GnuCash - suggestion for possible enhancement

[Tommy Trussell]

On Fri, May 9, 2014 at 12:01 PM, Jim Thompson <jthomps6 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Both Quicken and GC support Scheduled Transactions, but Quicken has an
> extra feature I've not seen in GC.  When one manually enters a transaction
> which is also scheduled (and not yet automatically entered), Quicken pops
> up a window and says something like, "is this the scheduled transaction for
> xxxx?"  If the user replies with "yes" then Quicken knows that scheduled
> event is already taken care of and it skips the scheduled one (instead of
> entering it a second time).
>
> The lack of this extra check in GC isn't a major pain - just have to be
> aware of it.
>
> Why do I manually enter a scheduled transaction?  I've scheduled the
> transaction as a reminder, in case I forget to enter a monthly bill... but
> these tend to be transactions where the amount can vary a little bit each
> month.  If I notice the actual bill amount before the automated entry, I'll
> just plug it in... otherwise I correct it later.  Quicken just helped a bit
> by noticing the manual entry might be the scheduled one...
>

Here's a feature you may not have noticed in GnuCash --

Enter a transaction in your checking or credit account register, then click
on it (or any existing transaction) and choose the menu item:

Actions --> Schedule...

and you will activate the Schedule Transaction dialog, with all the
information copied from the existing transaction. If you choose Frequency:
"Monthly" (for example) you will notice the scheduled transaction defaults
with a date one month in the future from the selected transaction. If you
click the "Advanced..." button you will see that you can then modify the
parameters to adjust how weekends are handled, or choose a different day of
the month, etc.

I know this is "backwards" from what you are used to in Quicken, but it's
actually a bit easier because it's MUCH easier to assign the credit and
debit columns correctly in the "live" register than in the Scheduled
Transaction register. (The scheduled transaction register is intended to be
a template so it allows you to enter variables or numbers that don't add
up, so you have to supply the variables or "adjust" the scheduled
transaction after it gets created.

Give it a try, and you may decide you prefer the "GnuCash way." :-)



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