I agree with everything you said... but consider the case when one does not keep receipts and the only information one has is the bank statement and credit card statement.... wouldn't that drive one to HAVE to enter from the bank data? Or suppose one is trying to keep books for a recently widowed mother whose husband always kept track of the finances. If she is in another state, the only thing one has to go by is the bank and credit card statements.
I don't like either of these situations; I think people should ALWAYS keep receipts for the first case, and in the second case, work out something by which the person doing the financial work can know what the mother is spending. Relying in what's cleared just sounds like trouble waiting to happen, but I can see cases like the above happening in which people use the cleared data. On Mon, Apr 8, 2024 at 10:41 PM Adrien Monteleone < adrien.montele...@lusfiber.net> wrote: > While there are other considerations, such as cash versus accrual and > following the Recognition Principle, I see this as more of a general > case of Your Books vs. the Bank's Books. > > You keep Your Books. > > The Bank keeps theirs. > > You then reconcile the two. (which does *not* involve changing dates) > > Simply copying what the bank has misses the opportunity to catch someone > else's errors. (they *do* happen) > > This is a similar question of entering your own transactions as they > occur, or just downloading from the bank and importing. > > It is a personal choice, but can have other implications as noted. > > Regards, > Adrien > > On 4/8/24 5:11 PM, R Losey wrote: > > Since I first learned about recording transactions, I have always dated a > > transaction on the date I wrote the check; similarly, when entering > credit > > card transactions, I use the date that I actually used the credit card. > > > > Recently, however, I was having a discussion with a friend and he said > that > > he uses the bank or credit card date of entry for all of his > transactions. > > > > I thought this was strange - probably because it is different from the > > method I've used all of my life. Perhaps I am the odd one... or perhaps > > it's merely a matter of choice, so I thought I'd bring it up to this list > > to see what people think about it. > > > > From (a very brief) research about this topic, perhaps this is the > > difference between cash basis accounting and accrual accounting? > > > > > > After thinking about it for a bit, one issue with using the date that the > > transactions occur is the reports, especially if one has repeating > > transactions. For example, if the satellite service bill is paid each > > month on the 28th, using my method, I record a transaction on the 28th. > My > > friend will see it on the 29th or 30th, but if the weekend or holiday > hits > > just right, it can be the 1st or 2nd before he sees it. In the long run > > everything should be the same, but the monthly sub-totals can look odd. > > Checks can be even worse... someone may hang onto one for weeks. > > _______________________________________________ > gnucash-user mailing list > gnucash-user@gnucash.org > To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user > ----- > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. > -- _________________________________ Richard Losey rlo...@gmail.com Micah 6:8 _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
