trial balance - how to find mismatch question

Thu Feb 15 23:55:21 EST 2018

I don’t believe I’ve seen anywhere in this thread any attempt to explain that there is a difference between IMBALANCE-XXX (an indication that you have transactions that lacked a balancing split) and the Imbalance entry in the Trial Balance report. This latter most likely indicates (as David C. has hinted) that your books have capital or currency gains or losses that haven’t been entered into the books. If you buy a stock for $100 using a balanced transaction, and later sell that share for $150 (we wish!) in a balanced transaction, GnuCash will wonder where you got an additional $50. Both transactions balance, but the books don’t. That is why you usually have an entry (either as a separate transaction, or as splits in the sell transaction) that account for this gain.

Of course, it can get complex. 

David T.

> On Feb 16, 2018, at 7:31 AM, Christopher Lam <christopher.lck at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Adrien, could you distil this to a minimal test file and submit in a bug
> report and include relevant report and report parameters? C
> 
> On 16 Feb 2018 10:09, "Adrien Monteleone" <adrien.monteleone at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> How timely.
>> 
>> Any way to solve this or do I just chalk it up?
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Adrien
>> 
>>> On Feb 15, 2018, at 8:00 PM, David Carlson <david.carlson.417 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> If you have multiple currencies  or if you buy and sell commodities or
>> securities  there is another level of opportunities for issues.
>>> 
>>> David  C
>>> 
>>> On Feb 15, 2018 5:55 PM, "Adrien Monteleone" <
>> adrien.monteleone at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I just noticed the subject was wrong due to a user-digest error,
>> re-applying the original.
>>> 
>>> ———
>>> 
>>> I’m having a bit of issue understanding the point of the trial-balance
>> report in modern times. (I generally don’t use it as I mentioned)
>>> 
>>> If each transaction self-balances, that is, debits = credits, how is it
>> possible to add up the debits individually and the credits individually and
>> not get a result that still balances? You can’t add up 1+2+3 = 5 and 1+2+3
>> = 6. It’s a mathematical impossibility.
>>> 
>>> In addition, if you enter a transaction that doesn’t balance, Gnucash
>> forces it to balance by using either the imbalance or orphan accounts. So
>> at least you’re alerted to amounts you need to fix, but technically, debits
>> still equal credits.
>>> 
>>> Let’s assume I entered a transaction backwards and debited my cash
>> account instead of crediting it, and credited an expense account instead of
>> debiting it. This should not affect the trial-balance. Sure, the amounts
>> are wrong for each account, but they still balance. Debits still equal
>> credits.
>>> 
>>> If I transpose two digits (the divisible by ‘9’ trick) then as long as
>> my individual transaction I did this in balances, it still shouldn’t show
>> up as an imbalance on the trial-balance report. The other side would ALSO
>> have to be transposed or incorrect to match it. Gnucash won’t save the
>> transaction unless it’s balanced.
>>> 
>>> I can’t see what possible error could produce individually balanced
>> transactions (required by Gnucash) and yet still have a trial-balance where
>> the debits do not equal credits AND both the imbalance account and orphan
>> accounts are empty.
>>> 
>>> (note, I understand why this report is run with paper records because
>> you’re copying stuff all over the place and might do so incorrectly. But
>> this isn’t the case with Gnucash)
>>> 
>>> Regards,
>>> Adrien
>>> 
>>>> On Feb 15, 2018, at 5:06 PM, Adrien Monteleone <
>> adrien.monteleone at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> The 1899 date seems to make me think that has something to do with a
>> setting in your OS concerning how to interpret 2-year dates. (I don’t think
>> Gnucash has this option, it might be hard coded)
>>>> 
>>>> Try running the report again and make sure to enter the full 4-digit
>> date and not just ’16’. Also, test with 12/30/2016 and 01/01/2017 and see
>> if it does the same thing or only on exactly 12/31/2016. You might have
>> some corrupt data. That might even be the source date of the imbalance.
>>>> 
>>>> I just entered those two dates in the same report and it worked fine,
>> so this wouldn’t be a generic bug to the app, though it might be a bug for
>> a certain platform. (I’m on macOS 10.13 at the moment)
>>>> 
>>>> Since you’ve narrowed down to a few weeks, I’d just take a look at the
>> General Ledger which contains all transactions from all accounts. Click on
>> View > Filter By… and set your date range. (maybe even a day before and
>> after just to be thorough) Also be sure to check all boxes on the Status
>> tab in the Filter options. You want to see all transactions for that date
>> range. Then just look over them and see if anything looks out of place. In
>> particular, look for either the amount you are out of balance by or half
>> that amount if the variance is an even number. (meaning you have an entry
>> that is entered in reverse debit/credit, or entirely duplicated)
>>>> 
>>>> For myself, I think I want to tackle one other area first. I recall
>> doing some re-organization and I went through a series of unposting paid
>> invoices and reposting them, causing my lot assignments to get out of
>> whack. I know I have some open lots that shouldn’t be there and many that
>> are applied to the wrong documents. I’ll clean that up first, then re-run
>> the trial balance and see if that does the trick. I’m not sure where the
>> Trial-Balance report is pulling its numbers from, but it won’t hurt to
>> perform that cleanup anyway.
>>>> 
>>>> Regards,
>>>> Adrien
>>>> 
>>>>> On Feb 15, 2018, at 2:35 PM, Elmar <etschme at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> On 02/15/2018 02:28 PM, gnucash-user-request at gnucash.org wrote:
>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> ----------
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Message: 1
>>>>>> Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2018 13:27:17 -0600
>>>>>> From: Adrien Monteleone <adrien.monteleone at gmail.com>
>>>>>> To: "gnucash-user at gnucash.org" <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
>>>>>> Subject: Re: trial balance - how to find mismatch question
>>>>>> Message-ID: <823DA1A8-B449-470F-AB10-E665056865EB at gmail.com>
>>>>>> Content-Type: text/plain;   charset=utf-8
>>>>>> ...
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Elmar,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Reduce your ending date so the range is half of what it was. Re-run
>> the report. Is it s[t]ill out of balance? Keep doing this till you get a
>> balance, then set that ending date to a new start date, and start working
>> forwards till you get out of balance again. This will help you narrow down
>> where on the calendar the error occurred.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>> Adrien
>>>>> OK - did that and ran into something VERY strange.  Everything stayed
>> in balance up to 07/12/2016.  Setting that as the start date and 12/31/2016
>> as the end date, as soon as I hit "apply", QC overwrites the end date with
>> - get this - 02/27/1899 !!!  This of course produces nonsense.  One day
>> later (01/01/2017) works fine and shows the imbalance.  So, have I 1) found
>> a bug, and 2) given I have narrowed the date range to a few weeks, what
>> report should I run to find the weirdness? - Elmar
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> gnucash-user mailing list
>>>>> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>>>>> To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
>>>>> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
>>>>> If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see
>> https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
>>>>> -----
>>>>> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
>>>>> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> gnucash-user mailing list
>>> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>>> To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
>>> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
>>> If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see
>> https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
>>> -----
>>> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
>>> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> gnucash-user mailing list
>> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>> To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
>> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
>> If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see
>> https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information.
>> -----
>> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
>> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
> _______________________________________________
> gnucash-devel mailing list
> gnucash-devel at gnucash.org
> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel