Accrual / Cash Acct

[Christopher Lam]

Dear All,

I understand this is more bookkeeping than gnucash type question, I
thought I'd give it a try:

I've been using Gnucash successfully for the past 2 years now, and
I've always used the date as it appears from the bank statement to
record my transactions. This means I usually wait a few days for the
bank to release the statement onto onlinebanking to record the
transactions. I understand this may be described as (modified) Cash
Accounting.

On the other hand, from my understanding of reading
bookkeeping/accounting guides, they usually advocate using the Invoice
Date or Date of Transacting (i.e. buying shares... buying a house...
doing work for a client for later billing/payment processing), or, as
is better known as, Accrual Accounting.

I have little inclination to change my practices especially that I
understand some of the risks. I prefer trusting my bank statement far
more than I wish to enter individual transactions and try reconcile
every month. But does anyone have any particular advice on what
exactly I'll be missing by this method?