Automatic Reconcilliation using MT940 or OFX

[Tommy Trussell]

On Wed, Dec 4, 2013 at 2:34 AM, Egbert van der Wal <ewal at pointpro.nl> wrote:

>
> On 02/12/13 16:27, Derek Atkins wrote:
>
>>
>> Yes, because reconciliation is about making sure that your accounts
>> match the bank accounts at well defined boundaries.  This is done by
>> going through your bank statement and "reconciling" your accounts to the
>> bank's view of your accounts.  All that an import proves is that your
>> transaction has cleared the bank, which is why it gets marked as C.
>>
>> This is by all design.
>>
>>  Your argument does make some sense, however, I do not get any paper
> statements at all, so there's nothing I can compare the account in GnuCash
> with that gives me more information than the MT940 file. This file is the
> only view of the bank on the account that I have. If all the transactions
> are cleared when doing an import from OFX / MT940, this means that the view
> of the bank and the register in GnuCash match, so it should be considered
> reconciled, in my opinion.
>

This sounds like a very shaky legal situation for the bank -- if they don't
regularly report an itemized balance statement to you then surely you could
sue them over a misunderstanding! Surely there are statements being
produced, somewhere, but maybe you "opted" to not receive them?

I don't know if you are in the U.S. or another country, but U.S. banks are
required to provide regular statements to their depositors/customers. One
can choose mailed paper statements or online statements, but most banks
charge a fee to mail them nowadays. All the banks I use verify that I have
downloaded their statements, and send notices (via postal mail) when I have
not.

In any case I believe strongly it would be in your best interest to get
copies of the bank's official statements, and to reconcile your accounts to
those rather than to a list of transactions.



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