Reconciliation window: closing balance distorted and reconciliation date

[Maf. King]

On Friday 02 May 2008, Jannick Asmus wrote:
> Hi James,
>
> thanks for your input.
>
> On 02.05.2008 11:27, James Kerr wrote:
> > On Friday 02 May 2008, Jannick Asmus wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> the following problems occur after opening the reconciliation window:
> >>
> >> 1. Closing balance inappropriate when reconciliation date is before date
> >> of advanced transactions already reconciled:
> >
> > I always type in the closing balance from the bank statement. I think
> > that's what you're supposed to do. There will often be a difference
> > between the date transactions are recorded by the bank and the date you
> > record them in gnucash.
>
> That's correct with regard to the bank account. Here I get the current
> balance with the online banking module. I think this is better. But
> unfortunately this method does not apply to other accounts like tax
> liabilities.
>
> So the problem is still open.
>

Hi, 
I'm not quite understanding what you are trying to do here.  
I think that you are entering transactions in advance (because you know that 
they are going to happen),  then you get a statement from the organisation 
concerned (who don't assume anything about your future) which doesn't show 
the future transactions?

As I understand it (& IANAA) "Reconciling" is a process where two parties (eg. 
you and your bank) communicate to agree what transactions _have_ happened, 
and thus, what the balance owing on a set date is.

How can you reconcile a txn, until you have a "statement" from the other 
party? Could you expand a little on what you are trying to do?

> >> 2. The default date is not the current date - _sometimes_. Does GC store
> >> the date when it was manually changed? If so how can GC "forget" this
> >> information?
> >
> > In my experience it assumes that the statement date is one month on from
> > the date of the last statement. (This will not always be the case,
> > depending on how your bank deals with weekends and holidays etc.) It only
> > uses the current date if the next "due" date is later than the current
> > date.
>

I think that GC uses slightly more intelligence than (last_date+1_month).  
IIRC, the new statement date is calculated using the time gap between the 
last two statements - ie something like:
last_date + (last_date-previous_date).  I'm sure that if I have this wrong, a 
dev will point it out!

> Hmm, I am not sure whether my GC behaves like this. It seems that for
> some accounts there is a reconciliation date stored which is independent
> of any other date like the current date.
>
I see what you mean, in that the default date generally works for my monthly 
bank/credit card statements, but certain accounts where I only get annual 
statements often show the wrong date.  So far, I've just lived with it as a 
minor inconvenience which happens a couple of times a year.

HTH,
Maf.