Entering Scheduled transactions early

[Michael Hendry]

On 31 Mar 2013, at 13:47, David Carlson <david.carlson.417 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 3/31/2013 4:49 AM, Michael Hendry wrote:
>> On 31 Mar 2013, at 04:49, prl <prl at ozemail.com.au> wrote:
>> 
>>> David's suggestion was the only one I could think of, too. All my regular income and expenditure scheduled transactions are set to be created 5 days ahead anyway, so I can see them coming up in the register.
>>> 
>>> Peter
>> 
>> Hi, Peter.
>> 
>> I'm still puzzled as to why you might want to adjust the income from your pension by a couple of days - are you running your finances so close to the edge that what you spend on a Bank Holiday weekend is influenced by your weekly pension arriving a couple of days early?
>> 
>> Assuming you know in advance that your pension will be arriving early on one particular weekend, you could adjust the date on the scheduled transaction as soon as it's been posted - this would have been on Wednesday last week if you're running your scheduled transactions 5 days ahead, or earlier if you posted them further in advance.
>> 
>> I know from bitter personal experience that running personal accounts on a computer comes dangerously close to Obsessive-Compulsive behaviour, with every last penny time-consumingly counted and reconciled…
>> 
>> Michael
>> 
>> 
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> If there is a twelve step program for OCD I might qualify for
> membership, but the definition of accounting  with double entry
> bookkeeping calls for zero errors. 

Agreed.

> That said, I have slept on my original answer, re-read it, and I now
> realize that I did not make it clear that what I intended to say was to
> set the scheduled transactions to be created early by a comfortable
> number of days then adjust the register transaction when it does not
> match reality.  I find that I tend to create double entries or worse,
> missed entries when I try to fiddle with schedule changes.

Also agreed

> 
> I actually have many of my recurring tansactions created 63 or 70 days
> early.  Often amounts are estimated, like my utility bills.  Also,
> before reconciling I prefer to adjust the entry dates to match the bank
> records, but that is only my preference.  Peter can have his own preference.

Agreed, personal preference is a perfectly valid reason. 

I suppose there might be some difficulties if the adjustment shifted a transaction from one tax year into another. For example, if I write a cheque for a tax-relevant expense a week before the end of the tax year, and the recipient is slow to cash it, I would still want to claim it as an expense in the old tax year, not the new one, so my records would include date-cheque-written not date-cheque-cleared-through-bank.

Michael


> David C
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