Balancing checking account with bank statement

[Diann]

My records go back to January 1, 2011, with the beginning balances provided
by our accountant.  By computerized, I meant the GNCash general bank
checking account data I entered on the computer.  

Normally with a bank - checkbook reconciliation, the ending balance on the
previous bank statement is the beginning balance of the current month's
reconciliation process.   I find this is not the case with Gncash.  I
"unreconciled" February, because the opening balance in the GNCash reconcile
window did not match the ending balance on the previous month's bank
statement, thereby creating an imbalance with an attempted reconciliation.
The difference was between the beginning balance on the bank statement, and
the grayed-out beginning balance shown in the GNCash reconciliation window.
It appeared to be the running total of the balance in GNCash.  I find this
confusing to work with.

Diann I. Hayes
Legal Assistant
Horne Law Firm, PLLC
2315 Market Street
Wilmington, NC 28403
Tel:  910.254.7901   Fax: 910.254.7903
 
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-----Original Message-----
From: Maf. King [mailto:maf at chilwell.net] 
Sent: Friday, April 15, 2011 9:15 AM
To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
Cc: Diann
Subject: Re: Balancing checking account with bank statement

On Friday 15 April 2011 13:52:08 Diann wrote:
> This worked in January with reconciling the bank balance.  However, with
> February, it did not carry forward the ending balance from the previous
> bank statement, which corresponds with the "beginning balance" on the bank
> statement (which does occur with other accounting programs).  It carried
> forward the computerized checkbook balance.  And, no, it did not work out
> OK as it showed an out-of-balance difference of over $200.00.  The amounts
> of the deposits matched the total deposits on the bank statement, and the
> cleared checks matched the amount shown on the bank statement as well.
The
> only difference was the beginning balance, and I do not know how to
justify
> or reconcile for that difference.
>
> Thanks for your help.  Any other ideas?
>

Hi Diann,

Just want to be absolutely clear about a couple of things.

What do you mean when you say "computerized checkbook balance"?

Are you trying to reconcile the bank account?

If you reconciled correctly in January, then unless you changed/deleted a 
reconciled transaction, that reconciled balance should have been the opening

balance for the feb. statement.  GC doesn't store the reconciled balance, it

calculates it on the fly at the start of the reconcile process, by summing 
all the reconciled transactions at that time.  

How far back do your GC records go?  it might be an idea to go back in time,

un-reconcile the account and start over reconciling from when you started 
with GC. (unreconciling an account is a dull, manual process - you have to 
click on each of the little "y" flags, and possibly click the OK dialogue 
too...)

Maf.