oops, i forgot

[Carpetnailz]

On Tue, 2012-10-09 at 17:04 -0400, D. Gassen wrote:
> On 10/9/12 10:21 AM, Alexander, John Ryan wrote:
> > One of the things I'm looking for is a way to track non-cashed checks. I wrote a check for taxes in April and forgot about it until it was cashed late September. Does Gnucash have a function for tracking something like that so I don't bounce checks in the future by accident? I've browsed the FAQ and have just glanced over the archives, but I haven't seen anything of the sort.
> 
> What I have started doing is to have two sub accounts for each checking
> account (or account I write checks for):
> * Pending
> * Realized
> 
> When I write a check I have a transaction coming out of the "pending"
> account and when the check posts I have a transaction from "pending" to
> "realized".
> 
> This way I can:
> * look at the parent checking account to see the total balance including
> all checks that I've ever written and those outstanding
> * see the total amount of checks to still be cashed by the recipient
> that hasn't been posted in the "pending" account
I guess this doesn't make sense to me unless one is trying to play the
float somehow, which seems to me iffy at best.

> * compare all transactions that my bank knows about with the "realized"
> account
> 
> I think I have seen suggestions with only one sub account, where you'd
> have the check writing transaction go against the sub account and then
> transfer from the sub account to the parent account.
> 
> Not sure if it is worth the hassle for you compared to just creating a
> transaction when you write the check. When you reconcile your account
> this might be good enough:
> * you could set a transaction to "cleared" when the check appears in
> your account

> * reconcile the the transaction when you get the account balances
Isn't this the usual way to do things? GnuCash has a great reconciling
procedure, and your bank statement tells you the date the check cleared,
if you need to know that. 

> 
> Then the status bar in the account register will show you the "cleared"
> balance, which should match what your bank reports but you still see the
> total balance for the pending transactions (aka the checks that haven't
> been cashed yet) as the running total "balance" column in the register.
> The "reconciled" balance then would be the one from your last statement.
> 
> I really like the two sub accounts b/c it gives me a bit more detail: I
> know when I wrote the check and when it has been cashsed.
> 
> Side note: I'm not an accountant, this just "works for me".
> 
> Dirk
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