Yes, so do I.  But, the essence of reconciling with financial institutions is 
to use an account structure that can be aligned with the statements the 
institution provides.  And reconciliation is a top consideration since your 
financial books are not the actual thing.

 

As for roll-up:  You simply cannot reconcile a brokerage account (for example) 
except by reconciling each individual holding and core account.  It’s 
inherently a bottom-up process.  And the same is true of bank books.  Given 
multiple checking accounts at a particular bank, they must be individually 
reconciled.  There is no rolling them up for purposes of reconciliation.  And 
superimposing an envelope budgeting scheme on multiple institutions with 
multiple accounts would require, not just flattening, but an alternate 
structure.

 

The GnuCash documentation on budgeting is pretty clear on what the software 
provides in that regard.  Whether or not a feature that allows flattening a 
hierarchy of accounts for reconciliation purposes would be useful, it doesn’t 
currently exist.  And it’s not particularly difficult to establish that fact.  
RTFM.  You can try using a paint scraper as a chisel, but don’t expect a 
sympathetic ear at the hardware store.

 

From: R Losey <rlo...@gmail.com> 
Sent: Saturday, October 8, 2022 2:56 PM
To: David T. <sunfis...@yahoo.com>
Cc: John Layman <john.lay...@laymanandlayman.com>; David T. via gnucash-user 
<gnucash-user@gnucash.org>
Subject: Re: [GNC] Reconciling subaccounts

 

Well said!

 

I actually have both kinds of parent accounts, as you described.

 

On Sat, Oct 8, 2022 at 7:39 AM David T. via gnucash-user 
<gnucash-user@gnucash.org <mailto:gnucash-user@gnucash.org> > wrote:

John, 

I don't know about "typically." There are any of a number of ways that someone 
might use placeholder accounts. In my own books, I have placeholder accounts 
for brokerage holdings, where the placeholder represents an institution's 
account and the leaf accounts represent individual securities. I also have 
placeholder accounts that represent a class of account types-- for example, a 
placeholder for savings accounts at different institutions. 

The OP appears to be using the structure to implement an envelope allocation 
system, in which case the subaccounts are virtual. They want both the real and 
the virtual accounts to show that reconciliation. GnuCash doesn't currently do 
that. 

Whether that's a bug or a feature (and whether a sensible implementation can be 
devised to address it) is perhaps a different matter. 

⁣David T. 

On Oct 8, 2022, 9:17 AM, at 9:17 AM, John Layman 
<john.lay...@laymanandlayman.com <mailto:john.lay...@laymanandlayman.com> > 
wrote:
>Typically, the place holder account represents an institution, not an
>account.  I have never seen a bank statement that presents rolled up
>account totals at the institution level.  Each checking account,
>savings account, money market account, CD holdings, installment loan
>accounts, etc. are presented separately (even if within the same
>document) with beginning and ending balances shown separately for each
>such account.  Balancing could be an absolute nightmare if you had to
>track down a discrepancy in conglomerated the numbers.

-- 

_________________________________
Richard Losey
rlo...@gmail.com <mailto:rlo...@gmail.com> 
Micah 6:8

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