Reconciliation window: closing balance distorted and reconciliation date

[Derek Atkins]

Jannick Asmus <jannick.news at gmail.com> writes:

>> What puzzles me is why you reconcile a transaction before it has even 
>> occurred.
>
> This is because of transactions becoming due today with due date in the 
> future. I described it in a previous email within this thread.
>
> For my purposes the process of reconciliation is rather a closing of 
> transactions because they are logically consistent with all other 
> transactions and information from outside and can, thus, be 'frozen'.

That's not reconciliation.  That's "clearing".  From the register
click in the 'R' column and it will change from 'n' to 'c'.  (Or
at least those are the terms in English).

You should NEVER "reconcile" a transaction in the future, because
you should ONLY reconcile against a printed statement from your
bank.

> If a second party is involved in the transaction providing a balance 
> amount to date, the process of reconciliation includes comparing the 
> balances on each side (information from outside). If there is no balance 
> of the second party involved available, there is no other way to check 
> the double-entry accounting by the extended understanding of the 
> technique of reconciliation. For in-house transactions (e.g. transfers 
> between liabilities - cf. the correspondence with Maf.) reconciliation 
> means freezing the account after a check of consistency.

Your liabilities don't provide you periodic statements of activity?

> I have real big number of transactions each week and I am really keen on 
>   closing the accounting cases in GC, since keeping transactions open 
> can lead to unintentional changes and is time consuming twice.
>
> I hope this could make my point of view a bit clearer. :-)

It does, but you're still wrong.  ;-)

> Do not hesitate to ask if you have any further questions or anything is 
> left unclear.
>
>
> Best wishes,
> J.

> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
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-derek

-- 
       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