Lost Checks - No Payee - Best Practice

Mon Jun 8 15:31:20 EDT 2015

Thanks for the suggestion Fred.

Re:"Why would you want a second account anyway? A txn with zero value does
not require a balancing split in another account."

But, it seems that if I do not assign an account for transfer, it defaults
to "Orphan".
--
And, thanks John for the standard accounting info. I am not an accountant,
and would be a classified as a newbie in accounting lingo.

Re: "Orphan", as I best understand is a trick by gc to put an incomplete
transaction somewhere.  What I do with a voided check is put "Void" in
the payee field, and post the zero credit amount to the checking
account, and post the zero debit amount to the expense account "misc".
If you choose to post every one of the voided checks, then I would
create an expense account "Voided Checks", but I don't think entering
all of the voided checks is necessary.  The intent of posting to the
expense account "Misc" is to honor standard accounting procedures.

Typically I would have thought that an "unused" voided check would have its
own classification, or could be left with a non-account name. However,
GnuCash defaults it to "Orphan".
When I have to void a check, due to error, lost in mail to Payee, expired,
etc., I would just void it in place, and leave the transfer account as is.
This way I could easily keep track of the original Payee/Date of attempted
payment.
As far as putting it into Expense:Misc, I was trying to avoid cluttering
the category.
--
Does anyone know if it would cause damage by leaving it in the default of
"Orphan"?

Thanks again to everyone,

Moshe

On Mon, Jun 8, 2015 at 12:00 PM, <gnucash-user-request at gnucash.org> wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
>
>    2. Re: Lost Checks - No Payee - Best Practice (Fred Bone)
>    4. Re: Lost Checks - No Payee - Best Practice (MySpam)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2015 06:11:54 +0100
> From: "Fred Bone" <Fred.Bone at dial.pipex.com>
> To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> Subject: Re: Lost Checks - No Payee - Best Practice
> Message-ID: <5575241A.11929.CF2A6F6 at Fred.Bone.dial.pipex.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
> On 7 June 2015 at 18:35, Milton Stern said:
>
> [...]
> > Anyway, back to the uses of the "Orphan" account.
> > Wm... I'm confused. From your description, wouldn't it be appropriate for
> > the "Orphan" account if a "Voided" check has no Payee matching account?
> Is
> > it better to let our confused financial banks keep track without a
> > notation within our local software?
>
> Why would you want a second account anyway? A txn with zero value does
> not require a balancing split in another account.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2015 16:34:00 -0700
> From: MySpam <myspam at americansentry.net>
> To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> Subject: Re: Lost Checks - No Payee - Best Practice
> Message-ID: <5574D4E8.1050109 at americansentry.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> "Orphan", as I best understand is a trick by gc to put an incomplete
> transaction somewhere.  What I do with a voided check is put "Void" in
> the payee field, and post the zero credit amount to the checking
> account, and post the zero debit amount to the expense account "misc".
> If you choose to post every one of the voided checks, then I would
> create an expense account "Voided Checks", but I don't think entering
> all of the voided checks is necessary.  The intent of posting to the
> expense account "Misc" is to honor standard accounting procedures.
>
> John
>
>
>
> On 06/07/2015 03:35 PM, Milton Stern wrote:
> > Just an update on the Lost check situation.
> >
> > 1. The bank, via secure email, informed me that their initial response
> was
> > in error. There would be no charge fo "Stop Check" orders for checks lost
> > in the mail from their order center to me.
> > 2. They sent me new checks that arrived within 2 days (no charge for
> > expedited shipping.) - I was impressed
> > 3. The "Lost" checks arrived the same day via regular mail (1 month
> late).
> > Asked the bank if they would unstop the "lost" checks, or I should
> destroy
> > them. There response was to disregard the "lost" checks, but I could use
> > them after 6 months because a check stop order is only good for 6 months.
> > Very strange response. But, I guess it makes sense for a dated check to
> be
> > stopped only for 6 months because a dated check is invalid after 6
> months.
> > Good thing that I have a decent diamond cut shredder. Anybody need some
> > confetti?
> >
> > Anyway, back to the uses of the "Orphan" account.
> > Wm... I'm confused. From your description, wouldn't it be appropriate for
> > the "Orphan" account if a "Voided" check has no Payee matching account?
> > Is it better to let our confused financial banks keep track without a
> > notation within our local software?
> >
> > Thanks.
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 7:53 AM, <gnucash-user-request at gnucash.org>
> wrote:
> >
> >> Send gnucash-user mailing list submissions to
> >>          gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> >>
> >> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> >>          https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
> >> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> >>          gnucash-user-request at gnucash.org
> >>
> >> You can reach the person managing the list at
> >>          gnucash-user-owner at gnucash.org
> >>
> >> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> >> than "Re: Contents of gnucash-user digest..."
> >>
> >>
> >> Today's Topics:
> >>
> >>     1. Re: Lost Checks - No Payee - Best Practice (Wm)
> >>
> >>
> >> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>
> >> Message: 1
> >> Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2015 19:57:06 +0100
> >> From: Wm <wm+gnc at tarrcity.demon.co.uk>
> >> To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> >> Subject: Re: Lost Checks - No Payee - Best Practice
> >> Message-ID: <OVxo$AHCEfcVFw$T at tarrcity.demon.co.uk>
> >> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=us-ascii;format=flowed
> >>
> >> Tue, 2 Jun 2015 15:49:34
> >> <CACzT_q9rL-NTE8KpK4m=LHxymiDd3OXLj+6aVrT0vHGx-=bQqw at mail.gmail.com>
> >> Milton Stern <drmoshe5 at gmail.com>
> >>
> >> A "Lost Check" account would work. May I ask if it would be
> >> inappropriate
> >> to match with the "Orphan" account?
> >> I'm not clear on the "Orphan" usage.
> >>
> >>
> >> Do NOT use an Orphan a/c for this (or anything else) they are gnc's way
> >> of saying something has gone wrong (transaction not balanced, etc).
> >>
> >> If there was no cost associated I'd void the set of cheques with the
> >> bank and leave it up to them not to honour them
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Wm...
> >>
> >>
> >> ------------------------------
> >>
> >>
> >> Subject: Digest Footer
> >>
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> >>
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2015 06:54:48 -0700
> From: John Ralls <jralls at ceridwen.us>
> To: Brian Buchalter <bal711 at gmail.com>
> Cc: "gnucash-user at gnucash.org" <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
> Subject: Re: 2.6.6 Crashes on Open on OS X 10.9.5
> Message-ID: <78E556B0-1542-40DC-8352-8E5851C96B92 at ceridwen.us>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
>
>
> > On Jun 8, 2015, at 4:03 AM, Brian Buchalter <bal711 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I believe it was an Income/Expense Report, but not sure which one. Would
> it be helpful to try and reproduce?
> >
>
>
> Probably not, as it?s likely a WebKit bug that we can?t do anything about.
>
> Regards,
> John Ralls
>
>
>
>
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