[GNC] Help with downloading transactions.

[George Riner]

I'm and 'M' and a 'K'.  I download from banks and I reconcile. I'm also 
a enter-by-hand (I don't know what letter-type that would be).

I like downloading because it catches things I don't get receipts for 
and that I forget to hand-enter. On-line purchases, gas pumps that run 
out of receipt paper, or the receipt didn't get out of my pocket and 
went through the laundry.

I reconcile, because it catches when I enter the charge in the wrong 
credit card acct, and it informs me for when a check I wrote has not 
cleared the bank, or some charge is delayed, or for when I hand-enter 
something and I do a typo.

When I download, I never use the 'U' option - there's too much useless 
noise in the downloaded transactions that gets into my registers that 
only serves to clutter up reports. I'm assuming these numbers are 
meaningful to someone at the bank/creditcard, or maybe the retailer, but 
I've yet to find anything they match. They aren't Amazon order numbers 
or Amazon receipt numbers, nor Amazon invoice numbers. Maybe some 
transaction number that only the bank knows about?  Plus, names of 
businesses rarely match, and even when they do, they're often all UPPER 
CASE and often include misguided attempts by the retailer for Customer 
Relationship Management by adding in "THANK YOU FOR YOUR PURCHASE!!"  
which is totally useless in my accounts & reports.

I wish there was a way to turn off the 'Bayesian" amount matching. 
Because I don't want to be close, I want to be exact. So when 
reconciling I have to carefully watch the matching transactions to make 
sure they're aren't off by $0.02 or some tiny amount.

For downloaded transactions that have to be added, I use the 'A' option, 
but I force all those transactions to go into a special account - I name 
it 'Unspecified' (under Expenses).  I then apply the downloaded 
transaction and then go through all the 'Unspecified' entries in Journal 
view and clean them up and correct the expense account to apply them to.

The Reconcile function also has a really useful way of creating the 
payment transaction and giving it a future date (the payment due date, 
for example), and posting it to my bank acct.

:George
Windows 10 build 19045.2604
Gnucash Build ID: 4.11+(2022-06-25)



On 3/17/2023 1:57 AM, edodd at billiau.net wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Mar 2023 15:38:25 +0000
> Gyle McCollam <gmccollam at live.com> wrote:
>
>> You really should try to download and import transactions.
> This is a philosophical point.
> There is group "M" who always enter every transaction first in their
> books and then use the bank documents to reconcile
>
> and
>
> There is group "K" who enter some things and use the bank download to
> keep their accounts.
>
> There are pros and cons to each method. Gnucash allows you to make your
> own choice.
>
>
> Liz
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