Reconciliation [Proposed Change]

[Derek Atkins]

Gnucash doesn't store any balances.  It computes all balances on the
fly.  So there's no easy way to store an intermediary balance-as-of
date for many many dates.  You're basically asking gnucash to store
an undefined number of disconnected date-range balances, and, well,
that could be a LOT of storage for very little gain except in RARE
corner cases like yours.

So, doing what you're asking would be much more effort than the
minor gain you'd get by doing all the work.  But you're welcome to
submit a patch!  :)

-derek

Quoting lingwitt at bellsouth.net:

> On 10 Sep 2007, at 10:28:47 PM, David Reiser wrote:
>
>> Certainly. But the detail is that once reconciled, you never have
>> to go back further in time to find any error than to go back to the
>> last reconciliation date.
>
> Definition (investopedia.com): An accounting process used to compare
> two sets of records to ensure the figures are in agreement and are
> accurate.
>
>
> On 10 Sep 2007, at 10:33:14 PM, keith wrote:
>
>> Reconciliation serves 2 purposes. One is to check that the amounts
>> of the items charged to accounts are correct. The other is to make
>> sure that the bank's balance for the account is the same as yours.
>> To make the second work you need to know that the starting balance
>> is correct. So you need to reconcile bank statements in order.
>> Gnucash does let you mark the amounts as you compare them with the
>> bank statement, even if you do not do a reconciliation. So you can
>> do 1 without 2 if you want; you just cannot call the amounts
>> reconciled.
>
> It seems like the current version of reconciliation is incomplete.
>
> To reconcile, one should specify two things:
>
> 	(1) Start Date
> 	(2) End Date
>
> With that information, gnucash should present the user with 2
> pieces of information:
>
> 	(1) The net change of money within that interval
> 	(2) The account balance up to that date
>
> I suppose two versions of Reconciled Balance are
> necessary too.
>
> This way, reconciliation provides useful information
> on both all time and intervals of time.
>
> Simultaneously, it should be easy to find unreconciled
> transactions.
>
> It's not my fault that my Bank is another dipshit institution
> run by computer illiterate geezers; I don't know why I
> can't access all of my bank statements easily, so why
> does gnucash have to give me a hard time too?
>
> My Motto:
> Humans should not work to make tools happy.
> Tools should work to make humans happy.
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-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available