Rich:
You have received several replies, but I have a sense that some of them
are talking past you. The issue may be that the term "Starting Balance"
can mean multiple things in GnuCash.
On 2023-04-26 06:09, Rich James wrote:
I'm trying to resolve some reconciliation issues and decided to go back to
my first statement from last year when I opened the account to establish
that everything is balanced. However, when I start to reconcile and put in
the statement date and ending balance, the reconciliation window shows a
Starting Balance of several hundred dollars instead of $0. This gives me
an incorrect difference that I can't properly clear.
Is there a known issue where this can occur? Or can anyone suggest a way
to resolve this? I'm seeing similar behavior with another account as well.
"Starting Balance" meaning 1: Another term for "Opening Balance". In the
account register, the running total amount after the first transaction.
If you told the GnuCash "New Account" setup dialogue[1] that an account
which you are creating has a non-zero Opening Balance, then GnuCash
creates the first transaction in this account, with the "Opening
Balance" amount in the new account, and an offsetting amount in the
Equity:Opening Balances account.
"Starting Balance" meaning 2: The value shown in the "Reconcile Window",
bottom right corner, labelled "Starting Balance". This is no more or
less than the sum of all transactions in that account which are marked
as "Reconciled". As Derek Atkins pointed out,
You cannot go "back in time" to reconcile. When you reconcile an account
at date X, you are reconciling from "the beginning of time" to date X.
You cannot then go back to a date earlier than X to (re)reconcile.
Rich, I think you are using meaning 2 when you say "the reconciliation
window shows a Starting Balance of several hundred dollars instead of
$0." From your description, this sounds like expected behaviour. You
have "reconciliation issues", so that says to me that you have already
marked some of the transactions in this account as "reconciled". The
"Starting Balance" value which you see in the Reconciliation Window
should be exactly equal to the sum of those transactions as they affect
this account.
So, maybe a question you have is, "How to I untangle incorrect
reconciliations in an account"? For that question, it would be helpful
to know what are the "reconciliation issues" you see, what transactions
are in the account, and what reconciliation you have done so far.
Does this help? Best regards,
—Jim DeLaHunt
[1] /GnuCash Tutorial and Concepts Guide/, Figure 2.11 "*New Account
Hierarchy Setup: Account Setup"*
<https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-guide/basics-together1.html#idm1843>
[2] /GnuCash Tutorial and Concepts Guide,/ Section 2.9.4.
"*Reconciliation*"
<https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v5/C/gnucash-guide/chapter_txns.html#txns-reconcile1>
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