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

[Dale Alspach]

One way to imitate the Quicken reminders but without the convenience of
having it appear with the payer register is to create a small balance sheet
report for the payer account. So for a checking account at Bank X from
which credit card payments are made to Card A, Card B and Card C, the
report Bank X Balance would have only one asset selected Bank X and only
three liabilities Cards A, B and C. If left with date Today, this report
could be left open in a separate window or tab. This would show the current
balances in the four accounts but not  the payment due date.
In my experience credit card due dates don't fluctuate much so this is a
minor annoyance and approximate due dates, e.g., 23rd of the month, could
be kludged into the report by modifying the account name Card A (23). (Yes,
this has downsides.) Someone skilled in building custom reports can
probably accomplish this in a nicer way.

If one is willing to follow some of the suggestions that others have made,
this Bank X Balance report can be turned into a useful predictive tool. If
scheduled transactions for the four accounts are actually created many
days, e.g., 15 or 20,  in advance and other future deposits, withdrawals,
payments and charges are entered when known, then one can change
(temporarily) the report date  to a future date such as the payment due
date for one of the credit cards. The report will show predicted balances
for the four accounts on that future date. Of course the prediction can
only use the data that has been given and so can only inform the creation
of additional transactions in the interim.

Dale


On Tue, Dec 2, 2025 at 3:24 PM Derek Atkins <derek at ihtfp.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Unfortunately there is no "current_balance()" function to show you the
> current balance of an account for an SX.  Therefore, there is no way to
> actually encode the SX to get what you want.  The best you could do is
> just use a variable, so it would prompt you for the balance when the
> transaction gets input/executed.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> -derek
>
> On Tue, December 2, 2025 4:13 pm, Tom Route36 wrote:
> > Hi Maf,
> >
> > I think you understand what it is I'm talking about here.  It's
> > basically just REMINDERS.  Whenever I create a Scheduled Transaction I
> > always leave the Create Automatically option UNCHECKED. Regardless of
> > whether it's Quicken's Bill Reminders or GnuCash's Scheduled
> > Transactions, I never let the software automatically enter any
> > transaction for me.  What Quicken had -- and what I'd hope to see in
> > GnuCash -- is the ability to look at an account (mainly my Checking
> > account) and see what upcoming payments will need to be made FROM THAT
> > ACCOUNT.  Essentially, I just want to look at my Checking account and
> > see a list of upcoming Due Dates, Payees, and Amounts Due.  That's it.
> > It's not that complicated.  And it IS very useful.
> >
> > And just for clarification, the Amount Due in that list would simply be
> > whatever the current balance is for each Payee account -- i.e., what
> > I've entered into the Payee account register so far as of the current
> > date.  It's NOT any projection or estimate of future transactions.  So
> > it doesn't seem like this would overload the Scheduled Transactions code.
> >
> > Tom
> >
> >
> > On 12/2/2025 3:54 AM, Maf. King wrote:
> >> On Tuesday, 2 December 2025 09:58:46 GMT Tom Route36 wrote:
> >>>   And it's the key piece of
> >>> information that's not available for Scheduled Transactions in GnuCash.
> >> Hi Tom,
> >>
> >> I'm arriving late to this party....
> >>
> >> but..... if such a "balance at date" variable existed....
> >>
> >> The sx would fire on schedule, create the transaction using the formula
> >> and the
> >> transaction wouldn't update live as you describe enjoying.
> >>
> >>> But the Bill Reminders in Quicken are much more
> >>> user-friendly and keep the amounts up-to-date in real time; whereas the
> >>> amounts for Scheduled Transactions in GnuCash are static and don't show
> >>> a true picture of what will be due to each payee as the due date
> >>> approaches.
> >> So, you're really asking for "reminder transactions" which contain a
> >> live
> >> variable (not a fixed number) to be added to GC register code to match
> >> what
> >> quicken does.  (I admit, does sound useful!)
> >>
> >> The SX sub-system is more an "automation macro" for creating regular,
> >> repetitive transactions - once created, txns in the registers don't
> >> change,
> >> regardless if that's one you manually enter or one the Sx system adds
> >> in.
> >>
> >> Just get the idea that you're trying to overload something new onto the
> >> Sx
> >> that won't quite scratch your itch!
> >>
> >> 0.02
> >> Maf.
> >>
> >>
> >
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>
> --
>        Derek Atkins                 617-623-3745
>        derek at ihtfp.com             www.ihtfp.com
>        Computer and Internet Security Consultant
>
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