[GNC] How to use Reminders?

[Fran_3]

 Please, wake up and smell the real world small business day old burnt coffee at the end of a 12 hour day when you are trying to do the bookkeeping and still get home for a few hours sleep before it all starts over again...
Look... if you are working the front desk, or the floor, and trying to do other small business duties, doing the books, and trying to keep up with bills from a large quantity of vendors...- And some vendors don't actually send you a bill, they just expect you to know they want their payment by the 10th of the month or whatever...- While other vendors send bills via snail mail...- And other vendors email bills- And now some small vendors are even (exclusively) using Social Media Private Messenger instead of email to send bills...
- So bills are coming in from every direction...Some times it gets very hard to keep up with the mail, email, etc...Results... things fall through the cracks no matter how hard you work.
So now you are telling me to keep up with multiple calendars ! Yet another job piled on the head of some poor owner or employee working at a conically understaffed, hanging on for dear life, small business !!!
Forget the damn boss's birthday and Valentines day... the main issue here is having specific reminders to remember to go find and post every bill that came in from who knows where.
If it were that easy to "just post the bills" the OP would have never been created.
Sorry for the rant, we love GC... but creating/modifying the code for a simple general purpose reminder ain't that big of a job.
My guess here is this is about setting design boundaries to minimize project creep... got it... but this one is so close to the line that I dare characterize it as a reasonable "suggestion"...
There is probably a way to use the current reminder feature to "fake it" just to get an "in your face" reminder to  do whatever. I'll post back  if  I come up with such.




    On Wednesday, December 9, 2020, 1:50:45 PM EST, Derek Atkins <derek at ihtfp.com> wrote:  
 
 Hi,

Before I respond inline below, I just want to point out that GnuCash is
not a calendaring system.  If you want to remember things like your Boss'
birthday or Valentine's day, there are much better tools (like your
calendar!) to do that.  So use those tools for those kinds of reminders.

Having said that....

On Wed, December 9, 2020 1:10 pm, Fran_3 via gnucash-user wrote:
> Problem with "Bills Due" reminder popup is if you have forgotten to Post
> the bill you don't get reminded.

Why do you not post the bill as soon as you get it?  I mean, if you take
the time to enter in your bill into the system, why not post it
immediately?  It's not like the bill is going to change over time, or be
ammended.  So in the immortal words of "Doctor, it hurts when I do
this"...  "Don't Do That."

Post your bill when you enter it.  That's what the reminders are for, to
pay the bill that you entered AND POSTED.

>      Problem with missing your boss's birthday
> is you forgot what date it was.

This is not a GnuCash problem; use your calendar for that.  There are many
options, like Orange and Evolution, which will do a MUCH better job.

> So, how do you create a general purpose Reminders for various things in
> GnuCash like..- Post Electric Bill Today (this reminds you to go find the
> bill online or in the mail or wherever & post it)
> - Boss's birthday is on April 1st- Valentines Day coming up on February
> 14th- Leave check under door mat for yard guy

None of these reminders belong in GnuCash.

> I see the calendar view via clicking... Actions > Schedule > Edit
> Scheduled Transactions
> And the tabs & fields when I click "New"
> And most of the fields are obvious except under Template Transaction...
> I'm clueless about what I'm looking at...Is tat a template for...- a new
> bill to be posted- a reminder to pay a bill- or what?

The Template Transaction is the transaction you have scheduled.  The
template will be executed and posted into your accounts when the SX fires.
 The template can be anything (well, any transaction -- you cannot
schedule a Business feature object like Invoice or Bill).  I, personally,
use them to schedule Loan (and Mortgage) payments, because it can
approximate interest calculations.

> And, what about a reminder that is not a financial transaction?
> Questions:
> 1 - Is there a way to create General Purpose Reminders in GnuCash?

No.

> 2 - Where can I find instructions on how to navigate to General Purpose
> Reminders?

Read up on Evolution (the program, not the Theory of).

> 3 - Is there a document that explains the use of the various fields in
> either...
> a. the General Purpose Reminder or in
>
> b. Scheduled Transactions Reminders?

There should be documentation the SX Editor, yes.  Check the Help file.

Oh, one more thing -- keep in mind that you can post-date a transaction. 
For example, I tell my bank to go pay my credit card $1234 on the 17th. 
Even though today is the 9th, I can enter a transaction dated the 17th
from Bank -> CC for $1234, so GnuCash records that I set the bank billpay
up to do that for me.

Hope this helps,

> Thanks for any help.

> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.

-derek

-- 
      Derek Atkins                617-623-3745
      derek at ihtfp.com            www.ihtfp.com
      Computer and Internet Security Consultant