GnuCash - suggestion for possible enhancement

Jim Thompson jthomps6 at gmail.com
Sun May 11 14:38:40 EDT 2014


OK, thanks - I'll try to restate this...

Yep, I've found the very handy ways to create Scheduled Transactions and
the cool editor.  I have 10 scheduled trans, found the spiffy ways to
schedule and the templates - all is well there.

7 of the 10 transactions have amounts that stay the same for a long time.
 3 of them vary slightly from month to month.  I've now learned to make the
templates for those 3 just have a dollar amount.  For example:  PayeeX
 Monthly: 25 ... $123.00

I've also scheduled the above example to post 10 days early - on the 15th

Sometimes I notice the bill for PayeeX before the 15th, with an amount of
123.45 - so instead of waiting to correct the amount later, I'll enter the
123.45 now.

What Quicken would do is notice that I'm manually posting PayeeX for 123.45
for the 25th and say, "Is this the scheduled payment for PayeeX on 25th?"
 If I say, "yes" ... it knows to skip this month's scheduled entry and move
the scheduled payment to next month.  Actually Quicken seems to have a bit
of a fudge factor as well... so (another example) if I post a payment for
June 1, it might say, "is this the payment to XYZ scheduled for June 3?"

If I don't manually enter the payment, it will automatically post and I'll
fix it later (at least I have an approximate number, so I can see it
coming).

GC doesn't seem to notice the manual posting of a scheduled tran the way
that Quicken does... so I get both - the manually entered one and the (now
redundant) automatically scheduled one.  If I notice two payments of PayeeX
on the same date (123.45 and 123.00) I can just delete the extra one... but
GC would be a bit more clever if it emulated the Quicken trick and figured
out to not post the extra one (after asking me if I'm posting a scheduled
transaction).

Worth the effort to change GC?  One can only put the suggestion out there
and see if it gets some interest and enough votes to make it onto a list of
enhancements. Perhaps I should post this to a developer list??

Thanks,
Jim



On Sun, May 11, 2014 at 6:25 AM, David Carlson
<david.carlson.417 at gmail.com>wrote:

> On 5/10/2014 8:27 PM, Tommy Trussell wrote:
> > 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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> >>
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> >
>
> I always use that method to create scheduled transactions in GnuCash and
> I love it.
>
> If a transaction that has been created by the "Since Last Run" assistant
> is right clicked and scheduleed, the scheduled transaction opens in the
> Scheduled Transaction editor.  This makes it easy to modify settings, if
> desired.  I often change some of the text for the next instance, say in
> the memo or description.  The only downside is that using that procedure
> does not work if the original transaction is right-clicked.
>
> David C
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