Byron, The erroneous starting balance fo $1000 has to come from somewhere ,i.e. a transaction must exist to your bank account prior to the start date of the reconciliation.
The starting Balance reported in the reconciliation window is the sum of all reconciled transactions (Those marked as reconciled with "y" in the reconcile column of the register for the account) up to the start date of the period being reconciled. Transactions marked with a "c" are cleared but not reconciled nand transactions marked with an "n" are neither cleared or reconciled. From the View menu with the account register open select the View > Filter By and ensure that it is set to Show All to clear any filtering of the register display.You should then be able to see all transactions with an entry to your bank account register. You may have an entry recorded at an earlier date which has been marked as reconciled for example (reversing of days and month in the date format on import might cause this possibility which may be affected by any locale settings you have set or picked up from MacOSX). If there are no transactions dated prior to the start date of the reconciliation other than your opening balance entry, then the starting balance when you reconcile the first month of entered data should be that opening balance. You can actually edit the register while the reconciliation window is open and changes you make will be reflected in the windows panes. On Sun, 2026-03-01 at 17:46 -0800, Byron Bray wrote: > Friends, > > I need some guidance as to the proper setup and handing of banking > accounts (at least) in GnuCash. I have spent the better part of two > days, read dozens of postings to the GnuCash lists and watched dozens > of videos, trying to resolve the issue I am seeing but, bright as I > like to think I am, I am clearly missing something; it is my hope > that you can help me. > > I am trying to shift my accounting data from Quicken to GnuCash. My > operating environment: > Computer: Mac Pro (2019) > OS Version: MacOS 15 (Sequoia) > GnuCash version: Version: 5.14 Build ID: 5.14+(2025-12-20) > > I imported a Quicken QIF bank account, after making sure that the > account was accurately reconciled for the period of the import. > Having completed the import, the Reconciliation window reported a > Starting Balance, Reconciled Balance and Difference of almost $1,000. > I had read that the way to overcome this was to simply enter an > opening balance transaction in Equities and reconcile the first > month, entering the accurate Ending Balance and performing the > reconciliation; subsequent months should, I read, display the correct > information. > > I created an “Opening Balance” transaction to take place on the last > day of the month prior to the imported data, entering the balance as > of that date and linking it to “Equities:Opening Balances”. I entered > the Reconcile window, set it for that previous month, made sure the > “Ending Balance” was correct and checked the box for that “Opening > Balance” transaction. The “Finish” button was disabled because it > didn’t take into effect the erroneous ≈$1,000 Starting Balance. > > Then, I created a balancing transaction and dated it the month before > the first transaction in the imported data and attempted to reconcile > that month. This time it DID enable the Finish button and completed > the reconcile. When I opened the Reconcile window for the following > month (the first imported month), the window for the following month > reported that the Starting Balance, the Ending Balance, the > Reconciled Balance and the Difference were all $0.00 … which was just > what one would expect. The only problem is that the running balance > for the entire account, as shown in the register, is almost $1,000 > less than the actual balance. > > I’m hopeful that you know a better solution than this but at this > point, the only way I can see to arrive at a ledger whose balance and > reconciliation data are accurate is to go back to Quicken, un- > reconcile all of the thousands of transactions in this account, > export the data, import it into GnuCash and then reconcile them all > again. I fervently hope that there is a better solution than this. > > Any advice you can give me would be gratefully received and carefully > considered. Whether you can suggest a solution or not, I want to > thank you, in advance, for your time and energy. > _______________________________________________ > gnucash-user mailing list > [email protected] > To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user > ----- > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. -- David Cousens _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list [email protected] To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
