Hi R Losey,
Actually I'm essentially doing both things. I keep track of and enter
all my charges throughout the month as I incur them. (FYI, I
self-diagnose myself as obsessive compulsive when it comes to tracking
expenses; so there's almost zero chance of me missing a charge.) As a
result, using the CC register balances for the Scheduled Transactions
are worst-case estimates of what I might end up seeing on my
end-of-month statements. Additionally, I also go and reconcile the EOM
statements to ensure that I did get everything entered correctly. And
finally I adjust the Scheduled Transactions to reflect the actual dates
and amounts of my payments as I make them. So the payments all get
entered correctly.
I could try to manually update the Scheduled Transaction amounts with my
CC register balances as they keep going up throughout the month. But
doing that manually for each CC register would be horribly inefficient.
That's why my ideal solution would be to be able to set the formula
amount in each Scheduled Transaction to the full CC register balance.
That way GnuCash would do all the work of updating those Scheduled
Transactions for me in real time. That's pretty much how Quicken worked
with its "Bill and Income Reminders". I gave up on Quicken once they
switched over to subscriptions; but I do miss that one feature.
Tom
On 9/10/2025 9:27 AM, R Losey wrote:
Even if there was a function to get the current balance of a credit
card, I would be opposed to using a Scheduled Transaction for this --
what if you neglected to enter a charge? Assuming you reconcile credit
card statements, turning on the prompt to enter a payment after you
reconcile may be an excellent way to go.
On Wed, Sep 10, 2025 at 4:01 AM Tom Route-36 <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hi Stan,
I think your solution here may hold the most promise if I can't find
something that works better. I especially like the fact that the
checking account balance on any given date matches your actual (real)
checking account balance -- unlike R Losey's method. That's important
to me. And then you're entering future transactions in the register to
keep track of what your checking account balance will be on any given
future date as those payments become due. So that makes good sense to
me as well. The one thing that I don't like though is that GnuCash
already includes the concept of Scheduled Transactions. It seems like
there should be an easy way to tap into that feature to keep track of
how large a checking account balance will be needed -- in real time --
to pay off those upcoming credit card bills. And I'd like to be
able to
do that without having to enter future transactions into the checking
account register to keep track of that. Still, I might end up going
with your method if I can't get Scheduled Transactions to work the way
I'd like them to work.
Tom
On 9/9/2025 9:14 PM, Stan Brown (using GC 4.14) wrote:
> On 2025-09-09 18:39, R Losey wrote:
>> Sometimes you can come to a solution by looking at it another
way. How
>> about this solution (which I use):
>>
>> Create a "Credit" sub-account under the checking account.
Whenever you
>> enter transactions (I enter them weekly, but some people enter
them as they
>> occur, and others enter them every day or two). Anyway, after
entering my
>> credit transactions, I then look at the current "credit" sub-account
>> balance, and the credit card balance, and transfer money from
the checking
>> account to the "credit" sub-account. The amount is "Current
Credit Balance"
>> minus "Credit sub-account balance". For example, if my "credit"
sub-account
>> has $85, and my credit card shows a balance of $114.68, I need
to transfer
>> $29.68 from the checking account to the credit sub-account. It
will then
>> show $114.68, and my checking account register will be lowered
by $114.68.
>>
>> By doing this, you effectively move money out of the checking
account
>> register (so it shows what you have left), and there should
always be funds
>> in the credit account to pay the credit card.
>>
>> When you pay the credit card off, you then transfer funds out of
the credit
>> sub-account and into the checking account.
>
> I do it a bit differently -- as the saying goes, there are many
ways to
> skin a cat. My practice doesn't need extra accounts or
transactions that
> don't reflect an actual movement of money. It took me about seven
years
> to come to the realization that the answer that works for me is
future
> transactions, as opposed to scheduled transactions.
>
> I'm not arguing against R Losey's approach, just offering mine as an
> alternative that works in a different way to accomplish the goal.
>
> In Edit » Preferences, I have ticked Register » "Future transactions
> after blank transaction" and Numbers » "Display negative amounts
in red".
>
> I'll explain my process by example. Let's suppose that my checking
> balance on 10 May is $450.
>
> On 12 May I get a credit-card statement showing a balance of
$200, and
> payment is due on 7 June. In my checking account register, I enter a
> payment of $200 to that credit card, with a date of 2025-06-07 not
> 2025-05-12. In the Description field I include the date I entered
this
> transaction, just in case I need to go back and check anything.
(Unless
> it's autopay, pulled from my checking account by the credit-card
> account, I also initiate a bill pay to that credit card on my bank's
> website, to take place on 2025-06-07.) The transaction appears
below a
> blank line in both registers. I still see the current checking
balance
> of $450, but I also see the future balance of $250.
>
> On 18 May another credit-card bill comes in, for $300 due on 13
June. I
> enter the $300 payment with a date of 2025-06-13, the date the money
> will come from my checking account. Now I see these balances in my
> checking register:
>
> 2025-05-10 (present) $450
> 2025-06-07 (future) $250
> 2025-06-13 (future, in red) ($50)
>
> At a glance, I see that I need to transfer at least $50 from
savings to
> checking by 06-13. So I schedule a $60 transfer with my bank for
06-12,
> to keep at least $10 in checking. Now my checking balances are
>
> 2025-05-10 (present) $450
> 2025-06-07 (future) $250
> 2025-06-12 (future) $310
> 2025-06-13 (future, in black) ($10)
>
> The only scheduled transactions are my Social Security benefit
(changes
> only every 12 months) and my annuity (never changes). The SX are
dated
> the dates payment will be received, but I have the transactions
set to
> fire well in advance, so that those payments are also visible in the
> future section of my checking account. Thus I don't arrange for
> unnecessary transfers from savings, if incoming payments will
cover the
> future outgoings. (If I were still working I'd do the same thing with
> salary payments.)
>
> I've been doing things this way since late last year, and
compared to my
> old method it gives me much greater confidence that I'm not going to
> overdraw my account or transfer money from savings when I don't
actually
> need to.
>
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Micah 6:8
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