Automatically reconcile interest charges

[AC]

On 2015-02-10 21:58, Edward Doolittle wrote:
> Since the information about the interest came from the bank rather than
> from the user, it makes sense to mark it as cleared (but not as reconciled
> until the reconciliation process is complete).
> 
> That said, I personally have never had any trouble finding the interest
> transaction during the reconciliation process. Interest is typically
> charged at the end of the statement period so it will show up near the end
> of the clearing items during the reconciliation process. I just look for
> interest charges last, after I've cleared everything else.
> 
> I sometimes think that I should be trying harder to verify the bank's
> calculation of interest. In some cases it's easy but in other cases not so
> much. I usually just ballpark it in my head and hit enter when my mental
> calculation inevitably agrees (within a healthy margin of error) with the
> bank's calculation.

This is a credit card rather than a bank but it doesn't really matter.
In my case, the interest charge is usually separated from the
transactions within the billing period by all of the transactions from
the subsequent billing period.  As an example, one of my cards has a
billing period that ends on the first of each month (so the billing
period is essentially an entire natural calendar month).  I don't
typically receive my bill until about two weeks later.  In those two
weeks I accumulate more transactions.  Now when I finally receive the
bill and reconcile, there could be several dozen or more transactions
added to the account.  Once I reach the end of the transactions to
reconcile, there's still many more that belong to the next period and
somewhere in there is the interest entry.