What do you do with old uncleared transactions?

[David Carlson]

On 5/13/2015 3:55 PM, Mike or Penny Novack wrote:
> I'm going to stick my two cents in.
>
> This is not a "one size fits all" situation and it isn't really just
> gnucash.
>
> HOW you should treat an uncleared transaction depends on the
> situation. Let me give you an example, a real example, from an
> organization where I am on the finance committee and this came up.
>
> a) The organization wrote a payroll check.
> b) The employee deposited it in his account in his bank. No complaint
> about not being paid.
> c) Check never got back to our bank. Presumed lost between banks.
>
> No, we would not want to "void" showing we didn't pay the employee
> (annual total pay would be wrong, what we reported to governmental
> bodies wrong, etc.)
>
> To give an example possible treatment, creating a child account under
> checking for "bank error". In effect, unless the banks ever catch what
> went wrong, temporary "miscellaneous" income (yes, the organization's
> bank was informed but doesn't consider it their problem -- it's the
> other bank that's out the money but the organization has no
> relationship with that bank). Or you could create a liability account
> "pending bank error" (I would decide THAT choice based on whether I
> expected the error to ever be resolved; if years old, probably not).
>
> In other words, you have to decide what the situation is. In the
> initial question, the only information given us was that a check
> hadn't returned (and too stale at this point to clear). Won't know
> until the intended recipient has been contacted and asked if they
> received it and what happened.
>
> Michael D Novack
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Businesses may have additional requirements to fulfill.  In Illinois,
USA, after several years unclaimed property must be turned over to the
state.  Presumably that would include when a check is lost and the payee
does not try to get a replacement.  Your municipality may vary.

David C