Delays in transfers between accounts

[Fred Bone]

Daniel Carrera said:

> Fred Bone wrote:
> >> April  3: Bank A -> Transit
> >> April 10: Transit -> Bank B
> >>
> >> Now your GnuCash accounts will both match your bank statements.
> > 
> > Thanks. This is just what I am doing (except I put "Money in Transit"
> > under "Suspense", together with the automatically-created
> > "Imbalance-GBP" and "Orphan-GBP"). The (minor) problem with this is the
> > lack of any visible link between the two, other than both being for the
> > same amount. Perhaps I'm expecting too much.
> 
> I don't know why you need an 'Imbalance' or 'Orphan' account. You 
> shouldn't. You only need _one_ account, the one I call Transit.

The "Imbalance" account comes back every time I hit "Return" once too 
often while entering a transaction that doesn't get an automatic "other-
side" allocated. At first I kept deleting it, eventually I took the hint 
and left it alone.

I can't remember what I did that resulted in the system creating the 
"Orphan" account - I think it may have been something to do with an OFX 
import. Again, if it's going to keep reappearing I see little point in 
deleting it.

> To have a visible link between them I suggest you use the 'Description'
> and 'Num' fields. The Description and Num should be the same in both
> transactions. I realize that often the description will just be "Money
> Transfer", but the Num field can still help here. You could put the cheque
> number if using a cheque, and in the case of electronic transfers I use my
> own sequential numbering scheme. For example, 'E01' for your first
> transfer on record, 'E02' for the next, etc.

Now why didn't I think of that? Thanks again.