Automatic Reconcilliation using MT940 or OFX

[David Carlson]

On 12/4/2013 3:17 PM, Tommy Trussell wrote:
> 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.
> _______________________________________________
> gnucash-user mailing list
> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
> -----
> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>

The OFX specification allows balances to be included in a file but they
are not required by the specification and in the US they may be omitted
or only be included for one date.  Obviously usage in the Netherlands
and I imagine, other EU countries is different than in the US.  I think
that the MT940 and MT942 formats are used in Europe but I have not run
into them in the US.  They differ from the OFX specification
particularly in that they are designed to include all of the data that
is presented in a bank statement, while the OFX specification focuses
mainly on presenting a list of transactions.

One of the GnuCash developers is based in the Netherlands and I am sure
that he has more insight about how well GnuCash works with those formats.

David C