[GNC] De-Reconciliation Settings

Adrien Monteleone adrien.monteleone at lusfiber.net
Wed May 1 14:24:23 EDT 2019


Justin,


> On May 1, 2019, at 11:46 AM, Justin Vallon <justinvallon at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Just chiming in here.
> 
> The "Reset Warnings" is about whether GnuCash should ask again (and
> again) and annoy you ("Save changes to transaction?"), or be silent
> about its action (automatically save changes).  It only makes the
> warning dialog choice automatic; it does not enable any additional features.
> 
> As to de-reconciling, it is not clear to me why changing the date
> requires a re-reconcile.  Changing the date of a transaction does not
> affect the reconciled balance.  After changing the date/description of a
> split, I need to return the account(s), re-enter the last known
> reconciled date and balance, and restore the reconciled-state, even
> though nothing could possibly have changed that would affect the balance.

Most certainly, changing the date *could* affect the balance. Indeed, the date and the amount are the only things that can.

Your case might have been one of changing the date to a new one -in the same period-. In that case, no, it wouldn’t affect the balance. But any other date change would. While your accounting periods may be simple and end on monthly boundaries, others may use a different calendar or boundary. (their periods might end on the 15th, or they might use 13 4-week periods per year)

While changing the date from say April to March won’t affect the overall account balance for April, it *will* affect the reconciled balance for March (since it was supposed to be included originally when that month was reconciled, but was not) and so that transaction should be marked as un-reconciled.

It is trivial to re-reconcile a period if the edit was minor and you do this quickly after the edit. (which is why the warning is there, and probably should not be turned off, so there is no ‘hidden’ clearing of flags)

> 
> If the concern is that modifying transaction information should require
> a re-review of the account, then de-reconciling should be an option.  On
> the other hand, a warning about "You are editing a reconciled split;
> proceed?" should give just as much feedback to make sure the user is
> re-reviewing the edit (and leave the split reconciled).

That’s what the warning does, it lets you know this is a reconciled transaction. Don’t turn it off if you want to see it. (I know, there is no option *not* to clear the flag. The workflow is to proceed with the edit and then re-reconcile the account)

> Certainly, changing the account or amount will require a re-reconcile. 
> However, I would rather not have to re-reconcile for immaterial changes
> to transaction date, transaction number, transaction description, or
> split description.

If *you* know the change was immaterial, simply click the Reconcile button in the toolbar while *still* viewing the account, change the date to the end of the affected period, check off the one transaction and click the button to complete the reconciliation.

We had a thread a few months back about what really needs to trigger the clearing of the flag. I’m of the opinion that only date and amount matter, I can see that perhaps NUM *might* be wise to keep, but personally don’t use it as a transaction number often. Certainly, correcting a typo in Description, notes, memo splits, or any splits that don’t affect the current register, should not clear the flag.

> 
> It would seem the opinion here is whether "transaction description" (and
> the others) is a material change.  It seems like that would be a good
> choice for an option, maybe per-attribute (tran date, tran num, tran
> desc, split num, split desc).

File an RFE on Bugzilla and/or contribute code to make it happen...

> 
> -Justin
> 




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