[GNC] Keeping Imported Transactions from Overwriting Data?

[D.]

Frank, 

On the first point, I'd note that the books in question are mine; changing the transaction date from MY date to the bank's date would seem to contradict that. 

I was unaware that the matcher would match transactions that have different amounts. That seems worrying. 

Generally speaking, if I've entered my own description (whether by manually entering it, by a scheduled transaction, or use autofill), I prefer to use MY description. Why else would I have done that work in the first place? 

I don't know about common practice in the EU (which I believe is your location), but my experience in the US is that the bank's descriptions are meaningless machine mumbo jumbo that begin with a transaction code that precludes any meaningful grouping of transactions by description. Accepting the bank's descriptions over my own never made any sense to me. 

David T.




-------- Original Message --------
From: "Frank H. Ellenberger" <frank.h.ellenberger at gmail.com>
Sent: Sun Apr 12 18:05:59 GMT+05:30 2020
To: David Carlson <david.carlson.417 at gmail.com>, "D." <sunfish62 at yahoo.com>
Cc: Gnucash Users <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>, "Eric H. Bowen" <eric at ehbowen.net>
Subject: Re: [GNC] Keeping Imported Transactions from Overwriting Data?

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