[Kmymoney-devel] Yet another odd reconciliation problem

[Jack]

On 2015.07.05 01:31, Thomas Baumgart wrote:
> On Tuesday 30 June 2015 20:23:55 Jack wrote:
> 
>> I have spent the past few days reconciling several investment  
>> accounts, which I have not done for several months, so I'm running  
>> into lots of issues.  Many I have written about in the past, and  
>> many are due to strange things that Merrill Lynch does when creating  
>> their OFX downloads, some being apparent differences between the OFX  
>> and their printed statements.  For now, I'll stick to things where I  
>> think KMM might be improved.  I've already opened one wishlist (be  
>> able to use the context menu to easily switch between ledger views  
>> of investment and brokerage accounts, even if the current  
>> transaction does not have any split in the other account.)
> >
>> I'm probably going to file another wishlist that when filtering an  
>> investment account ledger display by a security name, that values be  
>> shown in the balance column.  I know this is not reasonably possible  
>> right now, since the filter is text based, and there is no way for  
>> the program to know it would be safe to show balances, since the  
>> display includes all transactions for the desired security.   
>> However, I often want to see the history of transactions for a  
>> single security, including the number of shares held.  I suppose  
>> this would really be a new and different sort of filter from the  
>> current text based filter.
> >
>> My current issue is with reconciliation.  Right now, on one  
>> particular account, when I try to complete the reconciliation, I get  
>> the message: "You are about to finish the reconciliation of this  
>> account with a difference between your bank statement and the  
>> transactions marked as cleared.  Are you sure you wish to finish the  
>> reconciliation?"  All the numbers and transactions I see displayed  
>> are completely consistent.  I am just guessing, but perhaps what KMM  
>> thinks is my bank statement balance is not what I think it is.   
>> Where does the program get this number?  I suppose if it is the  
>> account balance from the most recent OFX import, it wouldn't match,  
>> since that includes transactions from this month, and I am now  
>> reconciling as of the end of the previous month.  However, if this  
>> is the problem, then any time a user has done an OFX import later  
>> than the date of reconciliation, this message is likely to be  
>> shown.  Am I on the right track here, or is there something I'm  
>> missing or apparently not aware of?
> 
> I just tried to use reconciliation on an investment account for the  
> very first time and found out, that it might not work. The original  
> was written with cash/bank accounts in mind.
> 
> Here's what I found in KEndingBalanceDlg::slotUpdateBalances()
> 
>   // determine the beginning balance and ending balance based on the  
> following
>   // forumulas:
>   //
>   // end balance   = current balance - sum(all non cleared  
> transactions)
>   //                                 - sum(all cleared transactions  
> posted
>   //                                        after statement date)
>   // start balance = end balance - sum(all cleared transactions
>   //                                        up to statement date)
> 
> 
> To get some more information what is going on in this section of the  
> code, you can build KMyMoney with the build type set to 'DebugFull'.  
> Use e.g. ccmake to change it if necessary.
> 
> This will present you a menu option called 'Tools/Debug traces'. If  
> you turn it on, KMyMoney prints some trace information on the command  
> line which shows what it is doing during the reconciliation process.  
> Some other areas will provide information as well.
> 
> 
> The starting balance is the sum of all previously reconciled  
> transactions (either marked manually or by the reconciliation  
> wizard). The ending balance is the sum of all transactions up to the  
> statement date entered in the wizard. Make sure this date matches  
> your paper statement and not the download. Transactions having a post  
> date past this statement date are not considered during the  
> reconciliation process.
> 
> The actual calculation is a bit different (see above) but the  
> resulting numbers should be the same.
> 
> In case the starting balance does not match, there is a problem  
> somewhere in the recorded data.
> 
> > Thanks for any explanations.
> 
> So much for now. In case you have more questions or spot some  
> weirdness in the traces please let us know.
> 
Sorry, I left out some critical information.  Although I do regularly  
reconcile the actual investment accounts, the above issue was  
reconciling the brokerage account, which is a checking account.

on reconciling investment account:  Just for information now, I'll  
return to more detailed debugging later.  The balances have all always  
shows as $0, and when I "Finish" a reconciliation, it does NOT change  
the transactions from C(leared) to R(econciled).  As I said, I'll deal  
with that later, since it's not wrong, but just annoying.

on reconciling investment brokerage (checking) accounts:  I have done  
this for several years, and it generally works just fine.  The only  
imports I do here are to the investment account (OFX direct connect),  
and I have still not figured out exactly how "connected" these are to  
each other in terms of importing balances.  That's why the  
error/warning popup surprised me.

Jack