[GNC] Coloring the Action field

[Stephen M. Butler]

On 12/16/21 10:05, Michael or Penny Novack wrote:
> It might perhaps be better to describe WHAT you want to accomplish 
> instead of asking about possibilities for the first HOW that came to 
> your mind. Why? Because there might be other "hows" even simpler.
>
>
> On 12/16/2021 2:25 AM, AC wrote:
>>
>> For example, I have a couple loans that are paid fixed amounts each 
>> month but the split of principal and interest varies (of course). I 
>> have automatic payments at the bank set up to pay those fixed amounts 
>> regularly and I have a matching scheduled transaction in GnuCash that 
>> is a placeholder for it so I know how much comes out of my checking 
>> account. What I don't know at that moment is the split between 
>> principal and interest.
> I'll reword that -- you don't have access (in advance) to the 
> amortization schedule and even if you did, would not help with an 
> automated transaction (but would if a manual transaction_
>>
>>   When the payment has gone through I will check the loan records 
>> wherever the loan is held to see how they distributed the payment and 
>> then go back and update the splits to reflect that.
>>
>> I do a similar thing for my paychecks, setting up a scheduled 
>> transaction with an estimated amount across splits and then go back 
>> to update the splits with the various amounts withheld from the check 
>> (I mark these as "Deposit"). 
>
> Let's stop here for a second to describe your PROCESS. In either case, 
> you first need to be able to have an automatic transaction (unsplit) 
> that you later need to go back to in order to split once you have the 
> information to do that. You think you need a "marker" of some sort to 
> find the transaction later, to mark the ones you have not yet done.
>
> But what was the other side of the transaction?. Let's do the loan one 
> first. That was an automatic (scheduled) transaction, credit to your 
> bank account and debit to (there are always tow sides in double entry 
> bookkeeping) what? Let's say for am moment you had an account under 
> Expense with a name like "unallocated loan payments".
>
> Every so often you look. Is the balance of this account zero? No, then 
> you have a loan payment you have not yet allocated to principle and 
> interest. Assuming enough time has passed that you have that 
> information, Enter split mode. Change the account "unallocated loan 
> payments" to "interest" and the amount to what that portion is. The 
> remainder will now have an account Imbalance which you change to "loan 
> principle".
>
> Now THAT transaction will no longer appear in "unallocated loan 
> payments" << and if there are no other payments still not allocated 
> the balance of the account  will be zero >>
>
> In  other words, the very presence of a transaction in "unallocated 
> loan balance" can serve as your "marker" and is the transaction you 
> want to split. You can do the same for your paychecks, except you 
> would use an account under Income "unallocated paychecks".
>
> Michael D Novack
>

Why not point to the loan wizard and how it can setup an automated 
transaction schedule?  Sure, it is off a few pennies every so often but 
if a person is looking at the loan details a their bank (or get a 
monthly statement) it is easy to adjust the existing transactions.

Once you understand the resulting schedule formula, you can modify for 
extra monthly payments and won't need the wizard to setup the next loan.

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