Question to european gnucash users

[Alex Barclay]

Fredrik Persson wrote:

>Hi!
>
>Forgive me if this question only applies to scandinavians, or maybe only 
>swedes, even. It's about checks, or rather the lack of them.
>
>Is there any point at all in the reconcile concept, when we don't use checks 
>at all? (The americans seems obsessed with those!)
>
>I use cash or a VISA card. My salary is directly deposited into my bank 
>account. I never write checks, I never recieve checks. What is the point of 
>reconciling?
>
I still want to know that everything worked out OK. Whilst in the UK I 
went 5 years without writing a check.

Here in the US you can't get away from the damn things. Even the IRS 
insists on sending them even though I would prefer they direct deposited 
stuff.

Where I have encountered problems is with tips in restaurants. I pay 
using visa and add a $5 tip. I enter the amount in my ledger. When the 
bank sees it in has changed to a $15 tip??????? I have had this happen a 
couple of times over the years and reconciling catches this.

The nice thing about downloading OFX files from the bank is that I 
usually find that GnuCash needs very little assistance in working out 
what is what.

Alex.