Surely this is why, at period ends, we use accruals.
Here (at least) we don't, if a debt is raised today and paid in a week,
distinguish the two different dates. But at year-end we will -- at least
for things that require accrual accounting -- and then there become two
different transaction dates in the books. The value sits in the accrual
account over the year-end.
We do that because that's the only situation where we care, but others
might want, as you say, to know all the various steps along the
transaction's path. They would be free, of course, to create an whole
chain of accrual-like stops along the way to distinguish cheques in the
outbox here from cheques in the mailbox tomorrow morning ;-)
Paul
On 2026-03-02 8:56 p.m., Jim DeLaHunt wrote:
Tom:
Interesting question. And deeper that it may sound!
On 2026-03-02 17:00, Tom Route36 wrote:
…Any transaction in GnuCash always involves at least two accounts.
For example, when you make a payment to a credit card account you're
debiting funds from your checking account, and crediting those funds
to your credit card account. My question here is about how folks
choose to enter the transaction dates in GnuCash.
…If you use Feb. 27th, the transaction date differs from your next
month's bank statement. But if you use March 2nd, the date differs
from your next credit card statement.… I was just curious how other
folks deal with these kinds of date differences.
Most transactions I enter into GnuCash are not instantaneous. They
take non-zero time, often more than a day, from when they start to
when all the settlement of all the parties is finished. There can be
four days from when an interbank transfer leaves my investment account
to when it arrives in my chequing account. There can be weeks between
when I write a paper cheque, to when the recipient deposits the
cheque, to when my bank takes the funds from my account. Different
parties can report different times when they participated in the
transaction, for instance, the moment when I wrote the cheque, the
moment when the recipient received the cheque, the moment when the
recipient deposited the cheque, the moment when the receiving bank
requested funds from my bank, the moment when my bank took the funds
from my account.
Yet GnuCash's data model has room for only one time value per
transaction, and that time value is in increments of calendar days, no
finer.
Clearly what the GnuCash data model can store will be a simplification
of what actually happens in the transaction. I need to choose one
moment from the many moments when steps happened in the transaction. I
need to record that moment with day granularity.
I choose to record the date which is closest to my first action in the
transaction. For a credit card purchase, when I made the purchase. For
a cheque, when I write it. For funds I receive, when I deposit it.
When my bank credits me interest, when they say they credited it. I
usually choose to disregard how long the transaction takes to complete.
The purpose of my bookkeeping is to help me understand my financial
situation to the level that I need to understand it. The actual
duration of a transaction is often immaterial to my financial
situation, so I don't need to worry much about which date I choose to
represent the many moments of a transaction.
You can imagine a data model which includes a time value, to
microsecond accuracy, of every event that happens as part of a
transaction. There may be some bookkeepers which need that kind of
data to be able to understand their financial situation. GnuCash is
not designed for them.
Best regards,
—Jim DeLaHunt\
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