Batch/scheduled transactions

[John Ralls]

On Dec 31, 2013, at 9:14 AM, PK <fourteenone at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm new to gnucash and have 3 questions.
> 1) I'm trying to set up what I would call a 'manually run batch
> transaction.' I get paid biweekly, but most bills are monthly, so for the
> majority of the year the first paycheck in the month goes towards some
> subset of the bills and the second paycheck goes towards the other subset.
> The scheduled transactions and splits seem to be close to what I want, but
> I'm not sure it's the best way. If paydays were on the 1st/15th, then the
> scheduled transactions would be perfect, but since it's biweekly, twice a
> year a wrench is thrown into the schedule. I'd like to have three
> 'scheduled' transactions or batch transactions defined (one for the first
> payday, one for the second payday, and one for the extra one that happens
> twice a year), and ideally, I'd have an option to "manually run this
> transaction/batch" depending on what payday it is. Right now I set the
> schedule frequency to be 'none' and when I want to run it I change it to
> frequency 'once', set the date and hit OK and it adds it. The issue I've
> had so far is forgetting to change it back to frequency 'none' and saving
> after adjusting something and it runs the whole thing again. Is there a
> better way to do this?
> 
> 2) Within each of those three batches described above, I have a single
> transaction that is split like this:
> Payday deposit -> Assets:Checking:_Remaining -> (IN: $100.00)
> Payday deposit -> Income:Salary -> (OUT: $100.00)
> TV Setaside -> Assets:Checking:TV -> (IN: $15.00)
> TV Setaside -> Assets:Checking_Remaining -> (OUT:$15.00)
> Elec Setaside -> Assets:Checking:Electricity -> (IN: $20.00)
> Elec Setaside -> Assets:Checking:_Remaining -> (OUT: $20.00)
> etc
> 
> So at the end of it all, Assets:Checking is the actual account with
> 'subaccounts' that each have money set aside for when that bill is due and
> Assets:Checking:_Remaining is what's leftover from the paycheck. Is this
> the appropriate way to handle/use 'subaccounts'? Should Assets:Checking be
> marked as a 'placeholder' or not?
> 
> 3) In 2.6 I'm not able to create scheduled transactions. When I enter a
> split, it clears the whole line when I hit enter. I did manage to get two
> lines entered at one point, but when I went to save it says "The Scheduled
> Transaction Editor cannot not automatically balance this transaction." Is
> this a bug or known issue in 2.6? 2.4.13 seems to be fine.
> 

#1 In the SX Edit dialog, frequency tab, select "weekly" in the Frequency list box
and "2" in the "Every" spin-box for a bi-weekly getting-paid SX. ISTM your bill transactions
would be monthly, and you'd set up two transactions, one for each set of bills.

#2: If it works for you, it's appropriate. Since you presumably make the actual payment
transactions from the sub-accounts, you might want to make Checking a placeholder to 
protect yourself from accidentally entering a transaction there, but it makes no 
difference to anything GnuCash does.
 
#3 sounds like https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=720555 , which I thought that
I'd fixed. What OS are you using?

Regards,
John Ralls