2.6.19: Accounts reconciled; trial balance has imbalance

[John Ralls]

> On Feb 13, 2018, at 3:35 PM, Rich Shepard <rshepard at appl-ecosys.com> wrote:
> 
>  The trial balance report for 2017 for a checking account shows a 4-figure
> imbalance at the bottom, yet the account is properly reconciled with the
> bank (through yesterday). How can this be?
> 
>  My accountant tells me that if the checking account register transactions
> balance with expense accounts, and the asset account reconciles with the
> bank's view of it, the trial balance should have no discrepancies
> (imbalances in gnucash language).
> 
>  There is no imbalance on the other checking account's trial balance.
> 
>  (As an aside, it's taken 8-10 hours for messages I posted this morning to
> appear on the mail list so I don't expect to see this there until tomorrow
> some time.)

The trial balance report checks that the accounting equation (Assets + Income - Expenses = Liabilities + Equity) holds. 
Running it on a single account makes no sense; it should be run on the whole book.

Reconciliation ensures that your local view of a single asset or liability account matches that of the other party on the account. Since it's a single-account check it's quite possible for you to have all of those accounts reconciled and still have your books out of balance.

Regards,
John Ralls