Re: [GNC] Reconciliation with a strange opening balance
If you remember that the reconciliation endting balance was correct in GnuCash fairly recently a process that will actually work would be to unreconcile all transaction splits after a given date, then re-reconciling each month after that date with your bank statements handy. To go back more than a few months would be incredibly tedious. If you try this it would be wise to make a working copy of your data file rather than use your real data file. Remember that it is possible that one or more transaction splits having any date may have been deleted, changed or re-assigned to a different account, and those may be rather hard to find. Another possibility would be if there are months when the running balance matches the bank statement exactly... On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 2:56 PM john wrote: > > > > On Nov 13, 2023, at 07:20, Mahon Finbar via gnucash-user < > gnucash-user@gnucash.org> wrote: > > > > Hello, > > > > The recent discussion on reconciliation was helpful in trying to sort > out some anomalies I have. > > > > When I do the latest reconciliation of one of my accounts the opening > balance is 10,448.43 and gives me an amount of inbalance which is way off. > > > > Following the advice in the recent posts I tried working backwards to > see if I could find any errors. > > > > I got close to 0.00 from time to time and was satisfied enough to > consider a balancing entry, but was intrigued on where the 'error' might > have been. > > > > I set off to see where, but, in the course of my search, I tried to find > the number 10,443.43 in the account, as a baseline, but didn't find one. > > > > If I understand the process of reconciliation the number should be > somewhere in the account, should it not?? > > > > Just tell me I am barking up the wrong tree, if I am making an error. > > The reconcile info dialog that comes up when you click the reconcile > button has two balances: Starting balance and Ending balance. The first is > the reconciled balance for the account, that is the sum of all of the > splits in the account marked as reconciled. That's different from the > opening balance, which is the amount in the account when you created it in > GnuCash. The starting balance should match the starting balance on your > statement. If it doesn't then there's a mistake in reconciling a previous > statement and you need to either make a correcting entry in your account to > get it to match or dig through previous statements to try to find the > discrepancy. The Ending balance is what you should enter from your account > statement or your bank's website. It defaults to the balance of the last > transaction on the date you entered in the Reconciliation date entry. > > When you finish that dialog the reconcile window opens and in the lower > left it shows the balances from the info window followed by Reconciled > balance and Difference, which update as you tick off transactions in the > two panes of the window; you should tick off the transactions that match > your statement, paying close attention to the amounts: Reconciliation is > all about making sure that there aren't any differences. Fix any > differences in the register and press enter to commit the change and it > will be immediately reflected in the reconcile window. Once you have > marked all of the transactions the Ending and Reconciled balances should > match, Difference should be 0, and the Finish button in the toolbar should > be enabled. > > You might not have a transaction balance matching the reconciled balance > if you have unbalanced transactions previous to the last reconciled one. > The "R" column between Transfer Account and Debit/Deposit shows each > transaction's reconciled status: y for reconciled, n for unreconciled, c > for cleared, and v for voided. You can use the the Status page of > View>Filter By... to hide transactions by status. > > Finding reconciliation discrepancies from previous statements can be > extremely tedious and GnuCash doesn't have any tools to help. There's not > even a way to display historical reconciled balances. > > When it comes to fixing discrepancies remember that banks can make errors > too, but you need documentation and time to get the bank to make > corrections. It's up to you to decide whether to pursue getting the bank to > fix their mistake or to take the hit and adjust your accounts to match the > bank's. > > Regards, > John Ralls > > > > > ___ > gnucash-user mailing list > gnucash-user@gnucash.org > To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user > - > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. > -- David Carlson ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe:
Re: [GNC] Reconciliation with a strange opening balance
> On Nov 13, 2023, at 07:20, Mahon Finbar via gnucash-user > wrote: > > Hello, > > The recent discussion on reconciliation was helpful in trying to sort out > some anomalies I have. > > When I do the latest reconciliation of one of my accounts the opening balance > is 10,448.43 and gives me an amount of inbalance which is way off. > > Following the advice in the recent posts I tried working backwards to see if > I could find any errors. > > I got close to 0.00 from time to time and was satisfied enough to consider a > balancing entry, but was intrigued on where the 'error' might have been. > > I set off to see where, but, in the course of my search, I tried to find the > number 10,443.43 in the account, as a baseline, but didn't find one. > > If I understand the process of reconciliation the number should be somewhere > in the account, should it not?? > > Just tell me I am barking up the wrong tree, if I am making an error. The reconcile info dialog that comes up when you click the reconcile button has two balances: Starting balance and Ending balance. The first is the reconciled balance for the account, that is the sum of all of the splits in the account marked as reconciled. That's different from the opening balance, which is the amount in the account when you created it in GnuCash. The starting balance should match the starting balance on your statement. If it doesn't then there's a mistake in reconciling a previous statement and you need to either make a correcting entry in your account to get it to match or dig through previous statements to try to find the discrepancy. The Ending balance is what you should enter from your account statement or your bank's website. It defaults to the balance of the last transaction on the date you entered in the Reconciliation date entry. When you finish that dialog the reconcile window opens and in the lower left it shows the balances from the info window followed by Reconciled balance and Difference, which update as you tick off transactions in the two panes of the window; you should tick off the transactions that match your statement, paying close attention to the amounts: Reconciliation is all about making sure that there aren't any differences. Fix any differences in the register and press enter to commit the change and it will be immediately reflected in the reconcile window. Once you have marked all of the transactions the Ending and Reconciled balances should match, Difference should be 0, and the Finish button in the toolbar should be enabled. You might not have a transaction balance matching the reconciled balance if you have unbalanced transactions previous to the last reconciled one. The "R" column between Transfer Account and Debit/Deposit shows each transaction's reconciled status: y for reconciled, n for unreconciled, c for cleared, and v for voided. You can use the the Status page of View>Filter By... to hide transactions by status. Finding reconciliation discrepancies from previous statements can be extremely tedious and GnuCash doesn't have any tools to help. There's not even a way to display historical reconciled balances. When it comes to fixing discrepancies remember that banks can make errors too, but you need documentation and time to get the bank to make corrections. It's up to you to decide whether to pursue getting the bank to fix their mistake or to take the hit and adjust your accounts to match the bank's. Regards, John Ralls ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] Reconciliation with a strange opening balance
One of several complications that you can run into when searching for a reconciliation error by using the reconciliation tool is that GnuCash leaves all previously reconciled split lines assigned to the target account reconciled. Thus if there are reconciled split lines dated after the reconciliation date, they remain reconciled during your search and will be included in the beginning balance calculation. Recent releases of GnuCash do include a reconciliation report, but I have never used it, so I cannot say how useful it might be in a search for errors. On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 9:41 AM Maf. King wrote: > On Monday, 13 November 2023 15:20:28 GMT Mahon Finbar via gnucash-user > wrote: > > > > > I set off to see where, but, in the course of my search, I tried to find > > the number 10,443.43 in the account, as a baseline, but didn't find one. > > > > If I understand the process of reconciliation the number should be > > somewhere in the account, should it not?? > > > > or possibly ~5221.70 as a CR when it should be a DR (etc). or several > smaller > errors which total the ~10k discrepancy you are seeing > > Maf. > > > ___ > gnucash-user mailing list > gnucash-user@gnucash.org > To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user > - > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. > -- David Carlson ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] GC Best Practices for Investment Management
Yes, I think it's very useful to have all of my financial data in GC, even tho it doesn't do everything that I want. I haven't found the brokerage firms analysis tools useful. They seem to be oriented toward the active investor & do their best to encourage trading. I'm an index fund, buy and hold, investor. I use a balance sheet report in GC which I export then use some script and Octave tools to generate an asset allocation report where I keep running log in a spreadsheet. It's messy but I don't know anything about Scheme, so this was easier for me. I still rely on the brokerage data for cap gains and taxable stuff, but I try to make sure my GC data is consistent. On 11/8/23 11:16, Jediator wrote: After dumping QB and using GC for couple of months, I started really enjoying its features and simplicity. I noticed that a major feature in GC is the stock and investment management function, which I was hesitating to get into. I'd like to hear from fellow GC users on the usefulness and best practices for using GC for investment management. Especially: 1. GC was developed in the 90's before many brokerage firms offer portfolio management and analysis tools. Is it really useful to replicate your investment data in GC from your brokerage account? What are the advantages does GC bring in doing this other than calculating capital gain taxes/loss? 2. What types of direct reporting functions in GC for investment management (Info in tool guide and online Wiki seems to be outdated)? 3. How do you compare GC with other open source products (e.g., Ghostpolio)? Thanks a lot in advance! -- JC ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] Reconciliation with a strange opening balance
On Monday, 13 November 2023 15:20:28 GMT Mahon Finbar via gnucash-user wrote: > > I set off to see where, but, in the course of my search, I tried to find > the number 10,443.43 in the account, as a baseline, but didn't find one. > > If I understand the process of reconciliation the number should be > somewhere in the account, should it not?? > or possibly ~5221.70 as a CR when it should be a DR (etc). or several smaller errors which total the ~10k discrepancy you are seeing Maf. ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
[GNC] Reconciliation with a strange opening balance
Hello, The recent discussion on reconciliation was helpful in trying to sort out some anomalies I have. When I do the latest reconciliation of one of my accounts the opening balance is 10,448.43 and gives me an amount of inbalance which is way off. Following the advice in the recent posts I tried working backwards to see if I could find any errors. I got close to 0.00 from time to time and was satisfied enough to consider a balancing entry, but was intrigued on where the 'error' might have been. I set off to see where, but, in the course of my search, I tried to find the number 10,443.43 in the account, as a baseline, but didn't find one. If I understand the process of reconciliation the number should be somewhere in the account, should it not?? Just tell me I am barking up the wrong tree, if I am making an error. Finbar ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] Old book not opening
On Monday, 13 November 2023 07:51:20 GMT Liz wrote: > On Sun, 12 Nov 2023 08:45:20 -0500 > > Ken Farley wrote: > > The files you want to open have names of the format " > Name>.gnucash". You need to find those files, without the .gcm or any > > Name> > > other suffix. > > A very old Gnucash file will not have a suffix. > Examples > Current file name accounts.gnucash > Metadate file name accounts.gcm > Very old file name accounts or possibly accounts.xac my files *still* use .xac as the suffix Maf. ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
