Beginner Issues with GNUCash

[Alton Brantley]

Another way to try to wrap your arms around your issue is to state what’s actually happening.

When you transfer funds from CoA to CoB, this is NOT what happens:
1/31	Pay a bill
CoA		CR 500
CoB		DB 500

What REALLY happens is
1/31 Pay a bill
CoA		CR 500
ACH	DB 500

2/1 Pay a bill
ACH	CR 500
CoB		DB 500

where ACH stands for the Automated clearing houses that aggregate and transfer funds

So, under each of my cash accounts, I have a subaccount called ACH

When my credit card account takes funds from my bank, I show the transaction as taking it from the bank ACH.
When the bank shows the payment, I show the ACH taking it from the bank.

Pleasant side effects of this, besides simply showing the dates correctly in all the accounts, is that by selecting “Show Subaccounts” when opening an account, you get the net balance of the account after all pending transactions complete, AND, when you look at the accounts view with subaccounts exploded, you can see what is pending.