[GNC] Keeping Imported Transactions from Overwriting Data?

David Carlson david.carlson.417 at gmail.com
Sun Apr 12 09:16:42 EDT 2020


Frank,

Thanks for the clarification of use cases where update might be preferred.
 As to the case where the description is preferred to be kept was stated in
the original email starting this thread.

In the days when paper checks were common, and it was common to have a
niece or nephew that took weeks to get around to deposit ing a birthday
check, one might want to know the payee name when it finally does come
back.

I think it would be nice to have an option to only update date or amount.


David Carlson

On Sun, Apr 12, 2020, 7:36 AM Frank H. Ellenberger <
frank.h.ellenberger at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Am 11.04.20 um 19:49 schrieb David Carlson:
> > David T,
> >
> > You are right.  I too am not sure why the (U)pdate option overwrites the
> > text of the existing transaction, but I think that it usually is offered
> as
> > the default when the date of the matched transaction is not the same as
> the
> > imported transaction, and possibly when the importer tries to match to a
> > transaction with a slightly different value.  Like you I usually prefer
> to
> > keep the existing text.
>
> There have been reasons why the update option is preferred:
> Date: You give the order on Friday, but the bank executes it on Monday.
> Amount: You use the teller machine of a third party, which charges
> higher fees than expected.
> Description: You enter a short description, but the bank completes it by
> e.g. additional SEPA details, ....
> or you have a scheduled transaction bank->expense:rent with a
> description "Monthly rent", but the real transaction has "Rent for
> <month> <year>"
>
> Question: what are the use cases, where it is the other way?
>
> > I get lazy with trying to match everything during the import when the
> clock
> > is running and Gnucash will soon be wanting to interrupt me with an
> > automatic save, so I often just let everything come in and sort it out
> > later.
>
> I have set autosave to once per day and save manually after finishing
> logical units.
>
> Regards
> Frank
>


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