Reconciling Japanese credit cards

[Chris Bracken]

I don't know if anyone has any experience with the way Japanese  
credit card billing works, but there may be other situations with a  
similar difficulty.

In Japan, billing for credit cards works on a two-month delay.  So a  
bill for the charges you made in December will arrive mid-January,  
and be due at the beginning of February.  Here's an example, where I  
pay my balances in full each month:

											Charge/Payment	Balance
																18000¥
2006-12-01		Groceries					  1500¥			19500¥
2006-12-02		CC Payment (for Oct)		-10000¥			 9500¥
2006-12-15		Presents					 10000¥			19500¥

2006-12-17		== Bill for 2006-11 arrives: balance 15500¥ due on  
2007-01-02 (stmt date 2007-01-15) ==

2006-12-31		Phone bill					 4000¥				23500¥
2007-01-01		Groceries					 2000¥				25500¥
2007-01-02		CC Payment (for Nov)		-8000¥				17500¥
2007-01-05		Electricity				 5000¥				22500¥
2007-01-10		Gas							 5000¥				27500¥

2007-01-17		== Bill for 2006-12 arrives: balance 18000¥ due on  
2007-02-02 (stmt date 2007-02-15) ==

2007-01-20		Groceries					  2000¥			28500¥
2007-01-31		Phone bill					  4000¥			33500¥
2007-02-01		Groceries					  1000¥			34500¥
2007-02-02		CC Payment	 (for Dec)		-15500¥			19000¥

How should this be reconciled?  If I enter the actual statement  
ending balance, there's no date where that balance actually exists in  
the register.  I could wait another month, and add two statement  
closing balances together, then reconcile the earlier one, but it's  
painful to track purchases from two months ago, and any mistake  
generally needs to be caught within 30 days.

What's the best way to handle this sort of thing?

Cheers,
Chris