How to enter cleared date in checking account

[Larry Evans]

On 02/20/13 10:02, Derek Atkins wrote:
Hi Derek,
Thanks for the reply.
> Hi,
>
> Larry Evans <cppljevans at suddenlink.net> writes:
>
>> Suppose my bank is named Bank1 and I've a Gnucash check register and
>> Bank1 bank statement as shown in the attached.  For some reason, the
>> checks to supplier1 clear after those for supplier2; however, that
>> doesn't show in the RegisterWindow making it harder for me to see the
>> correspondence between Bank1's statement and the Gnucash check register.
>>
>> Is there any way to specify the clear date in Gnucash and have the
>> check register window display the clear date and sort the entries
>> according to the clear date?
>
> The dates on your books do not (and SHOULD not) be the dates on the
> bank's records.  They should be when you initiate a transaction, not
> when it hits your bank.  For example, if you write a check to someone
> and they don't cash it for a month, you still need to keep track that
> you EXPECT that money to leave your account, even if it hasn't left
> yet.  The fact that the order doesn't match is a minor matter, but
> that's why clearing and reconciling exist.

I'm *not* asking that the date the check was written be removed from
the register.  I'm just asking that there be another entry, for the
same transaction, that indicates when the bank cleared the check.  I
know you say above that the cleared date "SHOULD not" be "on your
books" , but I don't see any harm in allowing the user to provide that
extra information, and the benefit is that the user can then clearly
see in his gnu register, if sorted on the cleared date, the
corresponence with my bank statement.  The clearing and reconciling
don't, AFAICT, allow specification of when the clearing takes place.
Now if the transactions could be sorted on the clear date, then one
could see immediately from the gnucash check register that the bank
statement has the same balance as the gnu check register on a given
date.  Wouldn't that enhancement avoid the need for the existing
gnucash clearing feature?  This feature, in effect, documents a
check's float, or the delay between a promise to pay and the actual
payment.  The desirability of this or similar documentation is evident
in previous posts.  For example:


http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/pending-vs-cleared-transactions-tt1434298.html#a1434299

   Mentions using an 'intermediary account "Waiting for cashing"'

Such an 'intermediary account' is what I'm currently using; however,
that doesn't allow seeing overall bank balance sorted by cleared
date.  In essense, I've got the bank account hierarchy:

    Bank1:
      cleared: checks written and cleared.
      float: checks written but not cleared.

The idea of sorted by cleared date would result in a view somewhat
like that desired by John Ericsson as expressed here:


http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/Sorting-by-Cleared-Transactions-tt1431493.html

and by Thomas Balderston here:


http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/Sort-Order-for-Account-Register-tt1416646.html


Except the sorting by cleared *date* instead of reconcilation status
would *not* indicate which transactions have been reconciled, except
maybe by some sort of dividing line between the cleared and the
cleared and reconciled (a transaction has to be cleared before it can
be reconciled, I assume).  I guess the uncleared transactions would
have an empty cleared date, which would be treated as a date of
infinity, and those, I guess, could be further sorted on the check
writing date.

AFAICT, Hendrik Boom-2 requested the exact same feature that I'm
requesting in this post:


http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/Re-transcation-dates-and-clearing-dates-tt1434957.html#a1434960

The above referenced posts (especially the last one) suggest it would
be a popular enhancement.

Maybe this could be done by making the Date field have a toggle button
to show either the date the transaction was "posted" by the user or
the date the transaction was "cleard" by the bank, as illustrated in
the attachement.

OOPS, I just thought of a problem:

  If the bank's withdrawal for a check doesn't match the gnucash
  withdrawal for a check, then I can see a problem.  How would one use
  gnucash to reflect that anomaly and easily diagnose where the
  problem occurs? (BTW, the problem is not theoretical.  It acually
  happened to me last year).

>
> Alas, there is no "cleared date" in the data fields at all, so you
> couldn't do that anyways.  There is a "reconciled date" but it's not
> visible in the UI, and even so, using it would be "too late" for your
> suggested needs.  (It gets set when you reconcile a transaction through
> the reconcile process window.)

I thought maybe there might be some "hidden record" (like the
"reconciled date") which, although not currently visible in the UI,
might be made visible in some future enhancement if there's sufficient
call for such an enhancement.  I guess not though :(

[snip]
-regards,
Larry


-------------- next part --------------
In Gnucash, the RegisterWindow shows(when Posted Date requested):
  
------------------------Bank1CheckingAccount1----------------------------------------------
Date-Posted| Num | Description | Transfer           | R | Deposit | Withdrawal | Balance 
=========================================================================================== 
2012-01-01 | 101 | buy1.1      | Expenses:supplier1 | n |         |     100.00 | 100,000.00
2012-01-02 | 102 | buy1.2      | Expenses:supplier1 | n |         |     100.00 |  99,900.00
2012-01-03 | 201 | buy2.1      | Expenses:supplier2 | n |         |     100.00 |  99,800.00
2012-01-04 | 202 | buy2.2      | Expenses:supplier2 | n |         |     100.00 |  99,700.00
2012-01-20 | 203 | buy2.3      | Expenses:supplier2 | n |         |     100.00 |  99,600.00
2012-01-21 | 204 | buy2.4      | Expenses:supplier2 | n |         |     100.00 |  99,500.00
2012-01-31 |     | interest    | Income:interest    | n |     1.00|            |  99,501.00

The Bank1 statement for 2012-01-31 shows:

------------------------Bank1CheckingAccount1-------------------------------------------
Date       | Description | Deposit | Withdrawal | Balance 
======================================================================================== 
2012-01-13 | Check #201  |         |     100.00 | 100,000.00
2012-01-14 | Check #202  |         |     100.00 |  99,900.00
2012-01-21 | Check #101  |         |     100.00 |  99,800.00
2012-01-22 | Check #102  |         |     100.00 |  99,700.00
2012-01-31 | interest    |    1.00 |     100.00 |  99,701.00


In Gnucash, the RegisterWindow shows(when Cleared Date requested):
  
------------------------Bank1CheckingAccount1----------------------------------------------
Date-Cleard| Num | Description | Transfer           | R | Deposit | Withdrawal | Balance 
=========================================================================================== 
2012-01-13 | 201 | buy2.1      | Expenses:supplier2 | n |         |     100.00 | 100,000.00
2012-01-14 | 202 | buy2.2      | Expenses:supplier2 | n |         |     100.00 |  99,900.00
2012-01-21 | 101 | buy1.1      | Expenses:supplier1 | n |         |     100.00 |  99,800.00
2012-01-22 | 102 | buy1.2      | Expenses:supplier1 | n |         |     100.00 |  99,700.00
2012-01-31 |     | interest    | Income:interest    | n |     1.00|            |  99,701.00
infinity   | 203 | buy2.3      | Expenses:supplier2 | n |         |     100.00 |  99,601.00
infinity   | 204 | buy2.4      | Expenses:supplier2 | n |         |     100.00 |  99,501.00