Automatic entries based on a current manual entry

Edward Doolittle edward.doolittle at gmail.com
Sun Feb 15 20:15:03 EST 2015


I don't think it can be done entirely automatically unless the amount of
the payment is the same each transaction.

But you can mostly "automate" it by entering a single transaction with four
splits:

Description: PointsCard payment
Dr. Credit card $500
Cr. Checking $500
Dr. Points asset account 500
Cr. Points income account 500

Then when you enter "pointscard payment" or some substring thereof into the
description, autofill will generate the transaction with the numbers you
used last time. You would just have to enter the four numbers.

You could further automate the transaction by scheduling it. The time
savings would be minimal because you would still have to edit the numbers.
Personally I only schedule payments that are automatically taken from my
chequing account and are the same from month to month. All other payments I
enter them into GnuCash manually with a date as far into the future as
possible and use my online bank's ability to schedule one payment at a
future date.

You can keep track of points in an asset account by using a made-up
currency. You can keep track of the approximate value of the asset by
setting up an appropriate exchange rate.

I suspect the 1-1 correspondence between payment amount and points would
not work for most people because different categories of purchases may lead
to different rates of point accumulation, e.g., restaurant meals may
generate 2 points per dollar and gas may generate 3 points per dollar. The
split transaction would still work, using different numbers, e.g.,

Description: PointsCard payment
Dr. Credit card $500
Cr. Checking $500
Dr. Points asset account 600
Cr. Points income account 600

However, in such a case, the connection between payment and points
accumulation is not so clear, so I would separate them into two
transactions.

On 15 February 2015 at 15:54, AC <gnucash at acarver.net> wrote:

> I know the subject is a bit confusing but there isn't much room.  I was
> wondering if there is a way to have GC insert an entry into an account
> automatically using data from a manual entry.  Specifically I want to
> keep track of rewards points that accumulate every time I make a
> payment.  The number of points is equal to the payment itself.  So if I
> enter a transaction to pay an account from say my checking account, I
> would like to automatically make a duplicate entry in the "reward points
> account" to increase its balance.
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-- 
Edward Doolittle
Associate Professor of Mathematics
First Nations University of Canada
1 First Nations Way, Regina SK S4S 7K2

« Toutes les fois que je donne une place vacante, je fais cent mécontents
et un ingrat. »
-- Louis XIV, dans Voltaire, Le Siècle de Louis XIV, Chap. XXVI


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