Automatically reconcile interest charges

[Mark Phillips]

On the one hand, having the interest charge automatically cleared saves a
mouse click. On the other hand, I appreciate the concept that there is only
one place a transaction can be cleared, and that is the reconciliation
window. I sometimes have over a hundred transactions in a month to clear (I
don't download from the bank, I do it manually from the statement), and I
have never had an issue finding that interest entry and clearing it with
one mouse click. Maybe an option in the settings to allow automatic
clearing of the interest charge?

This tread has reminded me of a small issue I have had with interest
charges. I seem to remember that if I start a reconciliation (say a savings
account), enter the interest and then check off a few items in the
reconciliation window, and then cancel the whole reconciliation process,
the interest charge is not removed. When I come back to reconcile the
account again, I get the same dialog to enter the interest charge for the
month (still blank), so now I have two interest charges for that month. It
is no big deal, as deleting the extra interest charge from the
reconciliation window is very easy. However, automatically marking the
charge as cleared will create several scary warnings when you try to delete
the duplicate charge. New users will probably freak out, which will spur a
large number of messages to the list....;)

Mark

On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 7:51 AM, David Carlson <david.carlson.417 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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
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