[GNC] Credit card reconciliation - starting balance

[Michael or Penny Novack]

On 7/1/2024 2:25 PM, Tommy Trussell wrote:
> In addition to the comments below, you will need to make sure you entered
> the transactions in the correct columns.
>
> Make sure the account was correctly set up as a liability account (so its
> ending balance will decrease your overall net assets balance). When you
> enter credit card transactions into the account, its running balance should
> go up, and when you enter payments (last month's card payment in this case)
> its balance should go down. The debit (left) column will contain the
> payments to the credit card bank, and the credit (right) column will
> contain the individual credit card transactions.

This might be a good time to discuss what we mean by "reconcile a credit 
card account". by which I mean, what are we trying to do considered as a 
logical process as opposed to simply using the reconcile tool of 
gnucash. In other words, WHAT are we trying to discover/verify?

a) we are checking that there no transactions in the account according 
to the bank that we did not make in the account. Or vice versa, but that 
is unlikely unless entered in advance of it actually happening 
(scheduled but did not take place, etc.). Notice that this is one of the 
ways we might discover we have a "ghost" automatic payment.

b) We are checking that the amounts match.

Notice that if all we are doing is trying to save the effort of entering 
transactions we aren't doing that. Knowing JUST that there is balance 
between starting balance, ending balance, charges during the period, and 
payments during the period is not enough. Would not detect, for example, 
that there was a monthly charge of XXX going to YYY that you didn't know 
you were signed up for..


Michael D Novack