[GNC] How to use Reminders?

[Stephen M. Butler]

On 12/9/20 12:03 PM, Fran_3 via gnucash-user wrote:
>   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.

Yes, please, wake up!  Use the correct tool for the intended job. Don't 
pound a nail with the screwdriver.  And definitely don't use the hammer 
to attempt to drive a phillips screw into the wall.

1.  Get a good email client that also has a decent calendar.  Being on 
Linux/Ubuntu I use Thunderbird.  It has a great calendar system that 
links up with Google Calendar (and the mail client links up really well 
with Gmail).  The wife (an accountant) also uses Thunderbird on her less 
desirable Windows box.  Both of us share the calendar and mail with our 
phones and tablets.  Yes, I see her calendar and she sees mine.  That 
way I don't have to fire up GnC to find what what is happening today (or 
tomorrow).

2.  Get a better bank or credit union.  Mine can get electronic bills 
from most of my vendors and will send me a notice when the invoice comes 
in.  I can even flag certain vendors to auto-pay so all I have to do is 
download the checking transactions from the bank.  For those that won't 
play nice with the bank, I still enter their information and bills (as I 
receive them) into the bank's payment feature so that the bank pays the 
postage and stuffs it into the envelope or me (at no charge).

3.  Setup the recurring transactions in the transaction scheduler. It 
can handle such things as recording the SSA insecurity check deposit on 
the 2nd Wednesday of each month.  Or the internet charge from 
Century-can't-Link on the 28th of each month.  [and since the bank also 
sees the invoice and the vendor is flagged to auto-pay, well, doesn't 
leave much for me to do except fire up GnC once in a while].

4.  Maybe you have too many vendors.

5.  Maybe not enough employees.

6.  Automate what you can in small steps.  I'd recommend starting with 
that email/calendar system that auto-syncs with your phone, tablet, 
laptop, desktop, wife's set of devices, etc.  Do one at a time.  Don't 
automate everything at once.  You can hire consultants to do the 
software setup and integration.

PS.  You can setup recurring calendar items in Thunderbird, Google 
Calendar, Android Calendar and they all link together.
>
>
>
>
>      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.
>> t
> 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,


You can even have GnC pre-post the scheduled transactions for you. I 
have most of mine set to 15 days.  Sometimes I wish I'd set them to 30 days.
>
>> 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
>

Yes, I am a certified Project Management Professional.  You need someone 
to help organize yourself.

-- 
Stephen M Butler, PMP, PSM
Stephen.M.Butler51 at gmail.com
kg7je at arrl.net
253-350-0166
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