[GNC] Improving GnuCash's Processing of Outstanding Checks

[Eric H. Bowen]

Hello All,

First, I want to thank the GnuCash community and especially the GnuCash 
developers for producing such an excellent product for the open source 
software community. While there was a bit of a learning curve, I'm 
finding GnuCash more than suitable as a replacement for the Quicken 
software which I used several years ago. Thank you!

With that said, there are a couple of issues which have been an ongoing 
minor annoyance I'd like to see resolved, especially in the processing 
of outstanding checks. While I use the bill pay service of my bank 
extensively, if an account is not registered with the ACH payment system 
they will mail a paper check. And, sometimes it is more convenient for 
me to do so as well.

The problem arises when it comes time to process these outstanding 
checks. I download an .ofx (formerly a .qfx...still having problems 
since after the switchover I've had to manually go through and change 
all the old .qfx transactions from "New" to "Do not process") file from 
my bank on a daily basis, but some of my payees hold their checks for a 
very long time before depositing. And, after an arbitrary amount of time 
has passed, GnuCash simply won't recognize it. I just had a $200 check 
for custom artwork clear which was written in early January; when I 
tried to match it manually to the ledger entry it would not show up. 
Yes, I can manually mark it as 'cleared,' but still every time that I 
download transactions that $200 shows up as a new transaction and I have 
to manually select it for "Do not process". I'm going to have to keep 
doing that until it finally ages off of my bank's register, two or three 
months from now.

This really becomes an issue when a check amount is repeated. I have a 
couple of charitable contributions which I make on a monthly basis for 
$20. Well, if one of those charities holds the check for a few weeks, 
GnuCash tries to process it for the next one which has yet to be issued. 
I have one check which was issued on December 28th which was not cashed 
until early February; I saw it and attempted to match it manually. Not 
possible; it wouldn't even show up under the 'possible matching 
transactions.' One download I forgot about it and it was mistakenly 
applied to a more recently written $20 check which had yet to clear; 
when I tried to back that out the correct check couldn't be matched to 
its ledger entry when it finally did clear a few days later. Now I have 
another $20 land mine that I have to tiptoe around until it finally ages 
off of my bank's records.

Is it possible to extend the time for outstanding checks to show up in 
the "manual match" window? My understanding of banking regulations in 
the U.S. is that checks can be presented for payment any time up to six 
months after the date they carry, and I've had checks show up years 
later (from a former tenant who spun a story that his deposit check was 
'lost', received a new check from me, and then cashed the first check 
after the six months stop-payment window expired...long story). As far 
as I can see, any uncleared transactions with a similar amount should 
show up as possibilities for manual matching. And, once a transaction 
has been manually cleared, it ought to be possible (as in the case of my 
$20 checks) to manually match the downloaded entry to the manually 
cleared entry to stop the item from showing up in each new download.

Is this request clear enough? Or do I need to add any supplemental 
information? I'm using recently updated versions of GnuCash on Ubuntu 
Studio 22.04LTS and on Windows 10. Thanks to the community for any 
assistance or related support.

----Eric.