Questions on credit card accounting

[David Brown]

On Tue, Sep 09, 2008 at 07:12:36PM -0700, Lee Hauser wrote:

>Does anyone have ideas how to show this in Gnucash? I'd like to get
>the account details in a QFX file from American Express, but that
>involves a third account to bring into the mix. I'd like an easy way
>to show our AmEx transactions as if they were cash and keep them
>separate from real check and debit card transactions, to visually keep
>the books straight if possible. Should I try importing the AmEx QIF
>file directly into my checking register in Gnucash?

The credit card should definitely be its own account.  What I do is
that I pre-enter each credit card payment as soon as there is anything
to pay.  I adjust it's amount.  This means that my credit card account
always has a zero balance, at least in the future.  Plus, as soon as I
spend something, it shows up in the checking account as an increase in
the (future) payment to the credit card.  I'm not exactly sure how
standard this is, but it certainly lets me keep my sanity.

Usually, when the credit card statement comes around, there are a few
purchases that didn't make it onto the statement, so I have to adjust
the payment a bit, and put that amount in the following month's
payment.

I've actually gotten now to where I keep several months of
transactions entered in advance, which is probably even less-standard
accounting.

David