[GNC] Does it matter the other transactions are entered?

[Adrien Monteleone]

David,

As noted, the order does not matter, however, there is a quirk.

The transactions are listed in the order of entry, for each date.

If you have 10 transactions entered for say 2/15/22, that you type in 
today (with the proper February date) they will appear and will affect 
the balance in the order that you enter them.

If that matters to you, then as best you can, and if you have time 
stamps on your receipts, sort the paper first, then enter them.

This usually only matters for Cash accounts, as those can't reasonably 
ever be negative, but there might be other cases.

Another option:

I routinely enter cash receipts days (or more sadly) after the event, 
and I no longer bother to sort them all first. Instead, I put the time 
stamp in the NUM field and GnuCash sorts them for me just like with the 
date. (It would be nice to include the time with the date field, and 
still have NUM when needed, but I get by without it.) I use 24-hour 
notation like: 15:35, for 3:35pm

Regards,
Adrien

On 12/13/22 11:19 AM, Dr. David Kirkby wrote:
> I am starting to enter into GnuCash the transactions starting late February
> this year. That’s going to be a slow painful process. However, I have had a
> few transactions today, which I would like to enter too. Does the order the
> transactions are entered matter, as long as the dates are correct?
> 
> In the case of bills,  but not invoices, I have never kept any number
> associated with them - only with invoices. So it would mean that the number
> on bills are pretty much random, as I would be entering transactions in
> December before some of those of March.
> 
> I could simply start bills in December with the lowest number being 1000,
> and bills from late February starting with number 1. (There would be less
> than 1000 transactions, so they would not overlap.) But since I have never
> associated a number with them, a number being out of order doesn’t matter
> to me.
> 
> Will exported CVS files be in date order, or the order the transactions
> were entered? Will the transactions in GnuCash windows be shown in date
> order, or the order the transactions are entered? (I am on my mobile phone
> now, so can not actually test this, but people might know of things that I
> am overlooking.
> 
> I could make a backup of the file, add in a spurious entry to get the bank
> balance right, then check that the would reconcile, but obviously I can’t
> reconcile today until all historical transactions are entered.
> 
> Dave