Reconcile issue

[David T.]

Derek--

I think there might be a terminology problem here. I wonder if Russell is referring to the Opening balance box in the reconcile window? In that case, you should be making your *other* rant about not worrying about the starting number, just the final one... ;)

Russell-- am I on the right track?

David

--- On Mon, 5/24/10, Derek Atkins <warlord at MIT.EDU> wrote:

> From: Derek Atkins <warlord at MIT.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Reconcile issue
> To: "Russell Mercer" <rmercer206 at gmail.com>
> Cc: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> Date: Monday, May 24, 2010, 7:54 AM
> Hi,
> 
> Russell Mercer <rmercer206 at gmail.com>
> writes:
> 
> > Hi,
> >
> > I have a bank account that I am trying to reconcile
> that I am having a
> > serious issue with.  Here is the situation and
> steps I have gone
> > through so far.
> >
> > 1.  Reconciled the account from opening to Oct.
> 2008.  Finished
> > reconcile correctly.
> > 2.  Reconciled individually, months from Oct. to
> December 2008.
> > Finished these reconcile operations correctly.
> > 3.  Began to reconcile December 2008, found that
> I was off $366.
> > Looked in account register, and saw that this amount
> was previously
> > reconciled, so it did not show up in the reconcile
> window.
> > 4.  Postponed reconcile.
> > 5.  Entered register window and unreconciled this
> transaction.
> 
> BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD!!  You should NEVER unreconcile a
> transaction.
> * slaps your wrists really really hard *
> 
> > 6.  Enter reconcile of this account again, for
> Dec. 2008.  Upon
> > matching all credits and debits to the account,
> including the
> > transaction that was previously not being shown, the
> balance is still
> > off by $366.  Basically, it is indicating that I
> need an additional
> > deposit of $366 to balance out the reconcile.
> 
> Right..  It's off my $366 because YOU ARE MISSING A
> TRANSACTION
> (or you mis-entered the starting balance).
> 
> > 7.  In order to see if I could clear this out, I
> unmarked all
> > transactions for Dec, and Nov. to try to work back
> from the October
> > balance that had been successfully reconciled. 
> This should put the
> > balance at the total prior to this $366 being
> included.  When
> > Completing a reconcile for November 2008, the balance
> is now off by
> > $366.
> > 8.  I have come to the conclusion that the
> Opening balance, which is
> > supposed to be a running total of all amounts that
> have been
> > reconciled in the account, is VERY EASILY
> CORRUPTED.  In addition,
> > there is no way to modify this, and so I am now stuck
> with potentially
> > having to add in a dummy transaction to balance this
> out.  Of course,
> > this means that my account balance in GnuCash, would
> not match the
> > true Bank Balance.  Besides which, I HATE to have
> to hack a program to
> > get it to seem accurate, because that is not really
> accurate.
> 
> Your conclusion is incorrect.  The opening balance is
> NOT supposed to be
> a running balance!  It's an OPENING balance.  It
> is the effective
> balance of your account at the beginning of your
> accounting.  I say
> "effective" balance because it may not be the actual
> balance.  For
> example, let's say you started accounting on Jan 1,
> 2010.  On 1/1/10
> your bank account balance was $1000.  However on Dec
> 29th you wrote a
> check for $245, and that check has not yet cleared. 
> You need to keep
> that in mind when you enter the transactions.  In
> particular you might
> want to include the uncleared transactions in your account
> so you don't
> make these kinds of mistakes.
> 
> > I need help to figure out some way to roll the Opening
> Balance total
> > back to what it is supposed to be, thus, to Subtract
> $366 from the
> > Opening Balance.
> 
> Why are you modifying the starting balance at all?? 
> You need to:
> 
> 1) Look up the actual balance at the start date
> 2) determine all outstanding transactions that have not yet
> cleared as
> of the start date
> 3) enter all those outstanding transactions and set the
> opening balance
> accordingly so when it all clears it's "correct".
> 
> Generally all this requires is taking the balance according
> to the bank,
> using that as-is, and then also adding in any outstanding
> transactions
> that haven't cleared.
> 
> If you took the opening balance from the bank at your start
> date then
> there's NO CHANCE for it to ever be off!
> 
> > Some thoughts on improvements to the Reconcile
> process.
> > 1.  First of all, please let us modify the
> beginning balance of the
> > reconcile process.  I should not be trapped
> because something
> > corrupted the beginning balance value in my
> file.  When you start the
> > reconcile, the beginning balance should default to the
> ending balance
> > of the last completed reconcile, but that should be
> all.  Not being
> > able to modify it means that I don't know exactly how
> it is being
> > calculated, or if it is working correctly.
> 
> That would be incorrect.  You cannot modify the
> beginning balance.  That
> would completely violate reconciliation and be a violation
> of GAAP!  The
> whole point is to show you that you have a mistake, which
> it did.  The
> fact that you can properly reconcile March without having a
> properly
> reconciled February just makes the problem worse.
> 
> Once you notice you have a problem you need to go back and
> figure out
> what changed, and why.
> 
> Note that you should never be changing reconciled
> transactions, and
> generally GnuCash prevents you from doing so... 
> Although you can force
> it to do so.
> 
> > 2.  It would be useful to show all transactions
> in the reconcile
> > window, up to your ending date, whether they have been
> previously
> > reconciled or not.  This would allow you to see
> something as in the
> > above situation where there was a transaction that was
> marked as
> > reconciled, that I was not aware of, but it ended up
> causing problems
> > with all of my numbers.
> 
> This is arguable.  While it is possible to reconcile
> something in the
> future, that should pretty much NEVER happen.  Why did
> you enter a
> transaction with a date in March if it cleared your bank
> and showed up
> in February?
> 
> Moreover, once you have years and years of data, having ALL
> transactions
> in the reconcile window would be overkill!
> 
> > 3.  Do not pre-check all transactions within date
> range of reconcile
> > process.  This may be different for others, but I
> go through my
> > statement and check off each transaction as I match it
> on the
> > register.  This means that I have to uncheck all
> transactions first.
> 
> Transactions are only pre-checked if you mark them
> cleared.  If you
> don't want them pre-checked, then don't clear them in the
> register.
> 
> > Any help on the above situation would be very much
> appreciated.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Russell
> 
> > 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
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