2010-05-18 GnuCash IRC logs
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01:25:14 <csprof> I have a question about reconciliation
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01:27:54 <csprof> Sorry. My question: i've been reconciling an account successfully for many months. But when I went to reconcile my latest statement, the starting balance was incorrect. How can I track down and fix the problem?
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02:33:28 <csprof> I'll try again later.
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11:51:35 <csprof> Re-asking a question from last night: After several months of successful reconciliations, I went to reconcile an account and noticed that the starting balance was incorrect. What steps should I take to track down and fix the source of the problem?
11:52:34 <csprof> Is there any way to "rerun" (or at least check the starting balances of) past reconciliations to find out where it went wrong?
11:58:54 <warlord> csprof: Most likely you deleted or otherwise modified a previously reconciled transaction.
12:03:59 <csprof> OK, is there a way to narrow down the culprit?
12:06:23 <warlord> Well, look in the account for any unreconciled txns.
12:06:32 <warlord> If you deleted it then, well, it just wont show up at all.
12:07:36 <csprof> so, there is no record kept of previous reconciliations, so that I could go back and look at my statement's starting balances and check them against gnucash's records?
12:08:13 <csprof> If I could narrow it down to a range of dates, I could pull receipts and start to investigate which txn might have been deleted
12:08:38 <warlord> The records are kept, but if you deleted the transaction then you deleted the record.
12:09:20 <warlord> The records of previous reconciliations are your bank statements.
12:09:21 <warlord> :)
12:10:03 <csprof> by "record kept of previous reconciliations", I meant the non-editable starting balances that gnucash provides for each reconciliation, which are supposed to match my back statements.
12:10:22 <warlord> Nothing is non-editable
12:10:23 <csprof> "bank statements", sorry
12:10:27 <warlord> This is a computer
12:10:31 <warlord> EVERYTHING is editable
12:10:47 <warlord> (unless you, say, print it out onto paper, or write it onto a write-only medium)
12:11:04 <csprof> When you reconcile, you get a window in which you can enter an ending balance, but the starting balance is given to your automatically
12:11:36 <csprof> based on where the previous reconciliation ended
12:18:40 <warlord> It's computed from the set of transactions.
12:20:17 <csprof> I assumed that the starting balance is the net result of all reconciled transactions.
12:20:35 <csprof> So if this is wrong, at least one transaction is incorrectly marked
12:20:47 <csprof> Or possibly deleted
12:21:07 <csprof> I need to find out which one, and want to know if there is a way to narrow down the search
12:21:09 <warlord> That's what I said
12:21:36 <warlord> Well, like I said, first thing to do is look in your account for unreconciled transactions.
12:21:50 <warlord> There's no easy way to search for a deleted transaction because, well, it's been deleted.
12:22:00 <warlord> (kinda hard to search for something that doesn't exist)
12:22:18 <warlord> But.... how far off is the opening balance?
12:22:47 <csprof> OK, I was hoping that there was a record stored of the previous reconciliation starting balances, but I guess there isn't.
12:22:50 <warlord> ... and what happens if you enter the correct closing balance and mark off all the correct txns from the statement? Is there anything else shown in the reconcile dialog?
12:23:18 <csprof> I'm off $100.08, and I wasn't able to find anything that added up to this.
12:23:46 <warlord> search for unreconciled txns in your history
12:23:53 <csprof> I get a difference of $100.08 at the end and am not able to "Finish" the reconciliation
12:24:08 <warlord> And there are no other transactions in the window?
12:24:13 <warlord> (unchecked)
12:24:21 <warlord> no older transactions?
12:24:24 <csprof> but, as I said, the starting balance doesn't match the starting balance of my statement, and is exactly $100.08 off
12:24:52 <csprof> There is one older $20 unreconciled transaction, but that's because it was a check that hasn't yet cleared
12:25:28 <warlord> well, that means that you've deleted 100.08 worth of transactions from your history.
12:25:43 <warlord> ... potentially you moved them to another account.
12:25:59 <warlord> gnucash is supposed to warn you when you do that, but there are a few ways around it.
12:27:17 <csprof> OK, it looks like I'm going to have to audit. I throw older receipts away, so I may be out of luck it if goes back too far.
12:27:48 <csprof> Is there a way to make a "bogus" entry that will get everything back on track again, if I can't find the problem?
12:27:50 <warlord> sorry.
12:28:25 <warlord> sure, just add a transaction for 100.08 to somewhere.. some Equity account, maybe?
12:28:51 <csprof> From an equity account to ...
12:29:19 <csprof> ... the register I'm trying to reconcile?
12:29:24 <warlord> um, yeah.
12:29:30 <csprof> OK, thanks.
12:29:38 <csprof> One last question.
12:29:58 <warlord> putting it elsewhere wont help yo
12:30:00 <warlord> you
12:30:19 <csprof> What's the "standard" way of handling a situation where I pay for something on my credit card but then get reimbursed for part of the expense?
12:30:41 <csprof> For example, I pick up the tab on my CC at lunch, but then my friend gives me his part of the bill in cash.
12:31:05 <warlord> Split it.
12:31:51 <warlord> So let's say you put $40 on your CC. $20 is yours, and $20 from your friend. So you Credit CC $40, Debit Ex:Dining $20 (your portion), and Debit A:Cash $20 (your friend's portion)
12:32:58 <csprof> but now I end up with $20 extra in my wallet (Assets:Wallet, or whatever).
12:34:31 <warlord> Define "extra"? your buddy gave you $20 for lunch
12:34:44 <warlord> so yes, you walk out with $20 more cash than you entered
12:35:27 <csprof> Ok, I think I get it. So, it would be the same as taking a $40 cash advance on my CC, using $20 for lunch and keeping the rest in my wallet.
12:36:29 <warlord> yep
12:37:32 <csprof> it doesn't matter that the $20 comes from my CC vs. coming from my friend? Sorry, there is still something confusing here.
12:38:17 <csprof> I don't need to use some kind of income account as a source for the money from my friend?
12:38:40 <warlord> No, because it's not income. He's paying for his lunch.
12:39:02 <warlord> keep in mind you still owe the CC company $40!
12:39:27 <csprof> right
12:39:57 <csprof> so it would be the same if I bought something, and then sold some of it to a third party
12:40:16 <csprof> the CC would get charged extra, but I'd get some back from the sale
12:40:42 <warlord> well....... kinda?
12:41:20 <csprof> say I wanted to order 20 units of something from a company, but a friend also wants 20 units and wants to save on shipping charges
12:41:34 <csprof> so I order 40 with my CC and my friend pays for his 20
12:42:04 <csprof> that should be the same as the lunch situation
12:45:23 <warlord> Yeah, that would be.
12:48:03 <csprof> I was thinking that I would need a "reimbursable expenses" account or something that would temporarily balance the extra 20 units I charged on the card. Later, when I got the reimbursement from my friend, I would enter a txn to "cancel" this, but I was thinking I'd need an income account for the source of this txn.
12:48:52 <warlord> Yes, you would need an asset account if you don't get paid right away
12:51:34 <csprof> so I would debit the asset account to balance the CC charge, and then later credit the asset account when I got the money from my friend. What would be the other side of that txn with my friend?
13:10:50 <warlord> You've got debit and credit mixed..
13:10:57 <warlord> But yes
13:11:39 <csprof> so it would be some kind of income account that I would need as well?
13:12:03 <csprof> with the double-entry accounting, there would need to be an "other side" to the txn with my friend
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13:12:31 <csprof> before you said it wasn't income
13:13:06 <csprof> my impression from the manual was that anytime money came "into the system" from an external source, like my friend, it would have to be an income account
13:15:49 <warlord> No, there's no income with this
13:16:27 <warlord> But money isn't coming into the system. You're moving it from the Credit Card into a holding account until your friend pays you, and then you pay back the CC.
13:16:42 <warlord> You're not making money. you're just lending it to your friend until he pays you back.
13:16:53 <warlord> In the end, you don't have any more money than you did before.
13:17:54 <csprof> OK, I see the difference then.
13:18:03 <csprof> Thanks very much for your help.
13:22:58 <warlord> you're welcome.
13:23:07 <warlord> good luck on the reconciliation problem.
13:23:17 <csprof> thanks, bye
13:23:23 <warlord> You might want to run Actions -> Reset Warnings ...
13:23:37 <warlord> just in case you accidentally told gnucash not to warn you about modifying reconciled transactions.
13:24:02 <csprof> ok, I'll do that. tx again
13:25:01 <warlord> You're welcome.
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18:42:21 <dgr> Hi
18:42:42 <dgr> I have a problem importing a QIF file generated by homebank
18:44:58 <dgr> Gnucash (2.2.9) is not able to import the file. At the end of the assistant it says "A bug was detected while converting the QIF data"
18:45:38 <dgr> I do not know if there is a log file of the import process I can check to see if there is any problem with the file
18:45:57 <dgr> do you have any idea what can I do?
18:46:13 <dgr> Check with gnucash 2.3.x maybe? I do not know if th QIF importer has gotten better
18:46:51 <dgr> Or a known way to fix the (maybe broken?) QIF file?
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19:03:52 <warlord> dgr: check /tmp/gnucash.trace?
19:13:19 <scar> is there a way to print/generate some sort of receipt for a customer when an invoice is paid?
19:19:37 <warlord> scar: didn't i just answer that question recently? There are three options: 1) File -> print Check. 2) Print the invoice again after turning on the "Show Payments" option. 3) Generate a Customer Report
19:31:25 <dgr> warlord: The file exists. It starts like this
19:31:30 <dgr> * 00:44:29 WARN <gnc.scm> In unknown file: ?: 21* [#<procedure #f #> #] In /usr/share/gnucash/scm/qif-import/qif-to-gnc.scm: 376: 22 (if (not (qif-xtn:mark xtn)) (let (#) (xaccTransBeginEdit gnc-xtn) ...)) 378: 23 (let ((gnc-xtn #)) (xaccTransBeginEdit gnc-xtn) ...)
19:32:33 <dgr> But it is non meaningful for me because it is not clear where the problem with the QIF file is
19:32:37 <warlord> dgr: That's the stack trace. File a bug in bugzilla and supply that
19:32:53 <dgr> ok will do, thanks
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19:40:13 <warlord> As for where in the QIF it's broken... I'd need to see the full crash to potentially have an idea.
19:42:23 <dgr> warlord: Bug 619042 - Unable to import QIF file generated by Homebank
19:43:27 <warlord> Yeah. Waiting for the attachment to show up.
19:48:18 <dgr> warlord: Err... The attachment is included, I can see it on th bug report.
19:48:23 <warlord> dgr: Interesting. I honestly have no idea what's going on there based on the dump. It looks like it's having a problem dealing with a far-account name
19:48:35 <warlord> Yeah, I see it. I had to change it to text/plain to read it online.
19:48:45 <warlord> What happens if you run gnucash from the terminal? Does it output anything?
19:49:13 <warlord> I think the issue is: 563: 35* [qif-map-entry:gnc-name #f]
19:50:02 <warlord> Which is set from: 563: 34* (set! far-acct-name (qif-map-entry:gnc-name far-acct-info))
19:50:12 <warlord> So... far-acct-info is #f, which is... wrong.
19:51:09 <dgr> let me try to run it from the console
19:51:28 <warlord> dgr: other things to try: bisecting the QIF file until you find the errant txn?
19:52:30 <dgr> I hoped not to read that :-)
19:54:30 <warlord> Well, so long as you're using an XML data file it shouldn't make a difference. Just quit w/o saving.
19:55:12 <dgr> I run gnucash from the console and I got a very similar trace to the tracefile I posted on bugzilla
19:56:32 <dgr> Could things like brackets, spaces or characters like (,),{,-,_ be a problem for the importer?
19:57:53 <warlord> yes
19:57:57 <warlord> theoretically
19:58:03 <warlord> it SHOULDNT.. but it could.
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20:00:40 <dgr> I imported a subset of the qif file with strange characters on the account name and it worked
20:00:57 <warlord> Okay, try the other subset...
20:01:20 <dgr> i will try to locate where the problem is and create a simple qif file soyou can replicate the problem
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20:04:52 <warlord> that would be excellent.
20:09:18 <dgr> warlord: please check https://bugzilla.gnome.org/attachment.cgi?id=161397
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20:21:39 <warlord> dgr: Can you reduce it to one of those 5 transactions? Or does it require all 5?
20:23:22 <warlord> (I'm wondering if it's the empty payee lines)
20:23:42 <warlord> anyways, gotta run. BIAW
20:23:44 <dgr> well I tried a shorter file with just the two first and that one worked
20:24:01 <dgr> so it must be on the third, fourth or fifth
20:24:07 <warlord> Can you try each one individually?
20:24:12 <warlord> (sorry, gotta run)
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20:31:57 <dgr> warlord-afk: Yes, the problem are the empty payee lines
20:32:04 <dgr> will update the bug report
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20:33:41 <dgr> warlord-afk: done, https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=619042
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23:20:24 <scar> warlord-afk: no, sorry, i don't remember you telling me that
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