
> 
> 1.) It prints checks.
> 2.) TurboTax can import my stuff directly.
> 3.) I can download my transactions from my Broker and my American
> Express account.
> 4.) It handles scheduled transactions.
> 
> I try to run GnuCash 1.4.12 in parallel on this machine because I would
> really like to get Windows 95 off my other machine altogether and run
> Linux on it full time. (This machine is Linux-only).
> 
> The things I really dislike about GnuCash, at least 1.4.12, are:
> 
> 1.) When I set the size of a window, it does not remember it from
> invocation to invocation.
> 2.) When I customize a report, it does not remember it from invocatioin
> to invocation.
> 3.) I cannot really figure out how to customize the tax report, so I get
> surprising results each time I try to run it.
> 
> I have not upgraded to 1.6.* GnuCash. I downloaded
> gnucash-1.6.0-1.i386.rpm, but it would not install. I read all the
> problems others have in installing the 1.6 versions, and decided to wait
> a while.
> 
> I do not know what your issue about deposit slips means. Whenever I get
> a check or something, I have no trouble entering a deposit. Since each
> cash or check income item is typically from a different source, and may
> be credited to a different account, I just go to the appropriate account
> of my Income accounts and make the entries.
> 
> An alternative approach I sometimes use is to go to my cash account or
> my checking account Asset account and make entries there. It depends on
> how the deposits are grouped.
> 
> Are you requesting a screen where you specify both the "From" and "To"
> accounts on each line, and that the program make the proper entries that
> way?

Yes.  After printing.  Of course you also specify casn or check.  For me
any I think many others, that would be the main user interface.  I don't
care a rat's ass how much it looks like a checkbook register.

> I have paper deposit slips from my bank, but they work like my
> "alternative approach", above. I.e., they assume I am depositing to my
> checking account.
> 
> You seem very angry. Have the designers of GnuCash offended you in some
> way?>  .~.  Jean-David Beyer

Just a bit frustrated.  It seems like every developer in the world
thinks that every time someone gets a check for $20.00 or ten bucks cash
he runs to the computer and enters it.  That's not what happens in my
world, and while I may be unusual, I am not rare.  I was angry back in
1992 when I found that there was no batch deposit with deposit slip
printing in Managing Your Money.  If you have a number of checks in
small amounts and you do not deposit every day, you really want this
feature.  And you want to enter your cash at the same time too, print it
up, and see to it that you have the right number of checks at least
before posting anything, so mistakes are less likely and at the end of
the year you are in good shape.

I wrote something in *qbasic* that does it, but of course there is no
accounting with it.  Consequently, I don't use any accounting program
whatever.  It looks like that is how it's going to stay.  Thank you for
participating in this futile bitching session.  :-)
 
------------------------------------------------------------
Information is not knowledge.           Belief is not truth.
Indoctrination is not teaching.   Tradition is not evidence.
         David Raleigh Arnold   dra@openguitar.com