Automatically reconcile interest charges

[David Carlson]

On 2/11/2015 8:05 AM, AC wrote:
> On 2015-02-11 04:55, David Carlson wrote:
>> On 2/11/2015 12:28 AM, Edward Doolittle wrote:
>>> In my personal experience the date the interest is added at the end of the
>>> statement period, so after the last transaction on the statement and before
>>> any new transactions. When you add the interest transaction, be careful to
>>> set the date properly; do not use the date you receive the statement but
>>> rather the closing date of the statement. Then the interest charge should
>>> appear right after all the other transactions once they have been cleared.
>>>
>>> On 11 February 2015 at 00:11, AC <gnucash at acarver.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 2015-02-10 21:58, Edward Doolittle wrote:
>>>>> Since the information about the interest came from the bank rather than
>>>>> from the user, it makes sense to mark it as cleared (but not as
>>>> reconciled
>>>>> until the reconciliation process is complete).
>>>>>
>>>>> That said, I personally have never had any trouble finding the interest
>>>>> transaction during the reconciliation process. Interest is typically
>>>>> charged at the end of the statement period so it will show up near the
>>>> end
>>>>> of the clearing items during the reconciliation process. I just look for
>>>>> interest charges last, after I've cleared everything else.
>>>>>
>>>>> I sometimes think that I should be trying harder to verify the bank's
>>>>> calculation of interest. In some cases it's easy but in other cases not
>>>> so
>>>>> much. I usually just ballpark it in my head and hit enter when my mental
>>>>> calculation inevitably agrees (within a healthy margin of error) with the
>>>>> bank's calculation.
>>>> This is a credit card rather than a bank but it doesn't really matter.
>>>> In my case, the interest charge is usually separated from the
>>>> transactions within the billing period by all of the transactions from
>>>> the subsequent billing period.  As an example, one of my cards has a
>>>> billing period that ends on the first of each month (so the billing
>>>> period is essentially an entire natural calendar month).  I don't
>>>> typically receive my bill until about two weeks later.  In those two
>>>> weeks I accumulate more transactions.  Now when I finally receive the
>>>> bill and reconcile, there could be several dozen or more transactions
>>>> added to the account.  Once I reach the end of the transactions to
>>>> reconcile, there's still many more that belong to the next period and
>>>> somewhere in there is the interest entry.
>> AC,
>>
>> Perhaps your issue is one of timing when or how you are selecting your
>> date range when you do your download.  What if you chose to download
>> only transactions through the closing date of your statement?  Some
>> credit cards only let you do it that way anyway.
>>
>> Another thought.  Perhaps you are noticing that the reconcile window
>> shows transactions after the closing date that you selected when you
>> started reconciling.  That is the way the reconcile window works.  All
>> of the downloaded transactions will be pre-checked when you start the
>> reconcile and future transactions will be un-checked.  That makes the
>> search as simple as looking for the first un-checked transaction in the
>> right hand column.
>>
>> I find it easier to keep my bearings in the reconcile list when the
>> 'future' transactions are shown, because I often check whether certain
>> transactions cleared before or after the closing date.
> I don't download my transactions, I type them all in from the receipts
> as I make them (entered at the end of each day).  When the bill arrives
> in the mail I start the reconcile process at which point the interest
> gets entered using the Interest Charge dialog that comes up when
> reconciliation starts (I don't directly enter it into the register like
> a normal transaction, I only use the dialog box).  When I start to
> reconcile, no transactions since the last reconciliation are marked.
>
> I fully understand that the reconcile window shows all transactions
> after the date selected.  That's the same way any other software package
> works (MS Money did the same, all transactions since the last statement
> date) and I have no problem with that.  The issue is that the interest
> charge is buried among all of the last and current period transactions
> (again, none of which are cleared yet) but, since the interest was
> entered by actually reading the bill and typing into the Interest Charge
> dialog box, I would like it to be auto-cleared after it is entered via
> the that dialog box.  I'm already in the reconcile process to begin with
> when that dialog box appears so it seems reasonable to have that happen.
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Sorry, I was very slow to understand your question.  Now that I think I
do, it is a very good one, if the user has chosen the quick entry
procedure to add the interest, it would be logical for the program to
pre-mark it as reconciled.  Since I do not use that procedure, I never
noticed that GnuCash doesn't.

David C