Reconcilliation problems [SOLVED]

[Steve Blackwell]

"David T." <sunfish62 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Steve--
> 
> Given your solution, Derek's recommendation would have worked just
> fine. If you had ignored the starting balance, you would have
> immediately seen that unreconciled transaction sticking out at the
> top, known immediately that it needed to be re-reconciled, done so,
> and been done. That would have been a whole lot easier than the
> process you undertook.
> 
> See:
> http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/FAQ#Q:_I_corrected_a_mistake_and_now_my_reconciliation_balance_is_off.__How_do_I_fix_that_and_reconcile_my_account.3F
> 
> David
>

David,

Unfortunately it wasn't quite that easy. 
My accounts contain about 15yrs of data that I imported from Quicken.
This particular account has a number of sub-accounts that were Savings
Goals in Quicken and so were never reconciled. As a result, I have
hundreds, perhaps thousands of transactions that show up in the
reconcile window. 

Hmmm... now that I'm writing this down... -  I suppose I could have
turned off the "Include sub-accounts" check box in the reconcile window
and found the missing transaction much easier. Ah well, you live and
learn (hopefully).

Steve

> --- On Mon, 10/27/08, Steve Blackwell <zephod at cfl.rr.com> wrote:
> 
> > From: Steve Blackwell <zephod at cfl.rr.com>
> > Subject: Re: Reconcilliation problems [SOLVED]
> > To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> > Date: Monday, October 27, 2008, 6:55 PM
> > Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu> wrote:
> >   
> > > Jason <jason at cougarcorp.net> writes:
> > >   
> > > > Steve Blackwell wrote:    
> > > >> I asked this question last week but  
> > didn't get any replies so I'm  
> > > >> trying again.
> > > >>
> > > >> I'm attempting to reconcile my checking  
> > account. I've done this  
> > > >> many times before and not had any problem.  
> > This time the beginning  
> > > >> balance is wrong so I must have moved or  
> > deleted a reconciled  
> > > >> transaction by mistake. I don't know how  
> > I could have done this  
> > > >> without noticing the warning message but  
> > nevertheless something  
> > > >> has changed.
> > > >>
> > > >> What I am looking for is a way to see all the  
> > changes I've made to  
> > > >> that account since last time I reconciled it.  
> > Is there a report I  
> > > >> could use?   
> > > > I don't know if there's a report, as I  
> > don't think GNUCash is fully  
> > > > transactional in that sense.
> > > >
> > > > A somewhat more manual way is: load one of the  
> > backup files where  
> > > > everything is OK and compare the "old"  
> > and "new" accounts for the  
> > > > differences. If it's just a single  
> > transaction, you could even sort  
> > > > by amount and look for a transaction of exactly  
> > that amount.  
> > > >
> > > > Other than that, I think you'd need an XML  
> > differ tool for GNUCash  
> > > > to do an outright compare of the data files.    
> > > 
> > > Your other option is to ignore the starting balance  
> > and reconcile  
> > > off the correct ending balance.  This should show you  
> > the unreconciled  
> > > transaction or show you the amount of the  
> > missing/deleted transaction.  
> > > 
> > > Note that this is exactly why GnuCash warns you before  
> > allowing you  
> > > to modify a reconciled transaction/split.
> > >   
> > > > Jason      
> > > 
> > > -derek  
> > 
> > I tried loading the oldest backup but it was only about 20
> > days old and
> > still contained the problem.
> > 
> > In the end I made an assumption that there was only one
> > problem
> > transaction, calculated the difference between my
> > statement's beginning
> > balance and GC's beginning balance and then did a
> > search for that
> > amount. It turned out that the difference was the same as a
> > number of
> > paychecks from 2003. I found that one of them had become
> > un-reconciled.
> > No idea how that happened. I reconciled as normal and added
> > in the one
> > missing transaction and now all is well.
> > 
> > Steve