[GNC] Reconciling different periods?

[Michael Hendry]

> On 13 Dec 2018, at 17:13, Finbar Mahon <mahon.finbar at neuf.fr> wrote:
> 
> Thanks, Michael, I have been trying that using end March of this year as the last 'OK' date but doing it up to latest balance seems to catch other errors, so I  was wondering if  I could 'stage' the process.
> 
> Looks like D's reply indicates I could do it by varying the closing balance to coincide with one I am happy with. Maybe a slight problem if the closing balance is duplicated elsewhere? Maybe unlikely.
> 
> In fact by a combination of the two replies I can go back to the last 'good' situation and use the closing balance there as a starting point?
> 
> I'll give the ending balance a try.
> 
> F


I’m not sure what you mean by “the ending balance” here.

Let’s consider a simple situation: you have one bank account - what we in the UK call a “current account”.

For this example, consider that your financial year starts on the 1st January 2018, and you have a bank statement for the period ending 31 December 2017. This will have a figure (say £x) for the balance on 31 December 2017.

When you create this bank account in GnuCash, you set it up with a starting balance of £x.

Throughout January and into February you enter every transaction that involves that account (payments into the account of cash and cheques, withdrawals in cash, by cheque, direct debit, and so on).

When your statement arrives for the month ending 31st January, go ahead with the reconciliation. Because there are sometimes delays in transactions hitting the bank account, Gnucash will have the correct starting balance, but may have calculated the ending balance for the month incorrectly - let’s say you issued a cheque on 28th January and the recipient hasn’t paid it into his bank account yet. You should enter the bank’s version of the final balance for January into the “Reconcile information” in the box marked “Ending Balance”.

Now press OK, and work your way through the reconciliation procedure, ticking the box against each transaction on the screen that matches one on the bank statement, which you should mark as reconciled in pencil.

Once you have ticked all the transactions on the statement you should have a “Difference” at the bottom right of the Reconcile window of £0.00.

If there is a discrepancy (i.e. “Difference” is non-zero), you have a problem which you need to resolve NOW, because in my experience banks and computers can add or subtract quite accurately, and you’ve just ticked the computer’s and the bank’s versions of the same transactions and they don’t match!

Occasionally, you’ll discover that there’s a missing transaction in your records, leaving an unticked transaction in the bank statement. This could be a fraudulent transaction, but is more likely to be a standing order you’d forgotten to enter.

Unless your bank account has very little in the way of transactions, you’ll almost certainly have several transactions recorded in GC which haven’t been ticked - like the unpresented cheque.

Once you’ve cleaned up the reconciliation for January, wait for the February bank statement and reconcile that with GC.

If you’re catching up on reconciliation a month or two late, don’t rush it! Complete one reconciliation by correcting any errors before you move on to the next one.

Pardon me if I have misjudged your situation and made you feel you’re being patronised,

Michael