reconcile workflow

[Anthony Dardis]

I've just converted over from Quicken. There, Postpone (whatever its  
equivalent is) means: suspend the
state of the reconciliation process.

I see GC has a different model. Do you typically rely
on its guesses about statement closing date and balance? Quicken's guesses
about closing date are typically incorrect (by a day or so) so I always
assume that the program guesses aren't going to be right, and hence was
surprised to find GC making new suggestions after I had changed them. (I
haven't fully investigated this, but I would have thought that the bank's
transaction dates aren't guaranteed to match the user's exactly, so GC's
guess about the closing balance might often be incorrect.)



On Thu, 27 May 2010 14:01:12 -0400, David T. <sunfish62 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Well, if you are choosing Postpone, then I imagine that GC is going to  
> restore you to the last state of reconciling (with the previous date and  
> amount). If you change the date, how is GC to determine that the amount  
> in the field was changed manually? It has always seemed pretty clear to  
> me that if I change the date in the reconcile window, that I will need  
> to reset the amount as well.
>
> Perhaps it might be clearer if the documentation at 4.5.1 of the guide  
> were rewritten to explain what GC is actually doing--specifically, that  
> the ending balance is calculated from the amounts of pending  
> transactions that fall on or before the reconcile date. I will see  
> whether I can come up with text for that.
>
> David
>
> --- On Thu, 5/27/10, Anthony Dardis <adardis at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> From: Anthony Dardis <adardis at gmail.com>
>> Subject: reconcile workflow
>> To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>> Date: Thursday, May 27, 2010, 10:07 AM
>> When reconciling eg a checkbook
>> account, GC asks for the account closing date, guesses an
>> ending balance, and allows you to put in your own ending
>> balance. Suppose you first put in an ending balance and
>> don't change the offered closing date (today, I think). Then
>> check off transactions so that the account balances to your
>> statement. Then you realize you want to change the closing
>> date. You postpone the reconcile, start it again, then put
>> in the correct closing date. GC will then guess an ending
>> balance again, overwriting the entry you put in the first
>> time. Then (unless you already know about this) you will be
>> confused: the account was balanced, but it's not balanced
>> any more, since the closing balance has changed.
>>
>> Recommendation: if the user enters a closing balance, don't
>> overwrite it.
>>
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