[GNC] Best way to Auto Sync GC Checking Transactions with the Bank?

[Adrien Monteleone]

On 10/18/20 12:22 PM, Fran_3 via gnucash-user wrote:
>   Adrien,
> Yes, in the old days before debit cards and auto-pay we did a reconciliation once a month... when the paper bank statement showed up in the mail box. In those days if we didn't write a check then no bank transaction should appear... other than bank charges. Much simpler times :-)
> Now days there are often several incidental debit card charges plus a number of auto-pay charges that hit the bank.
> We check the bank transactions daily to make sure we didn't miss recording any of these.
> 
> The reason for my post was to get some guidance on using the GnuCash built in tools to help find duplicate transactions.
> The problem to us... as you mentioned is...
> - Our Check Register Description Field doesn't match the banks- The Transaction Dates are often not the same
> Regarding doing the bank transactions to recorded GC transactions comparison manually...I wrote an App Script for Google Sheets that helps with that... but it is still a lot of work... thus my question on using GnuCash tools to help.
> I see David has also responded to this post so I'll read his comments then probably make a test copy of the GnuCash file and do some experimentation.
> That said... for one particular entity with a lot of auto-pays and incidental debit card transactions... I still don't see any option but to check the bank daily to check what hit the bank and verify their entry into GnuCasy.

I'll ditto David's advice to 'just do it' with regards to using the 
importer. I suspect it accomplishes what you want, based on the other 
threads I've read anyway. That seems to be what others are doing and it 
appears to work well, though there is a learning curve and an occasional 
bug.

> How do you handle a loose cannon with a debit card?

I'd cut them off. Or at least insist on receipts of some kind. 
'Incidental' purchases shouldn't be voluminous and daily. If so, they 
aren't quite 'incidental' any longer and perhaps a thorough review of 
purchasing guidelines and the nature of those 'incidentals' is more in 
order. I had a client that used to buy office supplies when they'd run 
out of something. They were constantly making trips and buying more than 
they needed. I suggested ordering monthly which qualified for free 
delivery (so no wasted time making the trips) and also set up par levels 
for supplies. Each month, supplies were counted just like inventory, 
matched against par levels, and an order created. That cut expenses by 
60%, ensured they never ran out of anything, saved time on the clock, 
and resulted in a single monthly transaction.

How do you handle capturing transactions from a vendor that generates a 
lot of individual auto pay and/or auto deposit charges each month?

Once again, this is a management question, but I found myself in a 
similar situation when I took over a manager job. A vendor was used to 
maintaining what they thought were appropriate weekly par levels for the 
business, rather than the manager make that decision. I fixed that real 
fast. I was already doing inventory, so I just made ordering decisions 
at the same time. I cut the vendor deliveries down to weekly, bi-weekly 
and monthly depending on the product. I could always order anything 
weekly, but that became rare as I watched the inventory more closely. As 
with the office supply issue, I drastically reduced company spending, 
paperwork, and in this case, inventory loss and theft. Tighter product 
controls magically results in less of it 'disappearing' because you 
always know what you have. (on the shelf organization helps too of course)

Not sure what type of vendor you are set up with this way or what the 
nature of the autopay is for, but I'd recommend investigating how to 
consolidate those transactions and find a way to only allow them on 
management approval. I would never let a vendor control my spending.

Regards,
Adrien