Question to european gnucash users

[marthter]

Fredrik Persson wrote:

>>>What's the point of having checks, really?? They just seem to make everything 
>>>more complicated and difficult.
>>>
>>>      
>>>
><marther presents a lot of good reasons to use cheques> 
>
>Yes, I know. We've *got* cheques in Europe too. I've used one once, for the down payment on a car.
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Okay, I see your point.  The cheque-oriented nature of the docs (and the 
reconciliation feature)  are obstacles that make if harder to understand 
for GnuCash users who rarely use cheques.

If our goal is greater GnuCash adoption, then obstacles are bad, I think 
we can all agree on that.

>However, that's not really the point. The commonwealth (is America + New Zeeland and Australia?)
>
I only mentioned Commonwealth in reference to spelling habits, not 
chequing habits.  But as far as I know (based on Canadian usage) 
Commonwealth means UK and any current or former British colony except 
those that broke away violently (such as USA).  I think that includes 
the British Isles, Bahamas, India, probably some African countries, 
basically anywhere they play cricket, plus Canada.

Wow there's a lot of them:  54. (from google "commonwealth countries"):

http://www.trinityhigh.com/curric/es/year7/Commonwealth%20Countries/thecommonwealth.htm

> uses cheques a *lot* compared to europe. I don't know why.
>
Couldn't tell you.  Just a habit, I guess, though as I said, it is 
shrinking at least in Canada.

>Does Canada use less cheques than the US?
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It seems that way based on a few other posts, but I can't speak for USA, 
and I'm only a sample of one (plus people I know) to go on here in Canada.

>>Just because you don't use cheques doesn't mean nobody should use them, 
>>and doesn't mean (as others have elaborated on) that reconciling is 
>>pointless or that the feature should be removed (which is what your 
>>comments seemed to be driving at).
>>    
>>
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>Not at all, although I understand why you think so.
>
>This is what I mean: when I started using gnucash, I had to translate all of the *concepts* that involved cheques into concepts that didn't. Try reading the manual and the help pages while pretending that you *never* use cheques, and you'll see what I mean. It's not very easy, especially if you don't have any previous experience in accounting. (Which I think should be taken into account since a lot of the first time users of gnucash are people who just want to get some structure in their home economy.)
>
>I had put this issue behind me, but when I got my first statement since I started using gnucash I thought "hey, let's try that reconciliation thingy" and it all came back to me.
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>Isn't there some kind of translation project that aims at translating gnucash, including the documentation, into other languages? I'll tell you this; if all this talk about cheques is still there when the swedish version is finished, people in this country will get veeery confused! And this is not very good for gnucash in the end.
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>So, it's all about the concepts! Europe needs a version of gnucash that doesn't evolve around the use of cheques. That's the point, really. 
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Yes, I can see that is a good comment for the doc writers to be aware of 
as they write or revise.

>Yes, this is in essence what you can do. But to first make sure that gnucash and the VISA card online service matches, and THEN make sure that gnucash matches the statement, is a little bit too much work. How many on this list have had the online VISA transactions mismatch the paper statement? It makes a lot more sense in a cheque-country.
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Yes, it does seem unlikely that one part of their electronic system gets 
it right and another part wrong, and also, the time between those steps 
is getting to be minutes or hours instead of days.  It sure gets to be a 
lot of clicking to check for errors which maybe never happen.  Depends 
how paranoid you are, I guess.

>>Yes, Canadians (and I suppose the rest of the Commonwealth) spell it 
>>that way.
>>    
>>
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>I knew there was something wrong with the way I spelled it, I just couldn't figure out what it was! Thanks!
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>/Fredrik Persson
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