[GNC] Reconciliation is not adding up correctly - what to do??

[Adrien Monteleone]

I could be wrong, but I read “opening balance” to mean the balance when the account was created in GnuCash, not the “starting balance” for the reconciliation. Certainly, when you first create an account, you have to tell GnuCash how much is already in the account if it pre-existed.

It could be that the user is erroneously entering this as the reconciliation starting balance without it first being reconciled.

I’d think the solution is either:

1. Reconcile only the opening balance transaction, then proceed with a regular reconciliation, using that amount as the ’starting balance'
2. Use a 'starting balance' of zero and know you have to check off that initial transaction as if it appeared on the bank statement. (because technically it does in the ‘beginning balance’ figure on the statement.

On the point of being ’slightly off’, I understood the OP to mean that previously they do not regularly reconcile, but rather ‘cursorily view’ their account and do not usually worry about exactness until the end of the year. (presumably when an actual reconciliation is done)

Regards,
Adrien



> On Jan 28, 2019, at 6:12 AM, David T. via gnucash-user <gnucash-user at gnucash.org> wrote:
> 
> There is a lot to unpack here. 
> 
> You say you started at the beginning of 2018 and entered "the closing balance for 2017." 
> Was that balance taken from a statement? Or just from the bank website as of that date? 
> I can't see how any of the various numbers (the numbers on the screen grab or provided in your message) could be combined to balance out. And where does this 3986.22 figure come from?
> Next, if this truly is your first reconciliation, how is it that you have a non zero opening balance? Gnucash derives this number by taking all entries that were previously reconciled. So maybe you reconciled something already?
> Finally, you will not be able to reconcile your account if it's inaccurate by even "a few centimes." Gnucash insists on a full match in amount before it allows you to complete the process.  So, you will need to address those as well. 
> Figure out why Gnucash shows a non zero opening balance and clean up the erroneous transactions, and see where that puts you. 
> David
>