Account reconciliation docs

[Jon Lapham]

rneri at libero.it wrote:
>> Questions for the list: How is the "Starting Balance" calculated?
> 
> Hmm... What do you mean? My bank send me their statement every
> quarter, and the starting balance is equal to the ending balance of
> the previous statement (I've read messages in this list of people
> complaining that their Gnucash starting balance wasn't equal to their
> statement starting balance, but whether this was a bank error, user
> error or Gnucash error as not been clarified yet). 

Do you mean this thread:
http://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2003-July/007744.html

I think it finally resolved here:
http://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2003-August/007775.html

No problems with GnuCash.

> I'm *not* an 
> accountant, but Gnucash should display the balance of the last
> reconciled transaction as the starting balance, otherwise you'll get
> a bit confused...

Oh sure, *you and I* know what "staring balance" is, my question is how 
does GnuCash know.  How is that value calculated.  It could be the sum 
of all reconciled transactions in that account, or the balance at the 
last reconciled transaction, or ....

So, I'm guessing, that most likely it looks at the balance as of the
last reconciled transaction.  But, I asked to get a definitive answer.


>> What is the "Enter Interest Payment" button used for?
> 
> When they send me their quarterly statement, my bank also compute
> interests for that quarter; however, I don't use that button, because
> my bank also charge me commission and taxes every quarter, and I
> prefer to enter those amounts manually in specific accounts. I would
> like to point out that the value date of these transactions is the
> end of the quarter, therefore they will appear (and I will reconcile
> them) in the next statement,

Oh, okay, so "interest payment" means *interest earned* on that account?
  Yeah, I'm with you, I think I would prefer to actually enter that
manually.  Weird.  Why do we have this option?

-- 
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  Jon Lapham  <lapham at extracta.com.br>          Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
  Work: Extracta Moléculas Naturais SA     http://www.extracta.com.br/
  Web: http://www.jandr.org/
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