Here’s one trick that I learned to speed up my data entry.
The problem occurred when I had regular payments to the same payee, but they differed in some other respect.
For example, let’s say that I have the following payment that I make every month:
2024-08-12 Acme Services
expenses:home $0.99
liabilities:Passport Credit Card $-0.99
Someone in my household has the same payment, but charged to a different credit card:
2024-08-23 Acme Services
expenses:home $0.99
liabilities:Monster Card $-0.99
As I use iadd to start a new transaction and specify “Acme Services” for the description, the default values for the rest of the transaction are based on the most recent transaction. The problem is, since the payments alternate, one on the 12th of the month and the other on the 23, the most recent transaction is always the wrong one, in terms of which credit card was charged.
Obviously, I can make the correction to the field containing the wrong credit card listed, but wouldn’t it be nicer to not have to make that change?
The solution suggested was to modify the name in the description field. It could be something like:
2024-08-12 Acme Services - Passport Card
expenses:home $0.99
liabilities:Passport Credit Card $-0.99
and
2024-08-23 Acme Services - Monster Card
expenses:home $0.99
liabilities:Monster Card $-0.99
Now when I enter a transaction, I choose between
Acme Services - Passport Card
and
Acme Services - Monster Card
Once I pick the correct transaction description, I get the correct default transaction.