[GNC-dev] About 3.9 and reconciliation balances

[Christopher Lam]

Release 3.9 comes with a new method for calculating reconciliation starting
balances.

Previously, the account reconciled balance was considered the starting
balance. This includes any splits previously reconciled with an invalid
(e.g. future) reconciliation statement date.

>From 3.9 onwards, the starting balance is calculated by adding all account
splits whose *previous *reconciled date the *current* reconciliation date.
This means any past reconciliation with an invalid (ie future) reconciled
date would be ignored. The benefit is to allow re-reconciliation of a past
statement.

So, anyone with difficulties reconciling an account with 3.9 onwards should
check the account Reconciliation Report, Start Date = today, End Date =
31/12/9999 to seek these splits. To fix it manually, you can unreconcile
them and re-reconcile with any past date or today. Or modify the XML/SQL to
fix these dates.

To prevent future issues there are several safeguards being planned for
3.10:

1. any reconciliation must have a statement date of TODAY + 1MONTH. This
allows some leeway for users who wish to reconcile in advance, yet
disallows reconciliation too far ahead.

2. a datafile with splits with reconciled_date in the future *may *be
repaired; e.g. if reconciled_date > 1 month from today, then it is
evidently an error and can be changed to an arbitrary old date eg 1/1/1970.
This will allow them to be counted when calculating modern reconciled
balances.

I think 1 is acceptable. Any particular votes for 2?