Re:Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash
by jonahbenton on Tuesday May 19, 2020 @09:48PM
(#23242469)
Conceptually this is one transaction; from a book keeping (and beancount) perspective it is, or can be, two.
Often (in the US) the dates are different- debit from the bank on day X, post to credit card on day X + 1 or X + 2. For my stuff I want the dates in beancount to reflect the dates on the respective statements, so that the balances, which are date-specific, match.
So I capture these as two transactions. I do it as- debit the bank, credit the "ether", then debit the "ether" credit the credit card.
Beancount just wants the postings within a literal transaction to sum to zero. If this conceptual transaction is split into two literal transactions, with some fictional bridge account in between, they can live in different beancount files.
Often (in the US) the dates are different- debit from the bank on day X, post to credit card on day X + 1 or X + 2. For my stuff I want the dates in beancount to reflect the dates on the respective statements, so that the balances, which are date-specific, match.
So I capture these as two transactions. I do it as- debit the bank, credit the "ether", then debit the "ether" credit the credit card.
Beancount just wants the postings within a literal transaction to sum to zero. If this conceptual transaction is split into two literal transactions, with some fictional bridge account in between, they can live in different beancount files.