Automatic Reconcilliation using MT940 or OFX

[Tommy Trussell]

On Wed, Dec 4, 2013 at 11:51 AM, Egbert van der Wal <ewal at pointpro.nl>wrote:

> On 04/12/13 18:43, Tommy Trussell wrote:
>
>> This sounds like a very shaky legal situation for the bank -- if they
>> don't regularly report an itemized balance statement to you then surely you
>> could sue them over a misunderstanding! Surely there are statements being
>> produced, somewhere, but maybe you "opted" to not receive them?
>>
>
> No. I'm in the Netherlands. If I want to receive statements, I have to pay
> an additional fee to receive them. I can download the transactions from the
> online banking interface for any period I want (with a limit of 18 months
> in the past), and I can see the transactions and the account balance in
> that same online banking interface.
>
>
>  I don't know if you are in the U.S. or another country, but U.S. banks
>> are required to provide regular statements to their depositors/customers.
>> One can choose mailed paper statements or online statements, but most banks
>> charge a fee to mail them nowadays. All the banks I use verify that I have
>> downloaded their statements, and send notices (via postal mail) when I have
>> not.
>>
>> In any case I believe strongly it would be in your best interest to get
>> copies of the bank's official statements, and to reconcile your accounts to
>> those rather than to a list of transactions.
>>
>
> The MT940 and OFX formats are more than a list of transactions. They
> include a starting and ending balance for every day. How could this pose a
> problem? For any given day, I can see the starting balance, what
> transactions took place on that day and what the resulting ending balance
> is. What conflicts can you imagine that are not resolvable by looking at
> this information?
>


When you have a disputed transaction (whether the amount is wrong, or a
completely fraudulent one), what does the bank have to prove their side
other than an electronic file? I guess in that case you might have to "buy"
the bank's statement and compare it to your records.

I just have not experienced this before, AND I wasn't aware the files
included beginning and ending balances. In that way they are the equivalent
of a daily statement. SO you could reconcile them every day, rather than
once per month, per quarter, or per year as in a paper statement.

I can see now how you might want to update the importer program to include
a reconcile function.