[GNC] Scheduling Monthly Transactions for Full Credit Card Balances?

[Sherlock]

Hi Tom,

My approach was to implement a few variable estimate functions for use 
in the schedule transaction template and support in the forecast reports 
which I've been carrying forward since 4.12.  If you're up for building 
and maintaining your own GnuCash program, I can provide the two patch 
files used to provide the functionality.

balance(variable)
    forecast balance of the account the day before the next instance.

credit(variable)
    forecast the credit statement's closing balance for the next instance
    using the earliest notification to indicate the closing date.

last(variable amounts)
    use the average of the previous amounts provided
   (up to 6 amounts).

time(variable amounts)
    use month of the instance to determine an index for the amounts
    provided (up to 6 amounts).

estimate(variable amount)
     use the amount provide.


For example, the template for a credit card payment is form:

   credit card account      credit(balance)
   checking account                              balance


When an instance of the scheduled transaction appears on the "Since Last 
Run..." window, it includes the variable name with the editable 
estimated amount.


Regards,

Harv


On 9/9/25 6:07 PM, Tom Route-36 wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> This is a follow-up to my earlier email question here.  I really would 
> like some way of creating ongoing monthly Scheduled Transactions for 
> each of my credit card accounts that will always default to the full 
> credit card balance each month.  What I'm trying to do is to be able to 
> look at a list of Scheduled Transactions for my checking account; and 
> from that list know each month how high a balance my checking account 
> needs to be in order to pay off all those credit cards in full.  It 
> seems like no one has been able to come up with an answer though.  So 
> let me ask a more specific question.
> 
> When creating a Scheduled Transaction, the splits for each transaction 
> include two columns labeled Debit Formula and Credit Formula.  Typically 
> (for say an Internet provider or a Phone carrier) I'd enter whatever 
> fixed amount I get charged each month as a FIXED dollar value.  But 
> since these columns are labeled "Formula" that also implies that I can 
> enter a mathematical expression (i.e., a formula) that results in a 
> CALCULATED dollar value.  There is some bare bones documentation about 
> formulas at this link: https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/ 
> Scheduled_Transactions.  But I don't see any info there on how to query 
> an account to get its current balance, which is what I need.  Does 
> anyone know how to grab an account balance so that it can be included as 
> a variable in a formula?  If anyone has an idea about how to do that 
> please let me know.
> 
> Tom
> 
> 
> On 9/8/2025 4:04 PM, Tom Route-36 wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Does anyone know if there's a way in GnuCash to create monthly 
>> Scheduled Transactions for a checking account to pay a credit card 
>> account where the formula for the monthly transaction amount is always 
>> equal to the current monthly balance of the credit card account?  What 
>> I'm hoping to do is to have something functionally similar to "Bill 
>> and Income Reminders" in Quicken.  Please let me know if there's some 
>> way of doing that.
>>
>> Tom
>