Re-reconciliation

[Derek Atkins]

Hi,

Stuart McGraw <smcg4191 at frii.com> writes:

> Hello,
>
> How do I change a transaction that has been reconciled?
> I imported 10+ years of data from MS Money, most of which
> was already reconciled.  I have a 2004-09-22 transaction
> in a credit card account which was a transfer from the wrong
> expense account on the wrong date, but the amount was
> unchanged.
>
>   2004-09-22 "Bought something" Expense:Something "y" $500
>
> I deleted that transaction and created a new transaction:
>
>   2004-09-24 "Bought something" Expense:SomethingElse "n" $500
>
> (The Expense side of the transaction was never reconciled
> so changes to that side are not a problem.)
> I discovered I cannot directly click the Reconciled column
> into the "y" state.  So I tried to reconcile by specifying
> a reconcile date of 2004-09-30 but the reconcile window is
> showing many recent unreconciled transactions from 2008
> and those (which are still screwed up post-import from
> Money) are preventing the balances from matching.
>
> Why is the reconciliation process paying attention to any
> transactions after 2004-09-30?

Because your entry dates could be wrong?

Re-reconciling is almost always a problem, which is why we
recommend you not do this.  Are you sure your reconcile
balance was correct when you tried to re-reconcile as of
2004-09-30?   I have no idea what reconciliation dates
the importer will use.

> I finally fixed my problem by directly editing the xml file
> but would like to figure out the right way to do this for
> the future.

I would highly recommend NOT doing this.

The right thing into the future is just ignore it until
your next reconciliation.  Ignore the starting balance and
just put in the correct ending balance.  Then you can just
click it off as normal.

For example, let's assume that on 2008-01-31 your reconciled
balance was $1000.  On Feb 15 you accidentally un-reconcile a
$100 transaction.  You get your Feb statement and it says:
start: $1000, end: $1500.  So you go to the reconcile window
but it says Start: $1100, end: $1500.  That's fine.  When
the panes pop up just click that original $100 txn and
in the end your balances will be fine.

> (I realize in retrospect I could have just changed the
> Expenses:Something to Expenses:SomethingElse in the original
> transaction without doing a deletion/recreation of the
> transaction but there are more complicated situations
> that may require adding a new transaction to a previously
> reconciled month (without changing the month's final
> balance), so I would still like to understand how to do it.)

This is indeed the way I would suggest it.  When I had to do
this myself I just expanded the transaction and then I could
modify the unreconciled Expense split.  Works like a charm
and then you don't lose the original txn data.

> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.

-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