[GNC] Request for Automatic Reconciliation Function

[Bite Gao]

GnuCash Developers and Maintainers:
   Hello! While you have mentioned the requirement of human intervene in the reconciliation process, I do not see it contradicts with the presence of automatically reconciliation system.
   In a reconcile process, the accountant check the record in the account book with the record in the bank statement (or statement from other institution). He (or she) may found out that two record are identical, or he (or she) may found that some record are not identical. Only the latter requires human notice, since there its no point wasting time on reconciled accounting transactions. An automatic reconciliation system can load the digital statement from the institution, compares the statement with the transaction in the accounting book, and pinpoints the discrepancies out. Then human accountant could step in and perform manual operations, such as checking other vouchers, contact with banks, etc. In the situation of single user, the automatic reconcile system have no reason to block manual reconciliation.
   Besides, when I means "human err", I means that the accountant overlook an discrepancy and regards it as identical. People do not spend too much time on identical records, since major of the transaction would be in that state. However, it could cause severe consequences if there do have a discrepancy.
   Yours,

  Bite, Gao
Jan 6th, 2023

On 2023/1/5 12:03, Liz Dodd Wrote:
> On Wed, 4 Jan 2023 15:42:41 +0800
> Bite Gao<redfrog2000 at outlook.com>  wrote:
>
>>     GnuCash Developers and Maintainers:
>>        Hello! While your software has done many tedious jobs previously
>>     done by
>>     accountants manually, it cannot automatically reconcile its
>> accounting data
>>     to the bank statement in its digital form. In my opinion, the
>>     automation of
>>     reconciliation is not only efficient but also accurate since it
>> reduces human-caused errors.
>>        I would appreciate you a lot if you could add an
>> auto-reconciliation function to your software.
>>        Yours,
>>       Bite Gao
>>     Jan 4th, 2023
> Bite, this is an interesting idea, but to me reconciliation requires
> human input.
> While I manually reconcile, I have to attend to pending transactions,
> for example a payment made on a card which never is taken from the bank
> account. At what time do I take that from the active list? Where will I
> put the the never finished transactions?
>
> A number which is different in my list to the banks? How will I check
> for the correct number? When do I contact the bank?
>
> They are human decisions, different in each jurisdiction.
> They are the reason I reconcile - not to have my numbers the same as
> the banks, but to see the discrepancies and decide on an action.
>
> Could you please describe more what you want from automated
> reconciliation? Your statement about "human-caused errors" implies that
> reconciliation introduces errors rather than highlights them.
>
>
> Liz
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