My technique for Pending/processing transactions

[Geert Janssens]

On Monday 27 July 2015 06:51:34 Larry Evans wrote:
> On 07/27/2015 04:20 AM, cdn42 wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I use GnuCash to manage my personal finances, and I've been using it
> > for about 2 weeks now with a little success; now that I have a
> > system in place which I think works rather well I thought I would
> > see if it might help people out, if not garner some conversation by
> > posting about my method.
> > 
> > So here's the thing. When I was new to GnuCash, I was basically
> > entering in transactions for the dates that my bank was *due* to
> > post it - which was a little infuriating, and hard to guess
> > sometimes, since Bank of America is a little screwy with the dates.
> > 
> > After a little digging on this mailing list, this is the method I
> > now use.
> > 
> > I have this hierarchy of accounts:
> > 
> > Assets:Checking
> > Income:Pending
> > Expenses:Pending
> > 
> > When I spend money, I enter in the value from my receipt as an
> > Expenses:Pending transaction out of my Assets:Checking account. I
> > then mark it as cleared (c) when my bank knows it has depleted from
> > my available balance. The same for any salary payments - they are
> > new/not cleared (n) before my bank knows about it, then when it
> > shows as 'processing', I change it to cleared (since it now affects
> > my available balance). When it posts, it can be reconciled (y).
> > 
> > Sometimes it's a bit of extra legwork but the elegance and quality
> > of my data makes it worth it.
> > 
> > Eventually when those transactions *actually* clear I reconcile the
> > account against my statement, keeping the dates on my books as the
> > date I know I made the purchase. The post date not matching the
> > transaction date doesn't irk me. The description field on my
> > statement always includes the purchase date anyways.
> > 
> > This way I can also open up the Expenses:Pending account, and look
> > at the current pending transactions at a glance. Anything I know to
> > have posted can be moved into the relevant Expense account. If I
> > want to see the total in my bank account, I look at the 'cleared'
> > total in the bar at the bottom. My last bank statement should tally
> > with the 'reconciled' balance, my 'Present' total shows me how low
> > the balance should be at the end of the day when my planned
> > transactions clear, and my 'projected minimum' shows me how
> > reckless I can afford to be with my remaining funds. Even if I have
> > as-yet-unreconciled transactions sandwiched between reconciled ones.
> > I'm quite sure this is the way you're supposed to use the n/c/y
> > system, and it works quite well.
> > 
> > A lot less inelegant than using the statement date and NUM fields.
> > 
> > What are other people's preferred methods of dealing with pending
> > transactions?
> 
> For my checking account at, say Bank1, I've 2 accounts:
> 
>   Bank1:float
>     (showing date checks were written)
>   Bank1:cleared
>     (showing date checks were posted as shown on monthly statement)
> 
> However, maybe your method would work better since, IIUC, it shows
> pending income as well as pending expenses.  Hmm.  Accounts Receivable
> are for pending income and Accounts Payable are for pending expenses.
> I wonder if those types of accounts could be used for similar
> purposes.
> 
Those types of accounts are reserved for the business features of 
gnucash. While you could use them for what you have in mind, they were 
never intended for it so it's not recommended. It may throw off some 
(business) reports and confuse you if you later decide to start using 
the business features as well.

Geert