[GNC] Reconcile Operation overrides User-entered Ending Balance

[Tom Route36]

Hi John,

I managed to get back to the system here tonight.  I have some important 
new info; but before I get into that let me go and provide the 
Preference settings you asked for.  Here they are:
   =====
   Reverse Balanced Accounts:  Credit accounts
   Reconciling:  Check cleared transactions - checked
   Reconciling:  Automatic credit card payment - unchecked
   Reconciling:  Always reconcile to today - unchecked
   Reconciling:  Enable autoclear tools in reconciliation - unchecked
   =====
Also, I can confirm that none of the splits are cleared.  All of the 
transactions that are part of this statement period / reconciliation 
operation all still have 'n' in the Reconcile column.

Now, on to the new info.  One of the things you said yesterday was that 
the date stuff was irrelevant.  But based on my additional testing 
today, I'm going to have to disagree with you.  It seems to be a key 
factor here.

I first repeated the same test of reconciling with the 7/27 Statement 
Date and the $800.00 Ending Balance using every conceivable sequence of 
tabbing around and mousing around and hitting enter that I could come up 
with.  Nothing changed the result.  The $800 entry in the Reconcile 
popup window always ended up getting overwritten with the $950 amount 
after hitting OK.

But then I made one change.  In the register, I edited the offending 
$150 transaction that had the 7/27 date.  And I simply changed the 
transaction date to 7/28 -- the day *after* the Statement Ending Date.  
Then I did the Reconcile operation.  And when I hit OK?  Now my $800 
Ending Balance carried thru to the Funds In vs Funds Out window as 
$800.  Problem solved!

There may be some additional factors playing into this that's causing 
the issue to only show up on this particular account on my system.  And 
I'm not really sure what those other factors might be. But the key 
factor appears to be when you're doing a Reconcile operation on an 
account in which there's a non-zero transaction in the register with a 
date *equal* to the Statement Date that the user is entering in the 
Reconcile popup window.  When those conditions occur, that seems to 
cause the user-entered Ending Balance to get overwritten.  At least, 
that's what appears to be happening on my system here.

I'm still not following thru with the reconciliation of this credit card 
account just yet.  I'm keep things as they are in case you'd like me to 
run some additional tests or need other info first.  Just let me know 
what you need.

Tom


On 08/05/2026 10:58 AM, John Ralls wrote:
> Tom,
>
> No rush, respond when you have time and are with your machine.
>
> That’s an interesting behavior that I still can’t reproduce, but maybe 
> I need to set up a test book with the right conditions to be able to 
> duplicate it exactly.
>
> Please do provide the preferences you have set to help with 
> replication efforts.
>
> Regards,
> John Ralls
>
>
>> On Aug 5, 2026, at 01:24, Tom Route36 <tom.route36 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> John,
>> A correction to my availability for testing.  It's Wednesday (today) 
>> that I won't have my test system.  So if you have other questions for 
>> me, I'll be back Thursday.  Sorry for the confusion.  (It's been a 
>> really long day for me ... whatever day this is now.)
>> Tom
>>
>> On 08/05/2026 01:57 AM, Tom Route36 wrote:
>>> Hi John,
>>>
>>> I can go and provide you with all the settings you asked about here; 
>>> but before I do that I have an important -- and weird -- update I 
>>> think you might want to hear about first.  Bear with me while I 
>>> explain step-by-step the additional testing I just did.
>>>
>>> First, in this credit card account where I'm doing the testing, I 
>>> have deliberately *not* actually completed any reconciliation.  So 
>>> all of the past month's transactions are all staying in their 
>>> un-reconciled state.  All I'm doing is bringing up the Reconcile 
>>> popup window repeatedly and trying different dates and amounts there 
>>> to see what happens in the resulting Reconciliation summary box 
>>> after I click OK in the popup window.  In other words, I'm trying to 
>>> maintain the same testing baseline.
>>>
>>> Having said that, here's the exact routine that I'm following.  With 
>>> the credit card account open, I click the Reconcile button at the 
>>> upper right corner of the GnuCash window.  That opens the Reconcile 
>>> popup window.  The Statement Date field has the 7/25 date. And the 
>>> Ending Balance field, which is highlighted by the current cursor 
>>> position, shows the $800 amount.  I click in the Statement Date 
>>> field to put the cursor there.  And I tap the plus key (+) on my 
>>> numeric keypad twice to advance the date to 7/27.  As soon as I do 
>>> that the $800 amount in the Ending Balance field changes to $950.
>>>
>>> Once the Ending Balance field changes to $950, I hit the Tab key 
>>> twice to move the cursor to the Ending Balance Field, which 
>>> highlights the $950 amount.  Then I type in my correct Ending 
>>> Balance amount, which is the $800 amount from my credit card 
>>> statement.  Then I use the mouse to click the OK button.  That 
>>> closes the Reconcile popup window; and takes me to the Funds In vs. 
>>> Funds Out window where I see the Reconcile summary box in the lower 
>>> right corner.  And that's where I see that the Ending Balance in 
>>> that summary box is $950 instead of the $800 that I just entered 
>>> previously.
>>>
>>> Okay.  So the above description is what I'm doing step-by-step.  
>>> Now, brace yourself for the weird part.
>>>
>>> Like I said above, when I put $800 as the Ending Balance in that 
>>> popup window and click OK, the summary box then lists the Ending 
>>> Balance as $950.  So my entry got overridden, just as I've been 
>>> reporting all along.  So for my testing now, I decided to change the 
>>> value that I entered in that popup window -- still setting the 
>>> Statement Date to 7/27.  For the Ending Balance I typed in $799.99.  
>>> And to my surprise, when I clicked the OK button, the Reconcile 
>>> summary box kept and displayed the Ending Balance as $799.99, 
>>> exactly as I entered it.
>>>
>>> So since the Reconcile popup seemed to like one cent less than the 
>>> actual ending balance, I figured why not try one cent more?  Next go 
>>> round in the popup window I entered $800.01.  And once again, when I 
>>> clicked the OK button, the summary box kept and displayed the Ending 
>>> Balance as $800.01, again exactly as I entered it.  No more 
>>> overriding of my entered values.
>>>
>>> Problem solved??  Nope!  I went back again to enter the proper value 
>>> of $800.00 exactly.  And once again, when I clicked OK, the summary 
>>> box insisted on showing the $950 value again.  Like I said ... weird!
>>>
>>> I can still provide those other details if you think it will help.  
>>> But unfortunately, I'm going to be away from my test system here all 
>>> day Thursday.  If there's any other info or testing you'd like 
>>> though, just let me know; and I'll try to get to it on Friday.
>>>
>>> Tom
>>>
>>>
>>> On 08/04/2026 09:59 PM, John Ralls wrote:
>>>> Tom,
>>>>
>>>> Yes, all the date stuff is irrelevant. The problem you describe is 
>>>> that the entry isn’t getting read before the dialog is closed and 
>>>> the ending balance is copied to the reconcile window. This seems 
>>>> closely related to https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=799650, 
>>>> which reported that under some circumstances using the enter key to 
>>>> complete the reconcile info dialog after editing the ending balance 
>>>> field didn’t read the new value in that field. As Sherlock said he 
>>>> fixed it a year ago.
>>>>
>>>> Since none of us can reproduce the problem—and while nobody yet has 
>>>> tried on Windows it’s pretty unlikely to be OS related—you may have 
>>>> found a new corner case. Please record carefully, step by step, 
>>>> exactly what you type and click to reproduce the behavior.
>>>>
>>>> There are also some preferences that might be germane: What are 
>>>> your settings for Reverse Balanced Accounts in the Accounts page 
>>>> and all of the Reconcile options in the Register tab?
>>>>
>>>> One more possible difference: Are any of the splits cleared (the 
>>>> Reconcile column between the account and debit columns is ‘c’ 
>>>> instead ’n’?
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>> John Ralls
>>>>
>>>>