Entering future transactions

[Blackwood]

Can someone please tell me if it is possible to enter future transactions diectly into an account, and get them to appear in the correct date order, or is it always necessary to schedule them?

For example, I have just entered a bill due for payment January 21 but it appears adjacent to today's date with consequent effect on the account balance.

[RLebeau]

New future transactions can only be added from the Schedule page. You cannot add a new future transaction from an Account page. You can, however, enter an existing future transaction as a real transaction into an Account's register from the Account's page.

Adding future transactions from an Account page sounds like a useful feature, so I have submitted it:

Add new bill/deposit from Account page

[Blackwood]

Many thanks for that information.

[BobW]

You can enter future transactions directly into the Accounts page, but as has been said it affects the balance until that date is reached.

I do it quite regularly, with Paypal DDs, Paypal pays on the date I order something, but the DD amount might not leave my Bank account until 2 or 14 days later depending on who I bought from but i always enter the transactions for the sale and DD at the same time, adjusting the date for the DD, to know how much I actually have I just have to look at the last transaction with today's date.

The same applies with anything bought with a Debit card, it normally takes a couple of days before it clears on a Bank account, so I enter the transaction on the day of purchase but add a couple of days to the date, noting the date purchased in the Comments column.

New future transactions can only be added from the Schedule page. You cannot add a new future transaction from an Account page. You can, however, enter an existing future transaction as a real transaction into an Account's register from the Account's page.

Adding future transactions from an Account page sounds like a useful feature, so I have submitted it:

Add new bill/deposit from Account page

[Blackwood]

Thanks to both of you for your replies. My query arose from my having just switched to Ace Money after many years of using Quicken, which is no longer supported in the UK. As you may know, the Quicken register automatically sorts entries into date order, so I expected the same. Now, having the information you have provided, I am perfectly happy to adapt. I find Ace Money a very satisfactory alternative to Quicken.

[RLebeau]

You can enter future transactions directly into the Accounts page, but as has been said it affects the balance until that date is reached.

Entering an actual transaction with a future date on it is not the same as creating a scheduled transaction that will be entered into the Account at a future date.

I do it quite regularly, with Paypal DDs, Paypal pays on the date I order something, but the DD amount might not leave my Bank account until 2 or 14 days later depending on who I bought from but i always enter the transactions for the sale and DD at the same time, adjusting the date for the DD, to know how much I actually have I just have to look at the last transaction with today's date.

I have a Paypal account in AceMoney. PayPal purchases are recorded as a withdrawl from that PayPal account. If PayPal has to deduct funds from my bank account to satisfy the purchase, I record that funding as a split transfer from my bank account to my PayPal account in the same transaction as the purchase. That way, even if the bank funds are not cleared right away, I can still see that the funds were reserved and are not available. PayPal creates separate transactions on its end (a transfer from bank to paypal, then a withdrawl from paypal to seller), but it also links them together so you can see that they are related to each other. So it makes sense to use a split transfer in AceMoney to link the two actions together in a single transaction.

The same applies with anything bought with a Debit card, it normally takes a couple of days before it clears on a Bank account, so I enter the transaction on the day of purchase but add a couple of days to the date, noting the date purchased in the Comments column.

I prefer to record transactions using their purchase dates, not their clear dates. That is really more accurate anyway, as I can then see and search on purchase dates easier. I don't really care WHEN transactons clear, since that money is already tied up as soon as the purchase is made. It might be nice if AceMoney had a separate field for clear date so they could both be recorded, though.

[BobW]

I have a Paypal account in AceMoney. PayPal purchases are recorded as a withdrawl from that PayPal account. If PayPal has to deduct funds from my bank account to satisfy the purchase, I record that funding as a split transfer from my bank account to my PayPal account in the same transaction as the purchase. That way, even if the bank funds are not cleared right away, I can still see that the funds were reserved and are not available. PayPal creates separate transactions on its end (a transfer from bank to paypal, then a withdrawl from paypal to seller), but it also links them together so you can see that they are related to each other. So it makes sense to use a split transfer in AceMoney to link the two actions together in a single transaction.

I'll give that a try and see how it works, but see my comment below re dates.

I prefer to record transactions using their purchase dates, not their clear dates. That is really more accurate anyway, as I can then see and search on purchase dates easier. I don't really care WHEN transactons clear, since that money is already tied up as soon as the purchase is made. It might be nice if AceMoney had a separate field for clear date so they could both be recorded, though.

The problem with that is when you download/import the qif from the bank, that has the cleared date as the actual date and the purchase date is in the Comment, so would mean a lot more work in setting up filters (which I tend not to use) to stop duplicates being created.

I agree wholeheartedly with the idea of AceMoney having both date fields, and the proposal that you have put forward for future New transactions.

[RLebeau]

The problem with that is when you download/import the qif from the bank, that has the cleared date as the actual date and the purchase date is in the Comment, so would mean a lot more work in setting up filters (which I tend not to use) to stop duplicates being created.

Not really. I have duplicate detection set to 30 days for non-check transactions, and for 60 days for checks. I don't have a problem with duplicates being created in most transactions, except when transfers are involved, but those only take a few seconds to deal with.

[BobW]

Max on my AcdeMoney is 10 and 20 or did you alter something in the Registry

[RLebeau]

Not in the Registry, no. But I did modify AceMoney's config.ini file instead.

%APPDATA%\MechCAD\AceMoney\config.ini

In that file, there is an [IMPORT] section with DuplicateDetectionDaysForNonCheckTransactions and DuplicateDetectionDaysForCheckTransactions fields. The values of those fields are not limited by the ranges that are available in the main AceMoney UI. AceMoney happily accepts larger values even if the UI does not.

I am working on a utility app to allow users to edit AceMoney configuration items that are not accessible in AceMoney's main UI (OFX banks, Currencies, etc). I will be adding support for editing config.ini items as well.