Internal transfer accounts (was:Having 2 Descriptions Per Transaction)

[Wm...]

Fri, 6 Nov 2015 11:05:58 <3925045.Kd771LdALL at legolas.kobaltwit.lan>
Geert Janssens <geert.gnucash at kobaltwit.be> wrote...

[snip]

>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 this an acknowledged way of doing things in computerised accounting 
in Belgium generally?  I mean do auditors look at books that include an 
Internal Transfer Account and understand what it is there for?

Is it usually an Asset / Liability account with a specific use (e.g. 
interbank transfers) or a more general Equity account that balances to 
zero most of the time in practical use?

Regular use of Suspense accounts (of which your Internal Transfer 
Account is an example) seem to be frowned on these days [1] in spite of 
providing very real solutions to every day accounting problems like 
"where was the money between two bank accounts over the weekend".

[1] that may just be because they have been abused in the past for 
hiding things rather than accounting for them.

-- 
Wm...