pending vs. completed transactions

[Maf. King]

On Thursday 15 October 2009 04:28:33 T. Howell-Cintron wrote:
> 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?
>

Tom,

A (possibly) philosophical question.

Are you wrong or is the bank wrong when your totals don't agree?

I take the view that I know more than my bank about what I have spent. 
Therefore, if a withdrawal item hasn't cleared yet - and my assumption is 
that it will clear - then the bank's balance figure is wrong.  They won't be 
happy with me if I spend the same money twice!

I record the date as you do, and live with the fact that statements don't 
always have the same ordering.

0.02
Maf.