What is the practical purpose of reconciling in GNUCash?

[replicon]

Hi all,

This might seem like a silly question, but... Does reconciliation have any
actual practical side-effects, like changes in how reports are generated, or
anything like that?

It seems to me like nothing but a feel-good blue line that makes it harder
to refactor your CoA later (e.g. suppose you suddenly want to know how much
you've been spending on coffee every day, so maybe you want to create a
subaccount under expenses and move all "coffee break" transactions in
there). Or just in general, if I want to move accounts around, or
whatever...

If I always look at the final balance for my bank accounts/loans when I
record something, which means my tracking file is ALWAYS in a good state as
of the last entry, is there any positive side-benefit of reconciling? Seems
like it's just a confirmation of something everyone should just be doing
anyway (having the correct balance in the end).

So, I haven't been reconciling anything. Am I missing out on anything
useful/important? :)



--
View this message in context: http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/What-is-the-practical-purpose-of-reconciling-in-GNUCash-tp4688161.html
Sent from the GnuCash - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.