What's the best way to model "in-flight" transactions?

[Mark Phillips]

One way to think about the float is to, well, not think about it. When you
pay you credit card company with bill pay, those funds are "gone" in the
sense you really should not use them for another transaction. So, enter the
transaction as you have been doing. Your gnucash bank balance will be
correct, as you have earmarked those credit card funds for the credit card
payment. When you reconcile your bank account, those funds will either be
gone or not, it doesn't matter, as your gnucash balance will still reflect
the correct amount of disposable cash in your bank account.

Mark

On Sep 28, 2017 7:17 AM, "David Carlson" <david.carlson.417 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I think the answer is "What works best for you."
>
> When most of our bank account transactions were checks (cheques in many
> countries) we entered each check by date and number in the checkbook
> register.  When the bank statement came we compared it to our register,
> checking off each one that appeared on the statement.  Then we made a list
> of the checks (and deposits) that did not match the bank statement, added
> them up and compared sum of those and the statement balance to our
> checkbook register balance.  Since we did it all by hand, there were months
> when we would tear our hair out trying to find out why they did not agree.
>
> I personally use a pair of special accounts that I call Checking A-R and
> Checking A-P to hold items that are in float, but I only use them when I
> want to account for float, say, over the transition from month to month, or
> when there is an unusual issue with a missing check or whatever as each
> transaction gets entered twice.
>
> I only consider doing this for bank accounts, credit card accounts, and
> sometimes for medical bills if I am trying to track what I owe there.
>
> David C
>
> On Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 7:39 AM, replicon <replicon at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hey all,
> >
> > I've been using/loving GNUCash for almost a year now, and one thing I'm
> > sure
> > I'm doing wrong is how I'm showing credit card payments.
> >
> > For paying credit card bills, I just use my bank's bill pay. The bank is
> > different from the credit card provider, so there's some "in-flight" time
> > for that money. The day the withdrawal shows up on my checking account is
> > not the same as the day the payment shows up when I login to my credit
> card
> > provider and check transactions there.
> >
> > Right now, in GNUCash, I just do a transaction from checking account to
> > credit card, and by convention, always adjust the time to reflect
> checking
> > account, but I wonder if there's a more correct way to do it.
> >
> > The best I can think of is to have a separate account for "in-flight"
> > transactions between establishments, and turn the credit card payment
> into
> > two transactions that go through this account. Is that the best way to do
> > it? If so, what account type would that be? Would it be an asset, because
> > in
> > a way, it's like I'm loaning money to some imaginary entity for a while,
> > which it will repay to my other account a day or two later? :)
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> >
> >
> > --
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> f1415819.html
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