[GNC-dev] [GNC] some of my reconciliations in 3.9 are completely bonkers

[Christopher Lam]

(snipped screenshot showing a very regular savings account with monthly
reconciled interest splits until 31.1.2020 and monthly cleared interest
splits afterwards).

Apologies I cannot understand how/why the starting balance calculator would
not show the appropriate amount. I assume you're not including subaccounts
in your reconciliation. The 3.9 starting balance is calculated at
https://github.com/Gnucash/gnucash/blob/90d3e6c6721ffb3f7e53adfd8bbd2f1b6933cb3d/libgnucash/engine/Account.cpp#L3402
--

Scan all (savings) account splits, if split's *reconciled_status* is 'y'
and the *reconciled_date* <= *statement_date* then accumulate its value.
Note the *reconciled_date* will be the statement_date for previous months'
reconciliations, therefore all splits from previous reconciliations *should*
be counted without fail. If you could create a dev environment I could
offer a repository with appropriate logging. Unfortunately I do not know
how to package a .dmg.

Alternatively if you can install a custom report I can create a .scm file
to log a similar reconciled_balance accumulator.

C

> On Apr 1, 2020, at 10:40 AM, Christopher Lam <christopher.lck at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Specifically interested in the register screenshot from 1-Jan-2020 onwards
> -- wish to verify balances/reconcile-status etc. Thank you. Regards
>>
>> Care to share a screenshot of your savings account register privately?
>> Earlier splits are not needed. Thanks.
>>
>> On Wed, 1 Apr 2020, 10:06 pm David Reiser, <dbreiser at icloud.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I have no problem with (A), except maybe if you’re using the gnucash
>>> posting date. A reconciliation resolves transactions based on the bank’s
>>> posting date, not gnucash’s. If I don’t enter March 31, 2020 interest until
>>> April 1, I’m still going to enter it in my account as having occurred on
>>> 3/31. But even that distinction can’t be causing what I’m seeing.
>>>
>>> In my simplest case, my savings account was last reconciled based on the
>>> interest paid 1/31/2020. On 2/29 I received $0.96 in interest and on 3/31 I
>>> received $1.03 in interest. There were no other transactions during that
>>> time. I have no idea when I entered the February interest, but I did enter
>>> the March interest on 3/31/2020 (at least it was still 3/31 on the U.S.
>>> east coast).
>>>
>>> When I click Reconcile, in the Reconcile Information dialog, I get:
>>> Statement date 02/29/2020
>>> Starting Balance $3024.39 (this amount was reconciled in gnucash 3.7)
>>> ending Balance $3025.36  (reasonable, since 3024.39 + 0.96 = 3025.35)
>>>
>>> Now if I click OK to get to the transaction check-off dialog, I get:
>>>
>>> Starting balance: 375.15  (What???)
>>> Ending Balance: 3025.36 (well, it remembered what I entered)
>>> Reconciled balance: 376.11 (well, it is 375.15 + 0.96 …)
>>>
>>> Difference: 2649.24 (the math is locally consistent, but the starting
>>> balance doesn’t represent anything in my register or what gnucash showed me
>>> on the prior screen)
>>>
>>> On Apr 1, 2020, at 1:19 AM, Christopher Lam <christopher.lck at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> This is due to https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=797640
>>>
>>> This change modifies the reconciliation starting balance calculator from
>>> Account->reconciled_balance to account->reconciled_balance on statement
>>> date.
>>>
>>> The reasoning for this change is with the observation:
>>>
>>> (A) if reconciliation is performed from a statement dated 31/01/2019,
>>> the starting balance calculator should ignore transactions posted later
>>> than 31/01/2019.
>>>
>>> (B) subsequent work https://github.com/Gnucash/gnucash/pull/667 aims to
>>> store past reconciliation ending balances and statement date. As a result
>>> we can re-reconcile any past statement.
>>>
>>> (C) subsequent work will allow a sanity-check type report (illustrated
>>> in above PR)  which will compare account reconciled balances at previous
>>> statement dates, and highlight any discrepancy.
>>>
>>> There have been previous feature requests to store and retrieve
>>> reconciled balances and reconciliation dates, and I believe it's possible
>>> and reasonable.
>>>
>>> Having explained the rationale, the reasoning (A) may be incorrect --
>>> please file in bug 797640 how/why starting_balance should include
>>> transactions posted after statement date. If reasoning (A) is invalid then
>>> we will need to revert the change, which means (B) and (C) above cannot
>>> happen.
>>>
>>> On Wed, 1 Apr 2020, 11:48 am David Reiser via gnucash-user, <
>>> gnucash-user at gnucash.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> My checking account reconciled fine.
>>>> Then I went to two savings accounts and got completely off-the-wall
>>>> results. When I first clicked the reconcile button, the dialog that comes
>>>> up has the correct starting balance and the correct proposed
>>>> to-be-reconciled balance. When I click OK to get to the transaction
>>>> check-off dialog, gnucash has completely changed the starting balance to a
>>>> much smaller number (and one that has never appeared in the account ledger)
>>>> and thus presents an out of balance total that cannot be reconciled with
>>>> the transactions that are in the account.
>>>>
>>>