orphans and reconciliation. noob question

Dennis Powless claven123 at gmail.com
Thu Mar 28 22:12:28 EDT 2013


I do something similar. ... enter the bal from statement (ending) and
unmark the items so the sums are zero at the bottom, then check each item
(in your case 19 items) then the recon bal and ending statement bal should
equal.

If this is the first time recon this account you can start over.... unclear
the transactions in the visa account and delete the orphan transaction.
Then start the recon process over.  Correct, Derek??

If this is new... push comes to shove you can redo the entire visa account
and delete the whole thing.... you will have to re enter the 20
transactions though....

Good luck... welcome

D
On Mar 28, 2013 4:59 PM, "Derek Atkins" <derek at ihtfp.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> First, when you click on reconcile and it asks you for the reconcile date,
> you should enter not only the closing date from your statement but also
> the closing amount.  Your issue is that you are telling GnuCash that the
> statement included the 20th item, so of course it is waiting for you to
> mark it off.  Don't do that.  Tell GnuCash the correct balance.
>
> Second, you do not have to pre-clear the items as part of your process.
> You can choose to, of course, and reconciling the account will pre-check
> all cleared items prior to the reconcile date.  However you can just go
> ahead and check them off during reconcile, which IMHO is faster than
> clearing and then reconciling.
>
> -derek
>
> On Thu, March 28, 2013 3:48 pm, marty poulsen wrote:
> >
> >
> > Distilled facts:
> >
> > I am running gnucash 2.4.11.
> >
> > I have, among others, a gnucash account for my bank checking account and
> a
> > gnucash account for visa.
> >
> > Lets say from a starting balance of 0.00 in the visa account, I charge 20
> > separate items on the card. All items are posted to the visa account,
> each
> > with the default NEW (n) attribute.  The twentieth item was charged on
> the
> > closing day of the account, and it too was posted at time of purchase.
> > Arguendo, this date is, say, March 30, 2013. The visa statement arrives,
> > containing the first 19 items as of the close of business on March 30,
> > 2013.  But, the 20-th item is not listed on the statement, presumably
> > because it was not submitted in time to make the closing date.  It will
> > appear, of course, on next months visa statement.
> >
> > I check the 19 postings against my visa statement. No errors are found,
> > and I change each of the 19 items from "NEW" to "CLEARED"  n->c.  I push
> > the RECONCILE button, and specify a statement date of March 30, 2013.
> >
> >
> > WHAT I EXPECT: I expect gnucash to to examine only the cleared items,
> > calculate the sum of such items, and present such sum to me in the
> > reconciliation window, such that when I push FINISH my gnucash checking
> > account is debitted in the amount of such sum, and the visa account
> > reflects a payment in the amount of such sum.
> >
> > WHAT I FIND, HOWEVER: ... frankly perplexes me.  The reconciliation
> > process includes the uncleared  (ie NEW) final charge (the 20-th charge
> of
> > my shopping spree lol),  and because the reconciled balance is not zero,
> > will not allow me to FINISH the reconciliation.  When I BALANCE, gnucash
> > creates an orphan transaction in the amount of the unreconciled balance,
> > and posts this transaction to the gnucash Orphan account as well as the
> > visa account. Both the orphan transaction and the 20-th charge remain as
> > NEW transactions. And the orphan transaction reflects as a yet another
> > (21-st) charge to the account.  (Intuitively, it seems to me that a
> > balancing transaction should reflect as a payment, not a charge.  But ...
> > I dont know.)
> >
> >
> > How do I reconcile my visa account from this point, and have gnucash
> debit
> > my checking account and credit a visa payment (as I know it does on the
> > third reconciliation panel) ?
> >
> > In other words, what do I do with this "orphan transaction"?
> >
> > Thanks in advance.
> >
> > marty
> > _______________________________________________
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>
> --
>        Derek Atkins                 617-623-3745
>        derek at ihtfp.com             www.ihtfp.com
>        Computer and Internet Security Consultant
>
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