Scheduled transaction date

[Doug Laidlaw]

(Sorry, I forgot to check the address field - again.)
On Friday 09 May 2008 10:39:59 pm Mike or Penny Novack wrote:
> >KMymoney2 has a feature to set an alternative date for a scheduled
> > transaction when it falls on a weekend.  Transactions that require action
> > can be made to come up on the previous business day; direct debits can be
> > made to come up on the following business day.  I haven't seen it in
> > Quicken, but when I imported my Quicken file, I was asked to specify one
> > or the other (or no change) for each scheduled transaction.
> >
> >Has this been considered as a possibility for Gnucash?  I know that
> > Gnucash will import only the data, but as an extra feature in the
> > scheduled transaction editor, it might be appreciated.
>
> That's a rather difficult problem, Doug and I suspect that KMmymoney has
> only an approximate solution.
>
> Remember that GnuCash is an multiplatform application, no presumption
> about where in the world it is being used?
>
> I will give you a simple example that might help you understand the
> issues. I am in the US, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, That means
> that what is or is not a "business" day will depend on both US  holidays
> and Massachusetts holidays (for example, "Patriot's Day" isn't a holiday
> in any other state). But of course even though I live here I might have
> accounts elsewhere and the bank at the other end of the transaction
> might be subject to its rules about what is or is not a business day.
>
> So before asking that a feature of KMmymoney be included, how about
> confirming that the feature works as advertised? For example, if the
> "jurisdiction"  isn't required data then obviously KMmymoney couldn't
> actually be CORRECTLY computing "previous business day" or "following
> business day" since those would be dependent on jurisdiction.
> Understand? You would have to be able to enter along with the
> instructions to use previous/following business day a specification like
> "according to the rules for what's a business day in New South Wales
> Australia" (imaging the hundreds of different rule sets required).
>
> Michael

That is the kind of answer I was looking for, Michael.  I am in Victoria, 
Australia and public holidays here are very different from yours.  NSW is 
different again.  I don't know if KMymoney takes account of public holidays 
at all.  I don't use it any more, but I am pretty sure that it only offered 
the Friday before, or the Monday following.

There was a discussion a while back about scheduled transactions being so 
inflexible.  The original method was certainly clunky, but it had more 
flexibility.  My suggestion would take away many of the disadvantages of the 
inflexibility, even if some remain.  But I am not a programmer, and I don't 
know what would be involved from a programming point of view.

Back in my school days (late 1950's,) I read that at that time, France had no 
week-end, but schools had a holiday on Thursday and worked all Saturday.  I 
don't know how universal the week-end is nowadays, but America and Britain 
probably set the pace in that regard.

Doug.