[GNC] How can I add statement balances to my accounts as checks?

[armanschwarz]

Adrien Monteleone-2 wrote
> Precisely. I was not suggesting humans are or should be infallible, but
> that software can help you find mistakes, not prevent you from making
> them, especially in light of a rush to rubber stamp through such a process
> like reconciliation. (the antithesis of what that process is about) If
> that is the user’s desired workflow, they could really skip reconciliation
> because not only is it then unlikely to serve much if any purpose, it will
> engender a false sense of ‘correctness’ in the books that likely won’t be
> there, precisely because it was done incorrectly with the wrong end-result
> or purpose in mind.

The problem is that the current process only checks an error once. Coming
back to my July 2019/2010 example, if I mistake 2019 for 2010 and don't
catch it at reconciliation (not because I'm not careful, but because, as you
say, we're all fallible), then future reconciliations won't catch this,
despite almost a decade of balances being now incorrect.

Supposing that GnuCash had instead kept the balance value I gave it during
reconciliation, then I would suddenly see 10 years worth of balance
assertions being triggered. If I make a mistake inputting a balance
assertion, I'd notice immediately because it would be incongruent with the
transactions. Even if I make a mistake and accidentally input an incorrect
transaction _and_ incorrect balance assertion such that the assertion
matched the incorrect balance, it would still be caught during the next
reconciliation as the incorrect transactions would throw off the future
balance assertions (whereas the reconciliation will never catch this as the
transactions are already reconciled).

I hope I've made this point but I'll reiterate it; this isn't just an extra
check. The current reconciliation requires that the user makes the same
mistake no more than twice, otherwise you end up with a permanent error.
Balance assertions don't have this defect.

The system is more robust against error and doesn't permit drift in accuracy
over time the way Reconciliation does.

The salt in the wound here is that this data is literally given to GnuCash
at reconciliation, it just discards it.



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