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

[Christopher Lam]

Would you mind trying the Reconciliation Report. We're confirming that
*all* reconciled_dates column are reasonable. Please feel free to send the
resulting report privately.

Account = Savings
Start Date = 1/1/1970
End Date = today


On Wed, 1 Apr 2020 at 15:23, Christopher Lam <christopher.lck at gmail.com>
wrote:

> (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.
>>>>>
>>>>