Reconciliation window: closing balance distorted and reconciliation date

[Maf. King]

On Friday 02 May 2008, Jannick Asmus wrote:
> Maf,
>
> On 02.05.2008 13:41, Maf. King wrote:
>
> > I suggest that you will have to manually over-ride the ending balance
> > when you start the reconcile, or adjust it using Reconcile-> Reconcile
> > Information once you know what the discrepancy is.
>
> This needs tedious calculations. I would like GC to do this job for me.
>

Yes, I can see this manual method could lead to errors - although all you need 
to do is substitute "balance_at_date" with "final_balance" in the reconcile 
dialog - AFAIK, the ending balance is just grabbed from the register using 
the reconcile date - you can just read the final future balance and insert 
that - no calculation required!

> > There is a "bug" (deviation from user expectation) in how the reconcile
> > dialog ending balance figure is auto-filled when you start the process.
>
> I was wondering to file a bug at bugzilla. But first I wanted to hear
> what others think about it. I think I should file shortly.

I don't think it is a bug, as such.  I think you are "bending" the reconcile 
process to do something it isn't intended to do (more of this later).  It is 
more like a RFE, IMHO.

>
> > Does Umsatzsteuer work in the same way as UK VAT? 
<SNIP>
>
> That sounds quite similar to the German Umsatzsteuer system. 
<SNIP>
>
> I reconcile every account to avoid inconsistencies and apply proper
> double accounting.
>

This is what I mean about "bending" reconcilliation: (- and remember, IANAA!)

As I said in an earlier post, (as I understand it) -  to "reconcile" an 
account is about checking that you and some other organisation agree about 
the balance of an account at some point in time, not  to do with proper 
double-entry accounting, or making txns "fixed" (although it does have that 
side-effect with the warning dialog if you try to change a flagged txn)


I see exactly what you are doing, and understand your reasoning, but if I may 
make a suggestion -  don't reconcile your tax liability account every day (or 
data-entry day/week/whatever) - do it only when the final total for the month 
is known, then you should end up at 0.00 in the account - unless you have an 
error!  (I do this for my expenses claimed from my business, so I can see 
easily what is outstanding. ) 

Regards,
Maf.