Best practice for uncashed cheques?

David J. Bakeman dbakeman at comcast.net
Sat Oct 27 16:43:15 EDT 2012


On 10/27/2012 12:41 PM, Richard Bishopp wrote:
> Without reading all the detail and at the risk of sounding like a complete
> idiot. . . what if you enter a transaction in the register for some date in
> the future like a few months out which balances out that uncashed check. I
> would also make a remark referring to the check number and date and reason
> for entry.   Probably not the right way but my red-neck way. Might mess up
> the monthly reconcile ?
I'm still confused as to what the problem is?  We've been using gnucash
for many years and there is at least one check that hasn't been cashed
in 4 years.  When the check register is opened the balance does reflect
that check having been written but look at the bottom and you'll see
Present, Future, Cleared, Reconciled, and Projected minimum balances. 
The cleared should match what your bank says if you've put in all
transactions.  While the reconciled should match your last statement.

If you want to see transactions that haven't cleared use the Edit/Find
and select Reconcile from the drop down and is Not cleared and you'll
get a list of uncleared transactions.
> GL
>
> Rich...
>
> On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 2:29 PM, Kash <kash at warmplanetbikes.com> wrote:
>
>> An uncashed check is a short term liability. Record each check that you
>> write by going to
>> Business > Vendor > New Bill.
>> You will have to create a new vendor for each person or company that you
>> write a check to.
>>
>> When you want to see the total of outstanding checks, run the
>> Reports > Business > payable aging
>> report. The report will show you uncashed checks by vendor and by days
>> uncashed; current, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days.
>>
>> When a check is cashed, and it appears in your bank statement, pay the
>> bill by going to
>> business > vendor > process payment
>> Or click through the links in the payable aging report to the vendor
>> report and then to the specific bill.
>>
>> If you import your bank transactions in bulk, delete the redundant
>> transaction, it will not automatically link to the aging bills.
>>
>> Each bill you create will be recorded in the 'accounts payable' account.
>> Do not make things more complicated by creating multiple accounts payable
>> accounts because it's unnecessary and will screw up reporting.
>>
>> If your accounts are set up properly, and all transactions are up to date,
>> the financial reality will be shown in the three basic financial
>> statements; Income and Expense (or profit & loss), Balance Sheet, and Cash
>> Flow. What you want to look at is the Balance Sheet, liability section. If
>> you need more detail, payable aging will give you that.
>>
>> Gnucash also has some limitations regarding paying multiple bills with a
>> single transaction. I get around this by paying each bill separately rather
>> than grouping them and paying multiple bills with one payment.
>>
>> Regarding Gnucash bills, they work great, but there are some oddities. For
>> instance, once you create a bill, you can unpost and edit it, but you
>>  cannot completely delete it if you make a mistake. Until you're familiar
>> with which user inputs cannot be edited later, save a copy of your Gnucash
>> file before you enter each one, so you can restore from backup if you need
>> to.
>>
>>
>>
>> On 10/27/2012 9:12 AM, Robert Heller wrote:
>>
>>> At Sat, 27 Oct 2012 11:41:43 -0400 gnucash-user at gnucash.org wrote:
>>>
>>>  How do folks handle cheques they wrote a while ago but which remain
>>>> uncashed for a while?
>>>>
>>>> Up until now I've been leaving them in the register with the original
>>>> date written on the cheque, but I'm having increasing trouble figuring
>>>> out where the missing money is when I go to reconcile with downloaded
>>>> transactions from the bank and my current balance doesn't match my
>>>> cleared balance.
>>>>
>>>> I've been toying with the idea of moving the dates forward for these
>>>> cheques to the next business day after I import/reconcile. That better
>>>> reflects the current reality -- those cheques could be cashed any time
>>>> in the future, so my current balance is correct and my future balance
>>>> best predicts the worst case scenario. Also, the act of finding and
>>>> advancing the cheques gives me a chance to chase down the person I wrote
>>>> them to and, if needed, gently remind them to cash my cheque.
>>>>
>>> You probably should not alter the dates on the checks.  It is afterall
>>> the date you wrote on the check.
>>>
>>>  But it's a pain to do this -- is there any way to automate it?
>>>> - Marc
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