Reconciling credit card (liability) accounts

[Derek Atkins]

Hi,

Ashvin Goel <ashvin at acm.org> writes:

> Derek,
>
> Thanks for the prompt reply.
>
> The problem with doing things automatically is that it may not match
> other people's method of using gnucash. In particular, I enter a
> future transaction in the credit card account once a month that debits
> from my bank account the same amount that I have spent this month on
> my credit card (I update this transaction manually every time I enter
> a new set of credit card transaction). This way my future balance in
> the credit card account is always 0 while my bank account shows what I
> will eventually have in it. With this approach, I don't need step 3
> below. So I have to press the cancel button every time the "Transfer
> Funds" dialog pops up. I know that has worked for me but it always
> raised a red flag, i.e., was gnucash still balanced, since I thought
> that gnucash brought up the "transfer funds" dialog only when there
> was some unbalanced transaction or reconciliation.

Nope, you thought wrong.

> I guess the interface is a bit confusing. The problem is that there
> are two different things that can happen: 1) transfer of funds because
> your account is not reconciled, 2) transfer of funds because you want
> to record your payment.

Nope, gnucash only considers the latter case..  In the former case it
wont allow you to finish the reconciliation.

>   Logically, these are really different things
> even though the implementation of the transfer of funds dialog can
> probably be the same for both. For example, what happens with a credit
> card account when is not reconciled correctly, and you press the
> "finish button". Probably, the amount of funds transferred is the sum
> or the difference of 1) and 2), which is probably not what a user
> expects. 

Nope.  Gnucash wont let you finish the reconcile if you're not in balance.
Try it.  :)

It will ONLY pop it up once you're done with the reconcile.

>  Hence, given the current interface, I believe that it should
> do either 1) or 2) but not both. Ideally, the current interface would
> do 1). A second interface would ask you whether you want to record
> your payment and then show the "transfer funds" dialog. In a perfect
> world, there would be a preference about whether the recording your
> payment dialog should pop up!

Um, there is a preference.  Turn it off if you don't like it.
Edit -> Preferences -> Reconcile

> Thanks
> Ashvin

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
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