GNUCash value proposition

[Lincoln A Baxter]

If we all had the time and discipline to enter every transaction as it
was made, this is all true. Entering transactions as they are made is
very hard, and without a client that you carry with you it is virtually
impossible, even if one existed, it would be tedious. The fact is the
Bank is that application, they do it for you.  They HAVE to!  The
reason import exists and is widely used (I do), is that it saves the
time of entering all the transactions.  

That said, I review every transaction I import before I complete the
import.  If I don't recognize/remember a transaction, I research it to
verify if I (or my wife) made it and what it was for.  I do this as
part of assigning transactions to balancing accounts.  

I do this for both the Baysian matched tranactions (some transactions
it never gets right), and for the unmatched transactions.  When I find
things out of balance, it is almost always because a transaction was
not matched by the Baysian matcher, which then becomes a double
transaction in the account, or not imported. In the end I believe I
would catch fraud if it occurred. The Bank's math has never been wrong.

There are two wishes I have for the transaction import review window
that would improve this experience:

1) I wish I could edit descriptions, this would be a HUGE improvement,
over trying to remember to go back and find them and edit them
afterwards.

2) I could split transactions in the import window... Same reasons...
but if I could edit transaction descriptions, I would be able to find
them more easily after import, and then split them. I use the imbalance
account to do this when I have to, but it has the draw back of
confusing the Bayesian matcher. 

I'll bet the later (2) is harder than the former. The former would save
a bunch of time.

Lincoln


On Thu, 2017-06-01 at 11:48 -0500, Abhijit Kshirsagar wrote:
> This is a superb note about how reconciliations should be used.
> Abhijit
> 
> On 24 April 2017 at 12:02, Buddha Buck <blaisepascal at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I am not a Quicken convert, but I'll point out a benefit of entering your
> > transactions manually as Russell and CM suggest: It gives you a point of
> > comparison when doing a bank reconciliation.
> >
> > The purpose of an account reconciliation is to make sure that your view of
> > your accounts with an outside entity match their view of your accounts with
> > them. If you think you deposited $500 into your bank account, you want to
> > be sure the bank thinks the same thing. If the bank thinks you paid $354
> > via a debit card, you want to be sure that you agree. If you don't agree,
> > then there's a problem -- either the bank made an error, you made an error,
> > or something nefarious is going on.
> >
> > If you import transactions that your bank says you did, then that
> > fraudulent $354 debit card transaction will become part of your personal
> > record of what happened in your account. You won't catch it unless you
> > review your transactions. Reconciliation will say "Yep, the bank says I
> > spent $354, my records says I spent $354, so OK, everything's good". And
> > you're out $354.
> >
> > On the other hand, if you manually enter your transactions, then do a
> > reconciliation, then you will see the $354 transaction from the bank, but
> > not in your records, and you have an opportunity to go "wait, what's up
> > here?" and catch the fraud. You would also catch the $25 birthday check you
> > gave your nephew that he hasn't cashed yet, and the $25 birthday check to
> > your niece that you forgot to record that she *has* cashed. None of those
> > would be noticed if you imported your transaction report from the bank.
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