This is much more about accounting than how to use GnuCash. Personally I've only had to deal with relatively small sums.
For transactions that I have no knowledge of, no involvement in, when I report the suspected fraud, my credit card issuer immediately issued a credit to my account, so I was whole in a matter of hours. I also anticipated that my chance of recovery was basically 100%. Because of the above factors, I did not record anything on my books. If I thought I'd have to record a loss for the fraud, then I'd have some decisions to make. Again, for my personal books, I would record the fraud loss when there was a final determination. Another option is to have a liability account. If you don't recover, then it's a fraud expense. If you do recover, then just record a reversing transaction. Finally, if you're provided the funds during the investigation, then you need to decide how to treat the funds during the investigation. Again, I enter nothing during the fraud investigation, and I only record a transaction if I were to suffer a loss. Also I've had hybrid situations. Once I purchased merchandise from a legitimate seller, but the seller refused to ship right away. I do not know what happened, but the seller shipped right after I wrote my dispute. About 60 days after ordering, and, importantly, the seller's shipping date was way past the FTC 30 day standard. I was able to recover my funds, but in this instance I did not record anything until after the final determination. I was provided access to the funds right after the dispute. I viewed my chances of recovery has "high" during the investigation, and I did have to send additional information, but I did not record the outcome until it was final. > On 06/14/2026 10:20 AM PDT Robert Putman <[email protected]> wrote: > > > I had a check to a credit card company that was washed and cashed by > someone else. We reported it as fraud and was eventually repaid. How do I > record this in GnuCash so that it doesn't appear as income but that will > balance in GnuCash? Sorry, I am not an accountant and don't know this > stuff. > Thanks, > Bob > _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list [email protected] 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.
