[GNC] Reconciling subaccounts

[John Layman]

Yes, so do I.  But, the essence of reconciling with financial institutions is to use an account structure that can be aligned with the statements the institution provides.  And reconciliation is a top consideration since your financial books are not the actual thing.

 

As for roll-up:  You simply cannot reconcile a brokerage account (for example) except by reconciling each individual holding and core account.  It’s inherently a bottom-up process.  And the same is true of bank books.  Given multiple checking accounts at a particular bank, they must be individually reconciled.  There is no rolling them up for purposes of reconciliation.  And superimposing an envelope budgeting scheme on multiple institutions with multiple accounts would require, not just flattening, but an alternate structure.

 

The GnuCash documentation on budgeting is pretty clear on what the software provides in that regard.  Whether or not a feature that allows flattening a hierarchy of accounts for reconciliation purposes would be useful, it doesn’t currently exist.  And it’s not particularly difficult to establish that fact.  RTFM.  You can try using a paint scraper as a chisel, but don’t expect a sympathetic ear at the hardware store.

 

From: R Losey <rlosey at gmail.com> 
Sent: Saturday, October 8, 2022 2:56 PM
To: David T. <sunfish62 at yahoo.com>
Cc: John Layman <john.layman at laymanandlayman.com>; David T. via gnucash-user <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
Subject: Re: [GNC] Reconciling subaccounts

 

Well said!

 

I actually have both kinds of parent accounts, as you described.

 

On Sat, Oct 8, 2022 at 7:39 AM David T. via gnucash-user <gnucash-user at gnucash.org <mailto:gnucash-user at gnucash.org> > wrote:

John, 

I don't know about "typically." There are any of a number of ways that someone might use placeholder accounts. In my own books, I have placeholder accounts for brokerage holdings, where the placeholder represents an institution's account and the leaf accounts represent individual securities. I also have placeholder accounts that represent a class of account types-- for example, a placeholder for savings accounts at different institutions. 

The OP appears to be using the structure to implement an envelope allocation system, in which case the subaccounts are virtual. They want both the real and the virtual accounts to show that reconciliation. GnuCash doesn't currently do that. 

Whether that's a bug or a feature (and whether a sensible implementation can be devised to address it) is perhaps a different matter. 

⁣David T. 

On Oct 8, 2022, 9:17 AM, at 9:17 AM, John Layman <john.layman at laymanandlayman.com <mailto:john.layman at laymanandlayman.com> > wrote:
>Typically, the place holder account represents an institution, not an
>account.  I have never seen a bank statement that presents rolled up
>account totals at the institution level.  Each checking account,
>savings account, money market account, CD holdings, installment loan
>accounts, etc. are presented separately (even if within the same
>document) with beginning and ending balances shown separately for each
>such account.  Balancing could be an absolute nightmare if you had to
>track down a discrepancy in conglomerated the numbers.

-- 

_________________________________
Richard Losey
rlosey at gmail.com <mailto:rlosey at gmail.com> 
Micah 6:8