Having 2 Descriptions Per Transaction

[Geert Janssens]

On Thursday 05 November 2015 15:20:35 Bilb766 wrote:
> I have transactions from different accounts that I would like to link
> together, but would prefer to have 2 different names/descriptions for
> these transactions.
> 
> The problem is this: I have a chequing and savings account.  I import
> the transaction details from my bank for both accounts.
> 
> For one transaction going from chequing to savings, the chequing
> account statement give this transaction description of "To Savings",
> while the savings account statement calls this transaction "from
> Chequing."  When I import transaction data into GnuCash, I use the
> transaction wizard which detects the "duplicate" transaction and
> match them.  So far so good.  But GnuCash retains the transaction
> description of whichever account data I import last.
> 
> In the above example, if I import my chequing statement first, GnuCash
> calls that transaction  "To Savings" as per the chequing statement. 
> Then I import my savings statement.  I go through the import wizard
> and match the accompanying transaction.  After I do that, that
> transaction description uses the savings account description and
> becomes "from Chequing".
> 
> The problem is that, when I view the transactions in my Chequing
> account, I have all these transactions called "from Chequing" which
> is not very informative.  Is there a way for a single transaction to
> keep have 2 different descriptions/names?
> 
Hi,

It is unfortunately not possible to do exactly what you want here. There are a few possible ways 
around it though:

1. The first and most obvious imo is to rename the transaction "Transfer from checking to 
saving" or something like that. That's a description that works for both accounts.

2. Another option is to set the information on the splits of the transaction instead of on the 
general transaction description. Each transaction you describe above consists of two splits and 
each split can have its own memo. So you could set the memo for the savings account split to 
"From Checking" and the one on the checking account split to "From savings".

3. Both require you to manually fix your transaction during or after the import. Another 
possibility would be to work with an intermediate account. That's what most accounting 
packages here in Belgium do as well. That means, when you import your checking account, set 
the savings transactions to go to an intermediate account, named say "Internal transfer". The 
transaction description can remain "to Savings". Then when you import your savings account, 
set your checking transactions to go to that transfer account as well, and keep the description 
as "from Checking". In the end the transfer's account balance should always be 0. 

This last option has an advantage as well that it handles date differences between your own 
bank accounts. For accounts with the same bank the transaction normally affects both 
accounts on the same day, but if you have accounts in different banks a transfer can take one 
or more business days.

Is one of these variants useful to you ?

Regards,

Geert