How to generate trans. automatically.

[Randy Orrison]

2008/5/19 Josh Sled <jsled at asynchronous.org>:

> > Josh Sled wrote:
> >> David Michal <dvd.mchl at googlemail.com> writes:
> >>
> >>> I have accounts:
> >>> --Bank
> >>>   --Savings
> >>>   --Payments
> >>> --Expenses
> >>> --Liabilities
> >>>   --CreditCard
> >>>
> >>> Every expenses paid by credit card I now need to type in GnuCash twice.
> >>>
> >>> For instance if I'll buy petrol for 50, then I need to create
> transactions:
> >>> CreditCard --> Expenses – 50
> >>> Savings --> Payments – 50
> >>>
> >>> Is there any possibility in GnuCash to have the second transaction
> filled
> >>> automatically?
> >>
> >> Do you really pay off your credit card incrementally, one-to-one with
> each
> >> charge you make on that card?
> >>
> > No I don't. I have the payments account only to help me to don't go into
> > debt.
>

I do something similar, but instead of having a separate account for the
payments, I enter the future checking->credit card payment as soon as I make
a charge on the card, then update that transaction every time I enter credit
card records.  e.g.

On 21 May 08 I enter
  21-05-08 CreditCard -> Expenses.Gas 50
  30-05-08 Checking -> CreditCard 50

on 24 May 08 I enter:
  24-05-08 CreditCard -> Expenses.Groceries 20
  24-05-08 CreditCard -> Expenses.Movies 20
  30-05-08 Checking -> CreditCard 90  (updated from 40)

then on 30 May when the credit card statement comes, but only has
transactions through the 22nd so amount on the statement is 50, I change the
Checking->CreditCard entry to match the statement, and create a new one for
next month:
  30-05-08 Checking -> CreditCard 50
  30-06-08 Checking -> CreditCard 40 (for the unreconciled transcactions)

This way the CreditCard ending balance is always 0, and my checking account
ending balance reflects how much I'll have after the payment that I'm going
to have to make when the credit card bill comes.

Make sense?

Randy