wrong starting balance on reconcile

[hendrik at topoi.pooq.com]

On Tue, Nov 13, 2007 at 08:16:06AM -0500, carpetnailz wrote:
> Thanks for various suggestions I received.
> 
> I decided the problem arose because somehow an $11 transaction from a
> year-and-a-half ago had come "unreconciled"--I was able to see this by
> checking with one of the saved early versions (nice that Gnucash saves
> all those versions). I don't know if it was some kind of inadvertent
> keystroke on my part or some program glitch. But re-clearing that item
> balanced things out. 

It would be interesting to find all the ways in which a reconciled item 
can become unreconciled -- certainly it shouldn't be possible by an 
inadvertent keystroke.  I don't know what version of gnucash you are 
using, but the following seem to me to be possibilities:

  (1) You make another change in a reconciled transaction, maybe 
changing the spelling in the memo field.  While you are doing this, an 
inadvertent keystroke changes the reconciliation field.  When you 
subsequently press enter you get a warning about a change to a 
reconciled transaction, and ignore it, without realizing that there are 
more changes than you are aware of.

   The risk of this could be mitigated if a visually different warnings 
were to be used for changes that can actually change ta reconciled 
balance and those that change other aspects of a trconciled transaction.

  (2) You made a change from a register other than the one in which the 
transaction was reconciled.  Some versions of gnucash did not warn 
about this.  For example, the transaction trransfers $100 from 
account A to account B.  It has been reconciled in account B.  While 
looking at account A you realize that it shouldn't have been a transfer to 
account B but to account C instead.  You make the change.  Or you delete 
the entry and later replace it with a similar (but unreconciled) one.

  I believe gnucash has had this one fixed in current version.  Can 
anyone confirm this?

Perhaps a more thorough audit of code that can change reconciliation 
status is in order.  Is anyone up for what may be a thankless job?
  
> 
> This case does raise interesting questions, however, about society's
> dependence on electronic accounting. If these changes I've made don't
> leave a paper trail, what's to keep big and "inappropriate" changes
> (accidental or intentional) from being made without leaving a paper
> trail?

An interesting question, isn't it?  I've told my gnucash to keep old 
versions of its files around for 40 years, instead of the default (which 
is much, much shorter).  And they get backed up to offline media on a 
moderately regular basis.

-- hendrik