Odd arithmetic in ledger

[Jack]

On 2019.09.30 15:02, Thomas Baumgart wrote:
> Jack,
> 
> On Freitag, 27. September 2019 18:54:31 CEST Jack wrote:
> 
>> During my last reconciliation, I just couldn't get things to match  
>> compeltely, and I finally found the problem.  I have two deposit  
>> transactions in a row, where the first one seems to add one cent too  
>> much to the balance, and the next one adds one cent too little.  If  
>> the first of them wasn't the last transaction in the problem  
>> reconciliation, I probably never would have noticed.  These are in a  
>> brokerage account: the first is an interest transaction, so there is  
>> no rounding done at all.  The second is a dividend transaction, so  
>> there is also no rounding done.  I'm attaching a screen shot, just  
>> to show I'm not making this up (for a while, I thought I might be.)   
>> Can anyone think of any possible reason for this behavior?  All  
>> accounts involved are in US dollars only, so there is not currency  
>> conversion going on.
> 
> Can you try to find the transactions in your XML file and figure out  
> what is going on or send them to me via PM? Seems that they carry the  
> information needed.
> 
> > Thanks for any hints.
I just found a new example.

   <TRANSACTION entrydate="2019-09-06" postdate="2019-09-30"  
commodity="USD" id="T000000000000018825" memo="">
    <SPLITS>
     <SPLIT reconciledate="" reconcileflag="0" shares="-195/4"  
price="1/1" payee="P000055" action="" value="-195/4" number=""  
id="S0001" account="A000150" bankid="" memo=""/>
     <SPLIT reconciledate="" reconcileflag="0" shares="195/4"  
price="1/1" payee="P000055" action="" value="195/4" number=""  
id="S0002" account="A000035" bankid="" memo=""/>
    </SPLITS>
   </TRANSACTION>

195/4 is $48.75, which is the amount of this transaction.  The previous  
transaction shows a balance of $0.00 and this one shows $48.74.  This  
transaction is for a check which has not yet been cashed.

So - I tried changing the amount by a few pennies up and down - and  
always the balance was $.01 off what I expected.  I then changed the  
amount to $0.00 and the balance was a correct $0.00.  I then changed  
the amount back to $48.75, and the balance is now correctly $48.75.   
The file now has:

   <TRANSACTION entrydate="2019-09-06" postdate="2019-09-30"  
commodity="USD" id="T000000000000018825" memo="">
    <SPLITS>
     <SPLIT reconciledate="" reconcileflag="0" shares="195/4"  
price="1/1" payee="P000055" action="" value="195/4" number=""  
id="S0001" account="A000150" bankid="" memo=""/>
     <SPLIT reconciledate="" reconcileflag="0" shares="-195/4"  
price="1/1" payee="P000055" action="" value="-195/4" number=""  
id="S0002" account="A000035" bankid="" memo=""/>
    </SPLITS>
   </TRANSACTION>

which looks identical to me.

So - I went back to the original transaction.  Making the amount one or  
two cents above or below $11.71 leaves a correct balance, but $11.71  
leaves a penny off.  I changed the amount to $0.00 and the balance was  
the same as the previous transaction.  I changed the amount back to  
$11.71, and the balance was again off by one cent.

Do I need to find someone to remove evil spirits from my house?

Jack