[GNC] Correcting reconciles

Mon Dec 27 17:23:13 EST 2021

Mahon,
A few comments from a largely accounting perspective.

If your previous reconciliations have been correct, then the opening balance in
GnuCash should be exactly the same as the opening balance in your external
statement. If it is not, a previous reconciliation is incorrect and there is no
point in continuing with the reconciliation until it has been corrected and you
get the correct starting balance.

A reconciliation should achieve two things. The record of the individual
transactions in GnuCash should match the record of the same transaction in the
external record. 

The For an asset (expense)account:
closing balance = opening balance + sum of all debits in reconciliation date
range - sum of all credits for the same date range.

For a liability ( equity , income) account:
closing balance = opening balance + sum of all credits in reconciliation date
range - sum of all creditsdebits for the same date range.

The difference entry in the summary is the value of the difference between the
closing balance you enetered when you started the reconciliation and the closing
balance as calculated above

Ideally all of these should match exactly. If not it needs to be corrected befor
continuing. 

Gnucash actually allows you to perform corrections to the accounts with the
reconciliation window open and in my experience the corrections show up
immediately in the open reconciliation window.

GnuCash will try to automatically mark all the transactions between the last
recociliation date and the current one, i.e. they are ticked in the debit and
credit panes in the reconciliation window when it opens the reconciliation
window. 
This may or may not be correct. Sometimes your bank may have recorded a
transaction on a different date to you for example and this may mean some
transactions will be included when they shouldn't be and or vice versa. If so
you untick the ones which are not in the date range on the external statement
you are reconciling against and ensure all transaction which are on the external
statement are ticked in the reconciliation panes.

I personally find the automatic ticking a problem and I  prefer to tick off the
transactions as I match them to those of the external statement. That is why the
Reconcile Selection and Unreconcile Selection  buttons exist in the toolbar.
They only operate on the transactions displayed in the reconcile window and only
act on the selected transactions  in those windows. We have to keep the more
pedantic of us happy too.  (The usual windows processes of using a CTRL+
leftmouse click to either add or subtract a given transaction fromm the
selection and a left click on a transaction followed by a SHift+ left click on
another transaction to add all the transactions between them to the selection
all work)

There should ideally be no transactions appearing in the debit or credit panes
of the reconciliation window dated before the closing date of the previous
reconciliation.  Transactions dated after the current reconciliation date will
usually appear in the panes to allow you to select them if they simply differ in
dates but are the same transaction for example. If there are it possibly means
that your recorded date may have been different different from that in the
external statement for the last or the current reconciliation and they should
match transactions in your external statement. Depending on how pedantic you
need to be you can either correct the dates or leave them as recorded and select
them, if they are the correct matching transaction.

If this is not the case, then it may also be an indication that a previous
reconciliation is in error or possibly that a transaction which actually
occurred in the current reconciliation period has been incorrectly entered with
a date in a previous reconciliation period.

The process of adding a balancing transaction (suitably annotated) is perfectly
legitimate where you have identified that the recorded amounts differ in your
GnuCash record and in the external statement and thatt they are actually the
same transaction.  (You could equally well just edit the amount of your recorded
transaction if it is just your personal accounts.)

Another common entry error is to enter the transaction with a date incorrectly
in the future ahead of the current reconciliation

If you are in luck the reconciled balance will equal tthe closing balance you
entered from your statment and the difference value will be 0. Only select
Finish if this is the case.

If it is not, your account is not reconciled and you need to find out why before
finishing the reconciliation. The most common errors are wrongly entered amounts
and dates. With amounts, transposition of two numbers in the amount is also a
common error.

On Mon, 2021-12-27 at 16:54 +0100, Mahon Finbar wrote:
> Thanks all,
> 
> "Un-reconciling doesn't delete anything. I'm not sure what you are 
> describing there"
> 
> - I am describing an obvious error, such as an entry in the wrong a/c, 
> it happens.
> 
> "If ALL transactions are reconciled that doesn't mean your balances are 
> 0.00, it just means that whatever the balance happens to be, you have 
> verified it to be correct"
> 
> 0.00 means for me, in the, in the difference column, that I have checked 
> the data I have entered against the bank a/c, for example. If I have 
> sorted out all the invoice sent out against the receipts. and don't have 
> 0.00  maybe someone hasn't paid, or deducted a discount, or....
> 
> I am aware of what reconciling is supposed to do. My question is what is 
> the meaning of 'unreconcile selection' in the context of trying to reach 
> 0.00 instead of
> 
> for example, in the difference column, as I presume is what reconciling 
> is supposed to achieve. I gather from the replies it doesn't mean much.
> 
> I assume that un-reconciling a suspect transaction such as a transaction 
> in the wrong column should show up as an anomaly. But what about a 
> 'selection' ?
> 
> The other issue is one that has been well aired in these columns, 
> opening balances that don't look right. I can appreciate why this is 
> untouchable, but it is, to, me, always a suspicious matter.
> 
> I have 'cheated' once or twice when the difference is pennies and 
> introduced  balancing entry 🙁
> 
> Anyway, I'll try to be more disciplined, new year's resolution 😉
> 
> Finbar
> 
> On 24/12/2021 18:22, Adrien Monteleone wrote:
> > There's no shortcut to finding out why you are out of balance. There 
> > are 'math tricks' however to guide you. For example, if the unbalanced 
> > amount ends with a '9' there is a decent probability you transposed 
> > digits somewhere.
> > 
> > Un-reconciling doesn't delete anything. I'm not sure what you are 
> > describing there.
> > 
> > Un-reconciling simply is removing the 'y' ("yes") flag in the 'r' 
> > ("reconciled?") column and changing it to 'n' ("no").
> > 
> > It doesn't affect any balances. The flag is just for you to know that 
> > you have verified the transaction is correct and matches a statement 
> > from your financial institution.
> > 
> > Un-reconciling then, will mark the transaction as 'unverified'. You 
> > can filter your register view to show only un-reconciled transactions 
> > so you can then do research and find out why it doesn't match, or in 
> > fact if it does, then mark it as reconciled.
> > 
> > If ALL transactions are reconciled that doesn't mean your balances are 
> > 0.00, it just means that whatever the balance happens to be, you have 
> > verified it to be correct.
> > 
> > 
> > Regards,
> > Adrien
> > 
> > On 12/24/21 9:07 AM, Mahon Finbar wrote:
> > > Happy Holidays,
> > > 
> > > Not wanting to ruin your festivities, but where is the best place to 
> > > find help, and advice on rectifying reconciliations.
> > > 
> > > Is see there is a way to "unreconcile" a selection, but I don't 
> > > understand what the effect is or why to do it. For example I can 
> > > maybe unreconcile to create 0.00 as the overall result but the 
> > > transactions are still there!!
> > > 
> > > My issue is that somewhere along the line since 1.1.2013 when I 
> > > started Gnu something has gone wrong, things seemed to be OK and 
> > > because I was lax in doing reconciles I fell off the 0.00.....
> > > 
> > > I there a way to find the anomaly?
> > > 
> > > Finbar
> > 
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