David, I understand perfectly what you are saying. My point was I read the post to be a confusion in terms. I understood the OP to mean ‘opening balance’ to mean the opening balance transaction in the account, *not* the ’starting balance’ of the reconciliation. In fact, Gnucash uses the term ’Starting Balance’ in the reconciliation dialogs, not ‘Opening Balance’.
> On Jan 28, 2019, at 7:49 AM, David T. <sunfis...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > Adrien, > >> On Jan 28, 2019, at 6:47 PM, Adrien Monteleone >> <adrien.montele...@lusfiber.net> wrote: >> >> I could be wrong, but I read “opening balance” to mean the balance when the >> account was created in GnuCash, not the “starting balance” for the >> reconciliation. Certainly, when you first create an account, you have to >> tell GnuCash how much is already in the account if it pre-existed. > > Here’s the thing: when you create an account, it will have zero reconciled. > So, if you haven’t reconciled your account before, the opening balance will > always be zero. The screen shot clearly shows a non zero opening balance, > meaning that some reconciliation has already taken place. > >> >> It could be that the user is erroneously entering this as the reconciliation >> starting balance without it first being reconciled. > > AH, but you *can’t* enter an opening balance; it’s automatically calculated > from all previously-reconciled splits. Indeed, I thought you could specify this and now I realize your point. If the window is showing a Starting Balance, then *something* has already been reconciled and those transactions should be visible when applying a Filter as suggested. > >> >> I’d think the solution is either: >> >> 1. Reconcile only the opening balance transaction, then proceed with a >> regular reconciliation, using that amount as the ’starting balance' >> 2. Use a 'starting balance' of zero and know you have to check off that >> initial transaction as if it appeared on the bank statement. (because >> technically it does in the ‘beginning balance’ figure on the statement. > > Those are the suggestions in the Guide, I believe. > >> >> On the point of being ’slightly off’, I understood the OP to mean that >> previously they do not regularly reconcile, but rather ‘cursorily view’ >> their account and do not usually worry about exactness until the end of the >> year. (presumably when an actual reconciliation is done) > > My point still stands; if even one transaction is “slightly off,” then you > won’t finish the reconciliation. Moreover, roll any such inconsistencies in > to problems with overall balances, and you quickly have a knot that is > impossible to untangle. Better to eliminate one source of inconsistencies and > see where the remaining problems lie. I suspect there’s more, since I can’t > get any of the supplied numbers to balance out. I also don’t think the OP meant they reconcile or intend to reconcile ‘roughly’ or ‘fuzzy’— again, a difference in how I read the post. Of course, you can’t reconcile and be ‘off’ without a balancing transaction, by definition. I wasn’t meaning to suggest otherwise. Regards, Adrien _______________________________________________ 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.
