GNUCash value proposition

[John Morris]

> 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.  

  To each his own. I enter every transaction just about as soon as possible: usually when I get home to my computer. However, I often have the computer with me and enter a gas purchase as we leave the gas station. I find this much less tedious than trying to remember all our purchases and expected credits from the last month or so. In addition, entering the transactions as they come gives me a much closer approximation of our financial situation that I could get from a monthly reconciliation.

Best,
John

> On Jun 4, 2017, at 10:21 PM, Lincoln A Baxter <lab at lincolnbaxter.com> wrote:
> 
> 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