Re: 2.6.19: Accounts reconciled; trial balance has imbalance
On Tue, 13 Feb 2018, Rich Shepard wrote: The trial balance report for 2017 for a checking account shows a 4-figure imbalance at the bottom, yet the account is properly reconciled with the bank (through yesterday). How can this be? I apologize for posting to two threads on the same issue. It's taking so long for messages I send to appear on the list (at least the copies returned to me) that I lost track of what I sent. Rich ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: 2.6.19: Accounts reconciled; trial balance has imbalance
> On Feb 13, 2018, at 3:35 PM, Rich Shepard wrote: > > The trial balance report for 2017 for a checking account shows a 4-figure > imbalance at the bottom, yet the account is properly reconciled with the > bank (through yesterday). How can this be? > > My accountant tells me that if the checking account register transactions > balance with expense accounts, and the asset account reconciles with the > bank's view of it, the trial balance should have no discrepancies > (imbalances in gnucash language). > > There is no imbalance on the other checking account's trial balance. > > (As an aside, it's taken 8-10 hours for messages I posted this morning to > appear on the mail list so I don't expect to see this there until tomorrow > some time.) The trial balance report checks that the accounting equation (Assets + Income - Expenses = Liabilities + Equity) holds. Running it on a single account makes no sense; it should be run on the whole book. Reconciliation ensures that your local view of a single asset or liability account matches that of the other party on the account. Since it's a single-account check it's quite possible for you to have all of those accounts reconciled and still have your books out of balance. 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 If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: 2.6.19: Accounts reconciled; trial balance has imbalance
On Tue, 13 Feb 2018, John Ralls wrote: The trial balance report checks that the accounting equation (Assets + Income - Expenses = Liabilities + Equity) holds. Running it on a single account makes no sense; it should be run on the whole book. John, It's run on the whole book; in the case of the discrepancy the only other account is the Cash asset account and that, too, is reconciled with expenses. Reconciliation ensures that your local view of a single asset or liability account matches that of the other party on the account. Since it's a single-account check it's quite possible for you to have all of those accounts reconciled and still have your books out of balance. Well, haven't found an inconsistency yet but will keep looking. Thanks, Rich ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: 2.6.19: Accounts reconciled; trial balance has imbalance
> On Feb 13, 2018, at 4:01 PM, Rich Shepard wrote: > > On Tue, 13 Feb 2018, John Ralls wrote: > >> The trial balance report checks that the accounting equation (Assets + >> Income - Expenses = Liabilities + Equity) holds. > >> Running it on a single account makes no sense; it should be run on the >> whole book. > > John, > > It's run on the whole book; in the case of the discrepancy the only other > account is the Cash asset account and that, too, is reconciled with > expenses. > >> Reconciliation ensures that your local view of a single asset or liability >> account matches that of the other party on the account. Since it's a >> single-account check it's quite possible for you to have all of those >> accounts reconciled and still have your books out of balance. > > Well, haven't found an inconsistency yet but will keep looking. Try this: Set the Start of Adjusting/Closing on 1 Jan 2017 and the Date of Report on 30 June 2017. If it's in balance, change the report date to 30 September, otherwise to 31 March. If it's now (or still) in balance change it again to halfway between the current date and the out-of-balance date. Keep doing that until you find the first date where it's out of balance, then use the General Ledger to look at all of the transactions on that date. One of them is off. Fix it and repeat the process until it's in balance for the year. The main cause for out-of-balance on a trial balance report is that some asset has a realized gain or loss with respect to the report currency and it isn't recorded. Dunno if that applies in your case. 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 If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: 2.6.19: Accounts reconciled; trial balance has imbalance
Rich, If you’re using digest mode, I’d recommend turning it off. My experience has been it’s more trouble to maintain and sort through. The digest also seems to not be quite ‘regular’ in its delivery, either in number of messages, or in elapsed time. Replies will also seem to appear out of sequence or be unnecessarily delayed. Without digest, some days or times will be very quiet; others will blow up your in-box. Set a filter/rule to file your GnuCash messages to their own folder for sanity. You could optionally enable the setting to CC you on all of your own list submissions, but I really don’t think that would help you, and might possibly add to the confusion, but it is an option. Regards, Adrien > On Feb 13, 2018, at 5:55 PM, Rich Shepard wrote: > > On Tue, 13 Feb 2018, Rich Shepard wrote: > >> The trial balance report for 2017 for a checking account shows a 4-figure >> imbalance at the bottom, yet the account is properly reconciled with the >> bank (through yesterday). How can this be? > > I apologize for posting to two threads on the same issue. It's taking so > long for messages I send to appear on the list (at least the copies returned > to me) that I lost track of what I sent. > > Rich > ___ > gnucash-user mailing list > gnucash-user@gnucash.org > To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user > If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see > https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. > - > 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 If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: 2.6.19: Accounts reconciled; trial balance has imbalance
On Tue, 13 Feb 2018, Adrien Monteleone wrote: If you’re using digest mode, I’d recommend turning it off. Adrian, I've never used digest mode for any mailing list. That makes it difficult to find a message of interest and to respond to it. I run my own MTA here (postfix) and have set message size limit high enough to get all attachments from clients and those on mail lists. My MUA is alpine (text-based for reading/writing text) so all mail is local, not on the 'Net where it's available to anyone and everyone. Monday and yesterday were extreme outliers. Message delays ranged from 8-14 hours, then they started to appear in a few minutes, the normal behavior. I mentioned the delays to explain why my posts were duplicated or seemed out of sequence. Regards, Rich ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: 2.6.19: Accounts reconciled; trial balance has imbalance
On Tue, 13 Feb 2018, John Ralls wrote: Try this: Set the Start of Adjusting/Closing on 1 Jan 2017 and the Date of Report on 30 June 2017. If it's in balance, change the report date to 30 September, otherwise to 31 March. If it's now (or still) in balance change it again to halfway between the current date and the out-of-balance date. Keep doing that until you find the first date where it's out of balance, then use the General Ledger to look at all of the transactions on that date. One of them is off. Fix it and repeat the process until it's in balance for the year. John, This is how we used to find bugs in programs before debuggers were available, but I didn't think of applying it to the bookkeeping application. Found some, perhaps a half-dozen, and fixed those. All is split transactions, as David Carlson suggested. What's strange is that now all split transactions have their imbalances removed, the total imbalance is greater than before. :-( There are no stock, bond, or foreign currency transations, all US$ in checks or cash. If you have further ideas where these discrepancies might be hiding please let me know and I'll check them. Otherwise, each non-split transaction is balanced between the asset account (checking or cash) and an expense or liability account. Regards, Rich ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: 2.6.19: Accounts reconciled; trial balance has imbalance
> On Feb 14, 2018, at 8:23 AM, Rich Shepard wrote: > > On Tue, 13 Feb 2018, John Ralls wrote: > >> Try this: Set the Start of Adjusting/Closing on 1 Jan 2017 and the Date of >> Report on 30 June 2017. If it's in balance, change the report date to 30 >> September, otherwise to 31 March. If it's now (or still) in balance change >> it again to halfway between the current date and the out-of-balance date. >> Keep doing that until you find the first date where it's out of balance, >> then use the General Ledger to look at all of the transactions on that >> date. One of them is off. Fix it and repeat the process until it's in >> balance for the year. > > John, > > This is how we used to find bugs in programs before debuggers were > available, but I didn't think of applying it to the bookkeeping application. > > Found some, perhaps a half-dozen, and fixed those. All is split > transactions, as David Carlson suggested. > > What's strange is that now all split transactions have their imbalances > removed, the total imbalance is greater than before. :-( > > There are no stock, bond, or foreign currency transations, all US$ in > checks or cash. If you have further ideas where these discrepancies might be > hiding please let me know and I'll check them. Otherwise, each non-split > transaction is balanced between the asset account (checking or cash) and an > expense or liability account. Rich, Is the trial balance report in balance on 1 Jan 2017? 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 If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: 2.6.19: Accounts reconciled; trial balance has imbalance
On Wed, 14 Feb 2018, John Ralls wrote: Is the trial balance report in balance on 1 Jan 2017? John, Yes. Thank you for asking. Because I rarely look at the Accounts tab I was unaware that the Imbalance account was directly accessible until Mike pointed me to it Working from the Imbalance account allowed me to quickly put those amounts back in the proper account, which is what I thought I had done at the time. Somehow, I missed the proper slot and the amount fell in the crack. Now the book is balanced and every account reconciled. When I spoke Tuesday with my accountant (who, like me, is a sole practitioner of professional services) I recommended she check out GnuCash for her business and personal clients. She said she would look at the web site, but this is tax season and she's working 7 days a week starting at 6:30 am, so I don't expect her to have time. I've used digital bookkeeping software since the mid-1980s (first on DOS, then on linux) and had used GnuCash with Red Hat 4.0-7.0. Slackware back then was very difficult to load all the gnome libraries in the proper sequence and I gave up in frustration. It was only a couple of years ago that the folks at SlackBuilds.org made GnuCash installation and upgrades as easy as all other packages. GnuCash is the easiest, most useful bookkeeping tool I've used. It supports my consulting practice as well as my personal bookkeeping and, while it takes a bit to get used to exactly how to run it, it Just Works. Knowing now about the Imbalance account will allow me to quickly correct any other mistakes. This past Tuesday it took me only about 5 minutes to prepare the balance sheet, income statement (P&L), and trial balance for both business and personal finances and send them (with digital copies of each month's bank statements) to her. Wow! Quick and painless. You may quote me on this and add my appreciation for all the work you devs do. Best regards, Rich ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user If you are using Nabble or Gmane, please see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Mailing_Lists for more information. - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.