Bite Gao:
Thank you for your feature request. And thank you for your second
message, where you make your request clear enough that I finally
understand it.
What I think you are requesting is that GnuCash's Reconciliation command
add an option for GnuCash to read in a data file supplied by the bank.
This data file has the same information as the bank's human-readable
statement, but in a machine-readable form. GnuCash reads a starting and
ending statement balance from the data file. Then GnuCash attempts to
match each transaction in the data file with a transaction in the data
file. It does the equivalent of marking the matching transactions in
the GnuCash register as tentatively reconciled, and ends by displaying a
list of GnuCash and data file transactions which it could not match.
This list might be empty. Then the human modifies the tentative
reconciliations, or accepts them, and finishes the reconciliation. The
final state of the Register after reconciliation with the aid of a data
file is the same as after reconciliation by the human using the
human-readable statement.
To me, the matching which this requires is not very different from what
the Import Matcher does. So, if the data file is a format which GnuCash
can read, say an OFX file or a CSV file with the right configuration,
then it seems feasible to use a data file to help reconciliation. And,
this request does not seem to require reading the human-readable content
of a PDF file.
Bite Gao: do you have banks which provide statements as machine-readable
data files? If so, what format does the bank provide? Do the start
and end dates of the data file match the start and end dates of the
human-readable statement? Does the bank certify that the data file has
the same transaction and balance content as the human-readable
statement, and is just as trustworthy?
Among my statements from banks, credit cards, and investment companies,
all provide human-readable statements in PDF format. Most provide
transaction data in CSV format, and only some provide data in OFX or QFX
or QIF format. Most provide data files with the same start and end
dates as the human-readable statement, but some offer only my choice of
arbitrary start and end date. I could choose dates for a transaction
data file which match a statement's dates. But none of my statement
providers certify that the data files have the same content as the
human-readable statement. If there were a difference, I am pretty sure
they would tell me that the data file is wrong and the human-readable
file is correct. And reconciling to an incorrect data file is not helpful.
Thus, I can imagine that — for me, with my present statements — reading
in a transaction data file to help with reconciliation would turn a
10-minute task into a 5-minute task in most cases, but not in all cases.
Bite Gao, do I understand you correctly? What machine-readable data
files do your banks provide? Maybe your banks offer options which mine
do not offer.
Best regards,
—Jim DeLaHunt
On 2023-01-05 17:50, Bite Gao wrote:
GnuCash Developers and Maintainers:
Hello! While you have mentioned the requirement of human intervene
in the reconciliation process, I do not see it contradicts with the
presence of automatically reconciliation system.
In a reconcile process, the accountant check the record in the
account book with the record in the bank statement (or statement from
other institution). He (or she) may found out that two record are
identical, or he (or she) may found that some record are not
identical. Only the latter requires human notice, since there its no
point wasting time on reconciled accounting transactions. An automatic
reconciliation system can load the digital statement from the
institution, compares the statement with the transaction in the
accounting book, and pinpoints the discrepancies out. Then human
accountant could step in and perform manual operations, such as
checking other vouchers, contact with banks, etc. In the situation of
single user, the automatic reconcile system have no reason to block
manual reconciliation.
Besides, when I means "human err", I means that the accountant
overlook an discrepancy and regards it as identical. People do not
spend too much time on identical records, since major of the
transaction would be in that state. However, it could cause severe
consequences if there do have a discrepancy.
Yours,
Bite, Gao
Jan 6th, 2023
On 2023/1/5 12:03, Liz Dodd Wrote:
On Wed, 4 Jan 2023 15:42:41 +0800
Bite Gao<redfrog2...@outlook.com> wrote:
GnuCash Developers and Maintainers:
Hello! While your software has done many tedious jobs previously
done by
accountants manually, it cannot automatically reconcile its
accounting data
to the bank statement in its digital form. In my opinion, the
automation of
reconciliation is not only efficient but also accurate since it
reduces human-caused errors.
I would appreciate you a lot if you could add an
auto-reconciliation function to your software.
Yours,
Bite Gao
Jan 4th, 2023
Bite, this is an interesting idea, but to me reconciliation requires
human input.
While I manually reconcile, I have to attend to pending transactions,
for example a payment made on a card which never is taken from the bank
account. At what time do I take that from the active list? Where will I
put the the never finished transactions?
A number which is different in my list to the banks? How will I check
for the correct number? When do I contact the bank?
They are human decisions, different in each jurisdiction.
They are the reason I reconcile - not to have my numbers the same as
the banks, but to see the discrepancies and decide on an action.
Could you please describe more what you want from automated
reconciliation? Your statement about "human-caused errors" implies that
reconciliation introduces errors rather than highlights them.
Liz
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