Reconcilliation

Charles Hillon charleshillon at comcast.net
Thu Feb 5 15:05:13 EST 2015


I always enter the ending balance from the bank statement. I have been completing reconciliation with iBank & Quicken before using GnuCash to reconcile the same statement. I’m trying out GnuCash to see if I want to use it instead of iBank in the future. If I do I will send you all a donation. GnuCash’s reconciliation is working okay for some of my other credit card & bank accounts, though there were some initial problems with reconciliation. Please don’t concern yourself anymore about  this. I’ll figure it out.

> On Feb 5, 2015, at 2:45 PM, Derek Atkins <derek at ihtfp.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Charles,
> 
> When you first start to reconcile and it asks you to enter the reconcile
> date and balance...  Do you manually enter the correct ending balance from
> your paper statement?  Or do you just accept GnuCash's guess?  If the only
> way to complete the process is to have GnuCash add a balancing transaction
> that implies that either:
> 
> 1) the balance you entered into the dialog doesn't match the balance on
> your statement, or
> 2) you're missing transactions.
> 
> If the issue is #1 then you should quit your reconcile process and make
> sure you enter in the correct ending balance from your statement.
> 
> If the issue is #2 then you can either use the Balance function, like
> you're doing, or you can enter in the missing transactions from the
> statement into the register.
> 
> Hope this helps,
> 
> -derek
> 
> 
> On Thu, February 5, 2015 2:33 pm, Charles Hillon wrote:
>> That’s the only way offered to complete the reconciliation. Then, I put in
>> an opposite entry to correct the balance, hoping that next month’s
>> reconciliation would be free of this problem. If this doesn’t work I’ll
>> try something else.
>> 
>>> On Feb 5, 2015, at 2:20 PM, Derek Atkins <derek at ihtfp.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hi,
>>> 
>>> Looking at the code GnuCash *can* create that kind of transaction.
>>> I've never seen it happen myself in over 15 years, so I'm trying to
>>> track
>>> the code to see *when* it happens.
>>> 
>>> ... and the survey says...
>>> 
>>> Looks like it is created if you click on the "Balance" button on the
>>> reconcile window.
>>> 
>>> In most cases one would never want to use this feature.  Charles, why
>>> did
>>> you click on the "Balance" button?
>>> 
>>> Thanks,
>>> 
>>> -derek
>>> 
>>> On Thu, February 5, 2015 1:56 pm, David T. wrote:
>>>> Charles,
>>>> I respect that you don't want more replies from me, which is why I am
>>>> only
>>>> replying to the list on this message.
>>>> To the list:
>>>> Charles says that GnuCash creates balancing transactions during the
>>>> reconciliation process, and I want to double check with others, as I
>>>> have
>>>> never had that happen. I want to be sure that if I am mistaken, future
>>>> readers of the thread will get the right information on this.
>>>> Thanks,David
>>>> 
>>>>     From: Charles Hillon <charleshillon at comcast.net>
>>>> To: David T. <sunfish62 at yahoo.com>
>>>> Cc: Gnucash-user Mailinglist <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
>>>> Sent: Thursday, February 5, 2015 8:43 AM
>>>> Subject: Re: Reconcilliation
>>>> 
>>>> David,
>>>> It most certainly does. Thanks for your help. No further reply needed.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Feb 4, 2015, at 9:16 PM, David T. <sunfish62 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> Charles,
>>>> 
>>>> I am pretty sure that GnuCash *doesn't* insert any transactions when
>>>> you
>>>> choose to reconcile, except for the interest dialog that pops up for
>>>> some
>>>> account types.
>>>> "Balancing entry from reconciliation" sounds to me like something that
>>>> you
>>>> might have put in at an earlier point? What happens if you delete that
>>>> transaction from the books and start the reconcile again?
>>>> David
>>>> 
>>>>     From: Charles Hillon <charleshillon at comcast.net>
>>>> To: David T. <sunfish62 at yahoo.com>
>>>> Cc: Gnucash-user Mailinglist <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
>>>> Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2015 4:20 PM
>>>> Subject: Re: Reconcilliation
>>>> 
>>>> Before the reconciliation can be completed the GnuCash software inserts
>>>> into the account a “Balancing entry from reconciliation”, which makes
>>>> the
>>>> balance in the account incorrect. If you don’t do this the
>>>> reconciliation
>>>> is voided. After completing the reconciliation I made an entry into the
>>>> account to reverse the  “Balancing entry from reconciliation”. Maybe
>>>> that
>>>> will help when I reconcile next month.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Feb 4, 2015, at 6:22 PM, David T. <sunfish62 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> Well, it 's not my software, although I did write the documentation
>>>> part
>>>> about the differing opening balances, from comments made on the mailing
>>>> lists a few years back.
>>>> Are you saying that after selecting the transactions for
>>>> reconciliation,
>>>> your closing balances are still off?
>>>> 
>>>> The upshot of the documentation is to point out that the Opening
>>>> balance
>>>> is not critical--what matters is the Closing balance. If the closing
>>>> balance in GnuCash agrees with your statement closing balance, then
>>>> there
>>>> is nothing to be concerned about. [Indeed, GnuCash's reconcile feature
>>>> will not allow you to finish reconciliation until these numbers match.]
>>>> The special notes in the reference guide page are meant to clarify
>>>> that.
>>>> As for viewing prior reconciliations, I know that some have expressed
>>>> similar requests in the past. Typically, this takes the form of a
>>>> request
>>>> for a reconciliation report, for which workarounds have been suggested.
>>>> Those workarounds won't help in your situation, unfortunately.
>>>> David..P.S., please also use Reply All. That way, others can step in
>>>> and
>>>> help when my meager attempts fall short.
>>>>     From: Charles Hillon <charleshillon at comcast.net>
>>>> To: David T. <sunfish62 at yahoo.com>
>>>> Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2015 2:42 PM
>>>> Subject: Re: Reconcilliation
>>>> 
>>>> Thanks. I’ve already read all that. Wish your software showed prior
>>>> reconciliations. iBank’s software does that.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Feb 4, 2015, at 4:41 PM, David T. <sunfish62 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> Charles,
>>>> 
>>>> Try looking at
>>>> http://gnucash.org/docs/v2.6/C/gnucash-guide/txns-reconcile1.html
>>>> Cheers,David
>>>> 
>>>>     From: Colin Law <clanlaw at gmail.com>
>>>> To: Charles Hillon <charleshillon at comcast.net>;
>>>> "gnucash-user at gnucash.org" <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
>>>> Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2015 12:45 PM
>>>> Subject: Re: Reconcilliation
>>>> 
>>>> On 4 February 2015 at 20:17, Charles Hillon <charleshillon at comcast.net>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> I’ve only been using GnuCash for a couple of months & on this one
>>>>> account it’s happened on each reconciliation. The account balance is
>>>>> correct & agrees with my Quicken & iBank software, both of which are
>>>>> reconciling correctly. I’ll try to finesse it to reconcile & still
>>>>> show
>>>>> the correct balance. I wish GnuCash had a column for notes. Charles
>>>> 
>>>> Don't forget to use Reply All or Reply List when replying to emails
>>>> otherwise the post just goes to the last sender.  This list is a bit
>>>> unusual in that respect.  I am forwarding it.
>>>> 
>>>> Is this the first time you have reconciled it?  If so then perhaps you
>>>> may just need to insert an initial balance at the start.  If not then
>>>> the starting balance now should be the same as the ending balance the
>>>> last time you reconciled it.
>>>> 
>>>> Colin
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Feb 4, 2015, at 2:51 PM, Colin Law <clanlaw at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On 4 February 2015 at 19:23, Charles T Hillon
>>>>>> <charleshillon at comcast.net> wrote:
>>>>>>> How do I change an erroneous starting balance in a reconciliation?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> If the account has previously been reconciled then this means that a
>>>>>> previous reconciled transaction has been deleted or edited (or
>>>>>> possibly that a transaction has been manually reconciled or
>>>>>> de-reconciled, not sure about that).  Ideally you should identify the
>>>>>> error and correct it.  Possibly by going to a recent backup and
>>>>>> working forwards from there.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> You can look through the log files looking for the error also.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Colin
>>>>> 
>>>> 
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>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> 
>>> 
>>> --
>>>      Derek Atkins                 617-623-3745
>>>      derek at ihtfp.com             www.ihtfp.com
>>>      Computer and Internet Security Consultant
>>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
>       Derek Atkins                 617-623-3745
>       derek at ihtfp.com             www.ihtfp.com
>       Computer and Internet Security Consultant
> 




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