Can Moneydance allow for a more relaxed date matching between accounts?

[jharris1993]

Ref: https://infinitekind.tenderapp.com/discussions/suggestions/15673-can-differing-dates-link-between-accounts

Text of suggestion:

Note:
I already know I am going to get a bunch of replies claiming that Moneydance uses strict double-entry accounting. Please don't flame me for this.

Issue:
When attempting to reconcile transactions between differing accounts within Moneydance, the transaction dates can differ between accounts and BOTH dates can be, and often are, authoritative.

Viz:

1. When the transaction posts to the bank's records and to my account.
2. When the transaction posts to the credit-card account.

Why both dates are authoritative:
Assume:

1. The posting date to my bank account is date "X".
2. The posting date to my credit card account is date "Y", where "Y" is different than "X" by a few days.

At least in the United States, the banks that issue credit cards can, and do, enforce the provision that payments are not considered received until posted to the credit card's account, regardless of what the issuing bank may say. Note that the question of it being "correct" or "reasonable" is not material to this discussion.

The result is that when importing data into Moneydance, there are two sets of duplicate transactions:

1. The bank's transaction copied to the credit card account.
2. The credit card account's transaction copied to the bank account.
3. Sometimes the transactions end up in a "limbo" phantom account created as a place to put these transactions simply because the dates differ by some small amount.

This results in a lot of unnecessary clean-up which is easily resolvable if the transactions can link, even though on slightly different dates.

Suggested resolution:

1. A selectable feature that allows for either strict dates or slightly varying dates between the transactions occurring between differing accounts, (i.e. bank and credit-card accounts, etc.)
2. If selected as "strict" (default) - the current behavior would be unchanged. If selected as "relaxed", Moneydance allow for slightly differing dates between cross-account transaction posting dates.

This way, those who desire and expect strict double-entry accounting can have what they want and expect, and those who want double-entry accounting with a more relaxed date tolerance can have that too.

Thanks!

[sreilly]

This is a great suggestion, and I have an idea for how to implement it. To be honest it won't be a high priority for development, but it will stay on the list for consideration. Thank you for contributing it and providing a nice write-up.

[jharris1993]

Additional suggestion:
Allow the date span to be configurable perhaps with five or seven days as the default.

For example:

• Thursday is Thanksgiving in the US.
• For whatever reason, the bank or financial institution is closed the following Friday.
• Saturday and Sunday are not bank business days.
• It takes one day to process and post at each end.

Therefore, a transaction initiated at institution "X" on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving may not be processed by institution "Y" until the following Tuesday.

Viz.:

• Institution "X" receives the transaction on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.
• It is processed on Wednesday and sent to institution "Y".
• The next four days are bank holidays.
• It is received on Monday, processed, and is posted to the account at institution "Y" on Tuesday.

Ergo: A seven day transaction delta.

Thanks!