Change reconciled code

[Adrien Monteleone]

Dave,

Pending transactions are not complete, thus they are not part of the statement balance, and so appropriately, should not be reconciled. They are not a separate category or state of being. Reconciled is binary, yes or no. Either a transaction is part of the math that produces the account balance, or it is not. A pending transaction is not factored into the account balance. They are shown as a courtesy to you that the bank is aware of the transaction, but it has not yet been processed. When the transaction is no longer pending, only then should it change from non-reconciled. Because only then do you know if it affects the reported balance from the bank. (either failed or cleared accordingly) If the bank never showed you ‘pending’ transactions, your reconcile process and which transactions you reconcile, would still be the same.

Hope that helps,

Adrien


> On Dec 10, 2016, at 11:00 AM, gnucash-user-request at gnucash.org wrote:
> 
> From: Dave H <hellvee at gmail.com <mailto:hellvee at gmail.com>>
> Subject: Re: Change reconciled code
> Date: December 9, 2016 at 3:41:53 PM CST
> To: Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu <mailto:warlord at mit.edu>>
> Cc: gnucash-user at lists.gnucash.org <mailto:gnucash-user at lists.gnucash.org>
> 
> 
> Hi Derek,
> 
> That's what I'm stuck with at the moment, I'm trying to replicate my real
> world situation as it happens.
> 
> I'm using gnucash for my personal finances and a rental property only and
> add all my transactions manually and I guess I'm a bit ocd'ish about
> GnuCash exactly reflecting my real world situation at any point in time :-)
> 
> I don't import csv or qif transaction files from my bank at the end of the
> statement period like some people do as I use GnuCash to confirm that the
> bank's view of my situation is correct according to me, Most of my
> transactions are added within a few hours of the transaction taking place
> so they automatically get an "n" allocated in the reconcile column, which
> I'm happy with, although I'm sometimes left scrambling to catch up with my
> better half's transactions after a weekend of shopping :-)
> 
> If I go to online banking after adding a few transactions, some
> transactions may not even show up there until the next day - some show up
> immediately, some don't, it all depends on which bank the retailer uses for
> their eftpos/credit card transactions - if they use the same bank as my
> credit card issuer uses they generally show up in online banking
> immediately, if not it can take a few days.
> 
> The next day, especially if it's a weekend, some of these transactions
> generally show up as PENDING in online banking and my bank lists these
> PENDING transactions in a separate section at the top of the transaction
> listing and also displays the number of PENDING transactions and a total
> amount of the PENDING transactions, Some transactions may show up as
> cleared and some may still be missing - it's not uncommon for some credit
> card transactions to be missing for 4-5 days and then suddenly show up in
> my online banking as a cleared transaction.  Once the transaction is no
> longer pending in online banking I click the Reconcile column to set it to
> Cleared.
> 
> I have a VISA debit card with another bank and they do things slightly
> differently.  If I have for example a balance of $100 and make an online
> purchase for $40 using the VISA debit card (or PayPal as the bank account
> is also my PayPal debit account), in online banking this bank will show me
> 3 balances - Account Balance = $100, Authorisations = $40 and Available
> Balance = $60.  In this situation I tend to regard the Authorisations as
> Pending Transactions and would set the Reconcile column to "p" to mark them
> as pending if I could until the Authorisation's clear and the Account
> Balance drops down to $60 in online banking at which time I would click on
> the Reconcile column again to update it to cleared.
> 
> So at any point in time I can have uncleared transactions that are pending,
> or not yet showing up in online banking at all as they haven't hit my bank
> yet.  Some may disagree but to my mind these are two different states :-)
> 
> Having a "p" = pending state and separate "Pending:" total at the bottom of
> the register would allow me to confirm at a glance the I've entered all my
> pending transactions correctly and agree with the bank's view of my account.
> 
> Cheers Dave H.