invoice date vs bank transaction date

[Parker Jones]

> From: rvklassen at gmail.com
> Your problem only exists if you import your transactions directly from the bank, with no other intervention steps.
Yes that is what I'm doing.

 
> In particular, GNUCash insists on using accrual accounting if you create invoices (for payments due you) and bills (for payments you owe). 

Victor, thank you for pointing out bills - I hadn't used them before.

> If you don’t have the invoices/bills in place at the time, you can still create them at a later time - but to make it all work, the transactions where money changes hands should involve the bank account and accounts receivable/payable.

In my case, I'm preparing accounts after the year end.  It's rather laborious to enter 200+ bills when there are only a handful that fall outside the accounting year.  So I just entered bills that for those invoice/bank transactions that crossed the accounting period.  That seems to solve the problem.

Essentially, I think this amounts to using cash-based accounting for most of the transactions and accrual-based for those that need to be in different accounting period than the bank transaction date.  Perhaps not elegant but it seems to work.