wrong starting balance on reconcile

[Andrew Sackville-West]

On Tue, Nov 13, 2007 at 09:15:53AM -0500, hendrik at topoi.pooq.com wrote:
> 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.

It appears that there is no differentiation made between the types of
changes made to a transaction. Certain changes don't matter,
obviously, and may not even warrant a warning. Changes to the memo,
description, notes, or number fields (like check number) really
shouldn't matter. Changes to amounts or accounts should be a big bold
flashing lights and bells warning. 

I think what you're referring to here is a situation where we get used
to seeing a warning about changing a reconciled transaction in
situations where it doesn't matter so that in situations where it
*does* matter its not noteworthy enough to cause a user to reexamine
their work.

I just played with this in svn and the warning pops as soon as you try
to enter a field in a reconciled split. Once you agree to the changing
of the split, you can do whatever you like to it. Essentially, you're
agreeing to change the split without necessarily the intention of
changing the important parts of the split. But because it doesn't care
what kind of change you're making, it becomes trivial at that point to
make inadvertent adverse changes. Note though that there is still a
warning thrown for changing the reconciled status of the split. That's
good.

 It might be better to allow entry into the split without warning and
then subsequently examine what the changes are before committing the
transaction. Then a warning could be thrown for changes that actually
matter. The warning becomes much more relevant and may help prevent
arbitrary click-through.

As a user, I don't really care if I change the memo, description,
notes, num or maybe even the date field. I *do* care if I change the
amount, status, or account. Warning me for the ones I don't care about
makes me lazy and click without thinking... 

just .02


A
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