Recording account balance directly

peterunderwood1 at gmail.com peterunderwood1 at gmail.com
Sun Jun 19 02:52:49 EDT 2011


I've been working on a similar, if not identical, issue. It seemed to me  
that the answer was, before entering the "missing" (earlier date)  
transaction - in the OP's case, the large item he remembers after the  
balancing transaction, ensure that everything is balanced to date. (As a  
check, you might want to note the appropriate balances.) Note the  
appropriate balances. Enter the "missing" transaction with its earlier  
date. Then enter a "new" balancing transaction with the same date as the  
previous balancing transaction. This can be in addition to the original or  
take its place. In the latter case, the original balancing transaction  
needs to be removed.

This seemed OK in theory, but I am tangled up in exactly how GnuCash does  
all this "transaction with previous date" thing. It was easy in a  
spreadsheet because you can enter a new line and then replace all value  
balance figures with formula balance figures, recalculate and then copy and  
replace the formulae with the newly calculated balance values.

Am I on the right track with my effort? I don't know enough about GnuCash  
yet to know whether I am making a fearful mess!

On , Colin Law <clanlaw at googlemail.com> wrote:
> On 17 June 2011 19:31, Derek Atkins warlord at mit.edu> wrote:

> > Hi,

> >

> > salikh salikh at gmail.com> writes:

> >

> > [snip]

> >> So my questions are

> >> 1) is there an easy way to register the fact, that some account had  
> some

> >> specific balance on some date, and later edit transactions around that

> >> moment to meet the balance?

> >> 2) is there a way to have transaction that computes its "Expense"  
> field from

> >> the fixed "resulting balance" and previous balance?

> >> 3) or may be there is a different way to handle the situation without  
> too

> >> much hassle?

> >

> > What I do is that I periodically add a "Balancing Transaction" which is

> > a Transaction to Expenses:Miscelaneous (entered from the Cash account).

> > For the amount I type in "-" into the withdrawal

> > column, where is the current balance as shown in GnuCash, and

> > is the real balance that I want as of that transaction.



> I think the OP already does that. If I understand his question it is

> that sometimes *after* entering the balance transaction he remembers a

> purchase that needs to be entered before the balance transaction,

> necessitating that the balance transaction needs to be modified to

> keep it correct. I too have had this problem. His question is

> whether there is a way of entering a transaction that says that at

> this point the balance should be X and if I enter a new earlier

> transaction then the balancing one will be automatically changed to

> allow for this. I think the answer is no, and in fact though it

> sounds like a good idea it would be dangerous and would at some point

> lead to unexpected effects.



> Colin



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