pending vs. completed transactions

[T. Howell-Cintron]

My bank shows my debit transactions as "pending" for up to a week before 
they clear, and the date assigned to them on my bank's web site is the 
date they cleared.

I'm in the habit of entering every transaction in to GnuCash as I spend 
the money, ie. the same day, and this is effecting the running total of 
the account.

Ideally there would be two date fields - purchase date and cleared date, 
but that's not the way GnuCash works.  What should I do?  I could update 
the transaction date to reflect the date it cleared, using the NUM field 
to order them according to my bank's statement, or I could just continue 
to do it the way I have been and know that though the running balance is 
incorrect the total available funds still works out to the right amount?

With regards,
Tom Howell-Cintron