Account reconciliation

[gualtie]

Hy,
I'm a newbie here and I'm looking for a software substitute for my old (win) MS Money 2000.
I've a couple of question, before proceeding with the software purchase.
I'm looking at iCompta 4.0.1 trial but I can't find a reconciliation process. I mean a procedure in wich you can specify the initial and ending balance, as reported in a bank monthly statement, and then checking transaction after transaction you can obtain the same ending balance. Furthermore it wolud be very useful to do an automatic transfer from a specified account of the amount of an ending balance, in the case of a credit card statement, in order to balance credit card account itself.

Lastly, I thing it would be very useful to specify people at category level. So you can assign a specific category in a multi categorizied expense to different people.

Regards
Gualtiero

[far-blue]

Hello

Regarding reconciliation, there is a running preview value usually shown as one of the last columns on the right of the account display that shows the current balance after applying the transaction on the line you are looking at. While it is not perfect, it can be used easily to track the reconciled value in your account if you simply compare the last transaction on a date with the last transaction on the same date in your account. Note, however, the following two caveats: 1) If you specify a reconciled date for a transaction that is different to the original date, the 'preview' value will jump around unless you sort your transactions by reconciled date (which is understandable!). 2) The preview value DOES include non-reconciled transactions so either move these out of the way (by changing their date) or temporarily mark them as cancelled in order to ignore them in the preview value.

[gualtie]

mmh... this workaround seems not to be very helpful for me.
The second matter you've listed down is very common in my bank statement, so I think it's easier to select every reconciled row, deselect every not reconciled row in the list and look at total in the right corner of the lower status bar. Then add this value to the initial amount of the bank statement. The result must be the final value of the bank statement, in order to have a correct reconciliation.
But, in any case, these solutions are only workaround… it would be better to have a process in which you can specify initial and final amount of a bank statement and a value that shows how much differs from the statement balance, while reconciliating (as most of other software have).

[Angeman]

The reconciled balance is displayed under each account, you just have to mark the transactions as reconciled and check that the reconciled balance is the same as the one on your bank statement.
Perhaps I missed something here ?

[gualtie]

Thanks for this suggestion. I didn't completely understand the meaning of this value before your post. However I think I've a problem with my accounts. I've imported them from QIF generated by money 2000. the final balance didn't exactly match the balance of the same account in money (about 200€). Unlike this, the number of imported transations (more than 5000), matched. I've to investigate more about this difference.
May be I've to add an amount in order to get the same balance, but I'm not so glad to do so.

Another matter: I've noticed that the "preview" (the italian name is "Anteprima") amount of the balance after a transaction isn't correct. I think that by changing the rows order, the value seems to be not correctly recalculated.
Is there a way to force the recalculation? This amount, in a so static way calculated, is not very useful and the column may be hidden without any repentance.

[Angeman]

Thanks for this suggestion. I didn't completely understand the meaning of this value before your post. However I think I've a problem with my accounts. I've imported them from QIF generated by money 2000. the final balance didn't exactly match the balance of the same account in money (about 200€). Unlike this, the number of imported transations (more than 5000), matched. I've to investigate more about this difference.
May be I've to add an amount in order to get the same balance, but I'm not so glad to do so.

There is the initial balance field for this matter when you double click the account.

Another matter: I've noticed that the "preview" (the italian name is "Anteprima") amount of the balance after a transaction isn't correct. I think that by changing the rows order, the value seems to be not correctly recalculated.
Is there a way to force the recalculation? This amount, in a so static way calculated, is not very useful and the column may be hidden without any repentance.

The preview field is based on the "reconciled date" and not the "date" so you have to sort by "reconciled date" for the preview field to show in the right order.

[gualtie]

Thanks Angeman for suggestion.
The reconciled balance now is equal to bank account stament! I've to fix the sign in two old transactions (the sign has been accidentally exchanged…) by the way, why not protect users by introducing a sign in the category? a warning may be useful in this case.

Thanks again for your patience.

[garygreenpaddock]

Why is there a date and a reconciled date field. What is the difference in use / application?

[Angeman]

The date is the original date of the transaction, the day when you pay at the store for example where the reconciled date is the day when the transaction appears on your bank account which can be several days later.