Reconciling credit card (liability) accounts

[Ashvin Goel]

Hi Derek,

You are mostly right. The "transfer funds" happens only for recording a
payment and there is a preference to turn it off. Thanks for clarifying
that.

However, it is possible to "finish" a reconciliation even when your
reconciliation is not balanced. Try using the menu on the left side of
the reconcile dialog. The "finish" button can be clicked and then you
can say okay to the warning. Next the "transfer funds" dialog pops up.
Again, this led me to believe that the "transfer funds" also occurs when
   your reconciliation is not balanced.

Thanks
Ashvin

Derek Atkins wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Ashvin Goel <ashvin at acm.org> writes:
> 
> 
>>Derek,
>>
>>Thanks for the prompt reply.
>>
>>The problem with doing things automatically is that it may not match
>>other people's method of using gnucash. In particular, I enter a
>>future transaction in the credit card account once a month that debits
>>from my bank account the same amount that I have spent this month on
>>my credit card (I update this transaction manually every time I enter
>>a new set of credit card transaction). This way my future balance in
>>the credit card account is always 0 while my bank account shows what I
>>will eventually have in it. With this approach, I don't need step 3
>>below. So I have to press the cancel button every time the "Transfer
>>Funds" dialog pops up. I know that has worked for me but it always
>>raised a red flag, i.e., was gnucash still balanced, since I thought
>>that gnucash brought up the "transfer funds" dialog only when there
>>was some unbalanced transaction or reconciliation.
> 
> 
> Nope, you thought wrong.
> 
> 
>>I guess the interface is a bit confusing. The problem is that there
>>are two different things that can happen: 1) transfer of funds because
>>your account is not reconciled, 2) transfer of funds because you want
>>to record your payment.
> 
> 
> Nope, gnucash only considers the latter case..  In the former case it
> wont allow you to finish the reconciliation.
> 
> 
>>  Logically, these are really different things
>>even though the implementation of the transfer of funds dialog can
>>probably be the same for both. For example, what happens with a credit
>>card account when is not reconciled correctly, and you press the
>>"finish button". Probably, the amount of funds transferred is the sum
>>or the difference of 1) and 2), which is probably not what a user
>>expects. 
> 
> 
> Nope.  Gnucash wont let you finish the reconcile if you're not in balance.
> Try it.  :)
> 
> It will ONLY pop it up once you're done with the reconcile.
> 
> 
>> Hence, given the current interface, I believe that it should
>>do either 1) or 2) but not both. Ideally, the current interface would
>>do 1). A second interface would ask you whether you want to record
>>your payment and then show the "transfer funds" dialog. In a perfect
>>world, there would be a preference about whether the recording your
>>payment dialog should pop up!
> 
> 
> Um, there is a preference.  Turn it off if you don't like it.
> Edit -> Preferences -> Reconcile
> 
> 
>>Thanks
>>Ashvin
> 
> 
> -derek
>