General Ledger Issue: Unable to clear transaction once transacttion is "entered"

[David Carlson]

On 11/1/2013 4:41 AM, Michael Hendry wrote:
> On 31 Oct 2013, at 19:34, drouinj2 <drouinj at shaw.ca> wrote:
>
>> First Kudos to the people behind GnuCash; pretty cool tool!
>>
>> Anyway, I currently moving from QuickBooks to GnuCash. For the most part,
>> the conversion  has been 
>> relatively easy and successful. Until now, I have used the "General Ledger"
>> window to enter most transactions. In the case of "regular" transaction, I
>> have also duplicated existing transactions in each specific "Account"
>> register. 
>>
>> This is a new issue relating the General Ledger, although entering the
>> transaction using an Account register will yield the same results.
>>
>> Basically, up to recently, when entering a "completed" transaction, the data
>> is moved to each account as expected.
>>
>> For instance, entering a regular "Monthly Bank Service Charge: would
>> involved 
>> 	1) crediting the "Assets: Current Assets:Checking Account", and
>> 	2) debiting the "Expenses: Bank Service Charge" account by the same amount. 
>> 	3) "clicking" the Enter button,
>> 	4) At this point, in the past, the transaction would be "cleared" from the
>> general ledger and all required accounts are updated as required.
>> 	
>> Now, with this new issue, all required accounts are updated as required, but
>> the transaction is NOT cleared from the general ledger. Just to be clear and
>> avoid any language issues, by clearing the General ledger, I mean "not being
>> visible in the ledger. Of course, the transaction still appears in the
>> General Journal as expected.
>>
>> Just so you know, I have something like 19 pages worth the transactions. Up
>> to new issue, the earlier behavior has been consistent. I have tried many
>> different transactions, deleted the "un-cleareable ones", etc. Still getting
>> the same results.
>>
>>
>> Can any one tell what these "un-cleareable transactions" mean? I will gladly
>> provide more information if required.  Off hand I am not sure what else to
>> add here. This is a rather simple activity. I simply have no idea of what i
>> am doing wrong?
>>
>> Any help is welcome.
>>
>> Jean Drouin
>>
>> Thanks in advance.
>>
>
> Although the "General Ledger” is classified as a Report in GnuCash, it is possible to edit old and create new transactions using it.
>
> Although you can obviously enter your transactions as you think fit, why don’t you open a tab for your Bank Account, and enter the monthly bank service charge through it? (You could also create a Scheduled Transaction to automate this particular regular payment, but that’s another topic).
>
> That said, GnuCash shouldn’t get in the way of your working the way you want to work! I’m puzzled by your suggestion that transactions disappear from the General Ledger - does this mean that when you open it you have a completely blank page? Is it possible that you have been entering historic transactions, and that once you have entered them they disappear from view as there are sufficient recent transactions to fill the page? Have you tried scrolling up to find these transactions?
>
> As the General Ledger is just another way of viewing transactions, however they have been recorded, there is no way that a transaction entered through its screen can disappear, while still being visible in the relevant accounts.
>
> Best of luck!
>
> Michael
>
>
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Wait!!!!
The General Ledger defaults to only show transactions starting one month
before the date on which the program opened the current view of the
file.  Thus transactions dated more than a month previous have
'disappeared'.  As Michael has pointed out, while entering history
through that view, each old transaction would seem to disappear when
committed.  Then transactions less than a month before the date the
current session of the program was started will not disappear.

To change this go to the menubar and select View > Filter by...  then
change the date range as desired. 
Note that in release 2.4.13 and earlier this is a temporary change that
is not retained for the next  program session.

Once the date range is set to an earlier date, those older transactions
can be seen in that view, they have not really disappeared or been
'Cleared'  But, once you have thousands of transactions in the file it
will be very unwieldy to view old transactions that way.

I would not use that method to enter old transactions because, for me,
they would be disappearing before I was done with them.

The program uses a completely different and more sane definition for
'Cleared'. 
Following the common notion that 'Cleared" means that the transaction
has been posted to the customer's account by the bank, the programs
simulates this by changing the 'n' character to 'c' when a transaction
is downloaded from the bank. 
Then the manual Reconciliation action will change the 'c' to 'y'.  No
transactions disappear unless they are manually deleted.

As Michael pointed out, it is far more convenient to use an asset
account view such as your bank account to enter transactions.

David C