[GNC] Reconciliation Roll Back (Peter Cuthbert)

Peter Cuthbert p.f.cuthbert at btinternet.com
Wed May 29 16:39:50 EDT 2024 

Hi David, Adam, Derek and everybody who has contributed.
 
David, your solution is excellent and I suppose it never crossed my mind 
as I had not wholly worked out what all the files GNUCash spews out 
actually do.  I am afraid that using the accounting software is a twice 
monthly chore in which I log all the transaction slip and credit card 
statement and then reconcile against the bank account.  It is almost 
always late in the evening after the day's chores are cleared up and I 
am not really at my brightest.  So I have not been a keen student and 
learned how to make the software fly.
 
The dates associated with the reconciled/not reconciled flag struck me 
as an easy way to do a roll back without using the backups.  Something 
along the lines of "if date = [specified reconciliation date] then 
flag = n" (I have no idea what language is used by the developers. 
 I suppose my gripe about the 'Opening Balance' auto figure is probably 
based on many years of using Quicken.  According to my memory one could 
enter both an opening and closing balance, but more recent users can 
tell me if that memoryis incorrect,  Perhaps, for those of us who are 
more in the 'dozy user'category the term Opening balance could perhaps 
have "Closing balance at last reconciliation" added to it. 
 Have suffered all this messing about to find errors I will probably 
remember that but it might help folk loke me who have yet to fall into 
the trap of not checking that the opening balance was the last 
reconciliation closing balance.  After all, if the program will not let 
you change it why worry about the figure?  However it is really the key 
figure on which the reconciliation is built so ought to be checked at 
the start.
 
So where am I with my data?  I have corrected the £10k which was 
'swopped' and then gone after the error schrapnel.  Some of that I have 
found and corrected but eventually I had to succumb to a balancing 
'fudge it' figure.  With that in place the rest of the reconciliation 
was correct to the penny.
 
Thanks for all the help.
 
Best wishes
 
Pete
 
------ Original Message ------
From: hellvee at gmail.com
To: p.f.cuthbert at btinternet.com Cc: gnucash-user at gnucash.org; 
blake.hannaford at gmail.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 29th 2024, 21:01
Subject: Re: [GNC] Reconciliation Roll Back (Peter Cuthbert)
Peter, The roll back facility is already there and has been for years - 
it's called going back to a backup of your accounts file :-) I'm 
assuming you're just using the bog standard xml data file here and are 
running on Windows. There is a preference under Preferences >> General 
that allows you to specify how many days to retain log/backup files 
which is defaulted to 30 days from memory, but you can set it to retain 
backups permanently and delete on an adhoc basis if you wish. So if you 
are using the xml backend Gnucash does this for you and on Windows at 
least keeps them in the same folder as your actual data file. Gnucash 
names them the same as your actual data file but includes a date and 
timestamp embedded in the name and they also have the usual .gnucash 
file suffix - e.g. if the actual data file was named 
"Gnucash_Data_From_2011_01_01.gnucash" the backups are named 
"Gnucash_Data_From_2011_01_01.gnucash.20240429182558.gnucash". 
You can open any of these backup files as a Gnucash data file. My 
suggestion would be to take a copy of your actual data file and put it 
somewhere safe before you do anything further and make a note of the 
date and time you did the reconciliation that you think was bad. Then 
open the backup file just prior to this date and time - hopefully 
whatever happened, occurred within your backup files window if you do 
have GnuCash setup to retain backups. If this backup file looks good to 
you, you can then choose to save this backup file as your actual data 
file name and start over - you need to do this last step of saving the 
backup file without the date and timestamp in the name, otherwise going 
forward you'll end up with some horrendous backup/log file names e.g. 
"Gnucash_Data_From_2011_01_01.gnucash.20240429182558.20240430054858.gnucash". 
This may mean re-entering/importing transactions from the date and time 
of the backup file - you could always export transactions from your 
actual data file to cover this period if that's an issue for you ? Hope 
this helps and you have a suitable backup file to go back to. Cheers 
David H. On Wed, 29 May 2024 at 23:34, Peter Cuthbert via gnucash-user 
wrote: > > > Dear Everybody > > Many thanks for your responses to my 
Reconciliation problem. > > I have been examining my accounts and have 
managed to find part of the > problem. A £10K transfer out of the bank 
account to a new saving > account became 'flipped' from a payment to a 
receipt. Looking at the > details I set up for the savings a/c I made 
the wrong choices so that it > was shown as an outgoing not an incoming. 
That clearly accounts for the > £20k of difference but where the other 
odds and ends that dribbled it > down to 19K came from I have no idea. > 
> In exasperation I have looked at some of the other account programs 
that > are out there on the Internet but it looks as if they are keen to 
simply > import one's bank statement. I cannot see how they would cope 
with > credit card payements other than as a single lump DD. That is no 
use to > me as I use the credit card as a payments card and need to 
analyse the > statements. Thus it looks as if I will have to wind the 
reconciliation > back transaction by transaction and get GNUCash 
corrected. > > So final thought for the GNUCash programmers. Please 
consider a 'roll > back' facility so that one can correct mistakes. 
Indeed an 'opening > balance' entry request for Reconciliations would be 
useful with a > warning message that the value one has entered is not 
what the system > holds. If that happened one would not go ahead with 
the reconciliation, > but go back and look for obvious mistakes. > > 
Best wishes > > Pete > > ------ Original Message ------ > From: 
gnucash-user at gnucash.org > To: blake.hannaford at gmail.com Cc: 
gnucash-user at gnucash.org > Sent: Tuesday, May 28th 2024, 21:40 > 
Subject: Re: [GNC] Reconciliation Roll Back (Peter Cuthbert) > 
Generally, I find that transactions ONLY get dereconciled due to an > 
action I have taken-- like changing some element of said transaction. > 
They don't just "get unreconciled"-- at least, not for me. > 
There was a short period of time where the app was very strict about > 
when a transaction was dereconciled, but that change was modified after 
> user feedback. I believe that recent versions only dereconcile a > 
transaction when you modify a material detail, like the amount or the > 
date. If you are having this as a longstanding problem, it would be > 
useful to everyone to figure out what is going on, so that the problem > 
can be addressed-- regardless of where the problem lies. Dereconciling > 
transactions is not a minor matter when it comes to accounting software. 
> ⁣David T. On May 28, 2024, 8:51 PM, at 8:51 PM, Blake Hannaford wrote: 
> >I find this has been a longstanding problem. Every once in a while, > 
>old >transactions get unreconciled. I always open GC the same way so > 
I'm >sure >I'm not opening backups. > >Blake Hannaford > >-- > 
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Coedlan Y Plas > Llangawsai > Aberystwyth > Sir Ceredigion > SY23 1HJ > 
01970 623 447 > > _______________________________________________ > 
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Dr Peter Cuthbert
Creuddyn
Coedlan Y Plas
Llangawsai
Aberystwyth
Sir Ceredigion
SY23 1HJ
01970 623 447
 

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