How to manage funds on hold

[wsheldahl@qx.net]

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On Sun, Dec 15, 2002 at 11:39:36PM +1100, Conrad Canterford wrote:
> On Sun, 2002-12-15 at 18:01, Gerard Beekmans wrote:
>=20
> We've had this question before, and I'm afraid there is no easy way to
> deal with this as far as gnucash 1.6.x is concerned. The general
> approach I believe is to enter the transaction for the held amount "in
> the future" - for the day it becomes available rather than the day it is
> actually deposited. Note that this will confuse reconciliation,
> especially if you have both instant and held amounts in the same
> deposit. It is not recommended.

It's probably fairly common to have both instant and held amounts. I
believe my bank makes the first $100 or $300 of a deposit available
immediately, and the rest after some number of days. It also varies
with how the deposit was made, out of town check vs. electronic
transfer, etc. For myself, I usually just enter all of it as
deposited at the latest date if I need to track the time it's
available for some reason, just to err on the side of caution.

> > Is there an option to put (part) of a deposit on hold (ie: it not refle=
cting=20
> > in the assets until a set date, or a change is manually made)?
> > Would this be classified as an "Accounts Receivable" I would be needing=
 to=20
> > setup?
=20
 <snip>
=20
>>  If that's the case, how would I go about it? I read info in the manual=
=20
> > about A/R and A/P but I didn't see how to set it up (where to create it=
, what=20
> > type of accounts they are, etc).
>=20
> A/R and A/P are only available in the current beta release series (1.7
> versions). If you're using 1.6 (as I assume you are), you are welcome to
> upgrade and help test (and many of us are using it with real data).
> Alternatively, wait until 1.8.0 is released very early in the new year.

In the meantime, it shouldn't be too hard to create an Asset account
and call it "A/R", and a Liability account labeled "A/P", and just
do straight transfers from Income to A/R when you get a check, and
from A/R to the actual bank account when it clears and becomes
available for withdrawal. If you already use an A/R account that
gets increased when you invoice someone and are waiting for payment
(more typical usage), then you probably want a separate "Float time"
asset account; just use whatever label makes most sense.

> If any of the above doesn't make sense, or if someone else has a better
> suggestion, please speak up! I might pretend to know how to answer these
> questions, but I'm a businessman, not an accountant  :-).
>=20
> Conrad.

I'm not an accountant either. Doesn't keep me from speculating
wildly, though. :-)

--=20
Wes Sheldahl
wsheldahl@qx.net

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