First Time to Reconcile - opening balance is wrong

[Mark Phillips]

On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 2:06 PM, Maf. King <maf at chilwell.net> wrote:

> On Friday 04 February 2011 20:50:05 Mark Phillips wrote:
> > I started with gnucash in January. I went through the setup wizard and
> > entered the opening balance for my checking account. It shows correctly
> in
> > the register window and equity account. But when I click on reconcile,
> > after adding a month of transactions, the opening balance in the
> > reconciliation window is $0.00. I have cleared all the transactions from
> my
> > statement, but I can't reconcile the beast because the opening balance is
> > wrong. How do I fix this?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Mark
>
> Hi Mark,
>
> Sorry, it isn't clear - is this the first time you have reconciled?

Sorry to be unclear. It was the first time I have reconciled.

> The
> opening balance is computed from the already-reconciled txns.  Clearing
> isn't
> the same as reconciling!
>
I know that. I just expected the "starting balance" in the reconciliation
window to be the opening balance of the checking account, since this is the
first time I reconciled the account. $0.00 as the starting balance was
disturbing.

>
> Just ensure that your end date and closing balance are entered correctly in
> the reconcile dialogue, and go for it. Should come out OK at the end of the
> reconcile process.
>
It did - all is good now. Thanks!

Mark