[GNC] How to setup a Scheduled Transaction for full current Credit Card Balance?

[Sherlock]

The running balances in the account don't include scheduled transactions 
and the only known date of a balance on Accounts tab is today (present). 
  So, No.  In my opinion, they don't suffice.

The Balance Forecast report is really the best option but, base GnuCash 
assumes all variables in the scheduled transactions are 0 (and, as I 
recall, I found it was off one on repeated scheduled transactions).  If 
the scheduled transactions don't use variables and you know the closing 
dates of the credit cards, you can obtain the appropriate projected 
balances.  You then need to determine the projected balance of the 
payment account on the date of the credit card payment to determine if a 
transfer is required.

The credit function I implemented basically determines the credit card 
projected balances on their closing date and applies them in scheduled 
transactions on the payment date so when we view the Balance Forecast 
report for the credit card and payment account, the scheduled payments 
are present.  This means it becomes simply a matter of viewing the 
payment account on a Balance Forecast report to determine when you need 
to transfer funds.  Similarly, the Balance Forecast report of the credit 
cards account can be viewed to determine when the a credit limit may be 
exceeded.

Regards,

Sherlock

On 12/1/25 4:32 PM, Adrien Monteleone wrote:
> Do the running balances in the account itself, and on the Accounts tab 
> not suffice here? Depending on the column(s) you choose to display, you 
> should be able to see at a glance what you owe on each card. That won't 
> show up in the official Reminders window, but the info is there. Perhaps 
> I'm misunderstanding though.
> 
> As for adding the account balance as a variable, that is awesome. Yes, 
> it has come up several times before. There are various threads where the 
> idea was discussed, but the end result was simply, "not available at 
> this time." I suppose Sherlock was simply the first with need, ability, 
> and time to implement it. (I would suspect that's how most features get 
> added.)
> 
> Regards,
> Adrien
> 
> On 12/1/25 5:44 PM, Tom Route36 wrote:
>> David, yes I absolutely do reconcile each of my credit card accounts, 
>> along with my checking and savings too.  That almost always gets done 
>> as soon as I get each monthly statement.  The issue for me is that I 
>> don't really want to wait to do a reconciliation. I enter transactions 
>> into GnuCash on a daily basis as they occur. And what I would like to 
>> see in my Scheduled Transactions is a real-time view of what those 
>> balances are even BEFORE the monthly statements happen.
>>
>> In Quicken I could open my Checking account register and see a list of 
>> Bill and Income Reminders there showing me the current real-time 
>> balances of all my Credit Card accounts, along with estimated due 
>> dates (based on past due dates).  No monthly statement or 
>> reconciliation needed.  Comparing those Bill Reminders against my 
>> Checking account balance would let me know on a DAILY basis if I might 
>> need to transfer money to checking for the upcoming monthly bills or 
>> not.  That's a Quicken feature that I miss with GnuCash. And it's one 
>> that I'm hoping can be added to GnuCash, either in a real release 
>> (ideally) or via my own customization (if needed).
>>
>> Sherlock, thanks for your explanation about how you ended up having to 
>> patch the GnuCash code.  I'm actually somewhat surprised that there 
>> hasn't been enough interest from folks over the years to get variable 
>> estimate functions implemented for Scheduled Transactions. It seems 
>> like that would be a feature that more people would like to have -- 
>> i.e., knowing in advance how much money will be needed in Checking to 
>> pay off bills later that month.  Anyway, for right now I'll stick with 
>> the standard GnuCash releases, since I'm still getting used to 
>> everything. But at some point later on, it looks like I'll probably 
>> want to add those variable estimates, assuming they don't make it into 
>> an official release.  Thanks for your help and advice.
> 
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