I'm and 'M' and a 'K'.  I download from banks and I reconcile. I'm also a enter-by-hand (I don't know what letter-type that would be).

I like downloading because it catches things I don't get receipts for and that I forget to hand-enter. On-line purchases, gas pumps that run out of receipt paper, or the receipt didn't get out of my pocket and went through the laundry.

I reconcile, because it catches when I enter the charge in the wrong credit card acct, and it informs me for when a check I wrote has not cleared the bank, or some charge is delayed, or for when I hand-enter something and I do a typo.

When I download, I never use the 'U' option - there's too much useless noise in the downloaded transactions that gets into my registers that only serves to clutter up reports. I'm assuming these numbers are meaningful to someone at the bank/creditcard, or maybe the retailer, but I've yet to find anything they match. They aren't Amazon order numbers or Amazon receipt numbers, nor Amazon invoice numbers. Maybe some transaction number that only the bank knows about?  Plus, names of businesses rarely match, and even when they do, they're often all UPPER CASE and often include misguided attempts by the retailer for Customer Relationship Management by adding in "THANK YOU FOR YOUR PURCHASE!!"  which is totally useless in my accounts & reports.

I wish there was a way to turn off the 'Bayesian" amount matching. Because I don't want to be close, I want to be exact. So when reconciling I have to carefully watch the matching transactions to make sure they're aren't off by $0.02 or some tiny amount.

For downloaded transactions that have to be added, I use the 'A' option, but I force all those transactions to go into a special account - I name it 'Unspecified' (under Expenses).  I then apply the downloaded transaction and then go through all the 'Unspecified' entries in Journal view and clean them up and correct the expense account to apply them to.

The Reconcile function also has a really useful way of creating the payment transaction and giving it a future date (the payment due date, for example), and posting it to my bank acct.

:George
Windows 10 build 19045.2604
Gnucash Build ID: 4.11+(2022-06-25)



On 3/17/2023 1:57 AM, ed...@billiau.net wrote:
On Thu, 16 Mar 2023 15:38:25 +0000
Gyle McCollam <gmccol...@live.com> wrote:

You really should try to download and import transactions.
This is a philosophical point.
There is group "M" who always enter every transaction first in their
books and then use the bank documents to reconcile

and

There is group "K" who enter some things and use the bank download to
keep their accounts.

There are pros and cons to each method. Gnucash allows you to make your
own choice.


Liz
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