The background is that I had an issue when I reconciled an account where the uneditable “Starting balance of this statement” value was different to the last reconciled value. Searching the forums I can see this has occurred a number of times, and there are some related bug reports, for example: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=449678 and https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=459772.
In my case I suspect that when I selected in the ledger view a previously reconciled entry with the mouse I must have clicked on the “C” column of the entry. The “C” column is the only field of an entry that if you click on it to select an entry, actually edits the entry by altering the value in the “C” column. I appreciate that I could hide the “C” column, but then I would want to unhide it again during a “reconcile” operation. It would be nice if this altering of the “C” column value didn’t occur when just clicking in the “C” column, especially if just selecting an entry, unless you are running an account “reconcile” operation. If this is difficult to implement maybe a shortish term workaround might be to have a new KMyMoney option to disable the changing of the “C” field value with a mouse click, with the user having to, for example, use the corresponding shortcut key or menu entry instead during a reconcile operation instead?
I digress. I wonder whether it might be worth having a FAQ entry around this issue? I undertook a few experiments as to how altering the value in the “C” field, outside of a reconcile operation, would affect the account when you next run a reconcile operation.
My suggestion, if it is helpful, of the starting point for a FAQ is below.
In the experiments for the FAQ information below I was using Ubuntu 24.04.3 and the KMyMoney AppImage file kmymoney-5.2-5096-linux-gcc-x86_64.AppImage (Version 5.2.1-c9efa7a).
Q. When balancing an account and the uneditable “Starting balance of this statement” value is different to the last reconciled value, and other account reconciliation issues.
A. Currently KMyMoney allows you to change, without a warning, the reconciled state of a previously reconciled account entry and/or the “Payment” or “Deposit” value, after an account reconciliation has been completed,. See also https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=449678 and https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=459772.
If you are observing that at the start of a reconcile operation the uneditable “Starting balance of this statement” value is different to the last reconciled value, the cause of what you are seeing can occur where a previously “Reconciled” entry:
-
Has had its “Payment” or “Deposit” value altered.
-
Has had its “reconcile” status changed from “Reconciled” to “Not reconciled” (a blank entry). This can be caused by accidentally clicking in the “C” column of an entry in an account ledger view when selecting an entry. Or accidentally using the corresponding keyboard shortcut key combination on a selected entry.
For the first issue you will need to correct any altered “Payment” or “Deposit” values if you wish to reconcile the account using the “ending balance” from the associated account financial institution statement.
For the second issue you can proceed, by in the “Ending balance of this statement” field entering the expected “ending balance” from the associated financial institution account statement. The affected entries should be visible during the reconciliation. You can manually set them to “Reconciled”, which should lead to correct future “Starting balance of this statement” numbers. You could leave them as “Not reconciled or Cleared” (a blank value). However, you will see the same “Starting balance of this statement” value issue next time you reconcile the account. If you mark any “problem” entries (previously incorrectly edited) as “Cleared” you will not be able to reconcile the account.
Note that:
-
If the entry had been incorrectly changed from “Reconciled” to “Cleared”, the “Starting balance of this statement” should be correct and you can could proceed to reconcile the account as usual, leaving the entry marked as “Cleared”.
-
If a “Not reconciled or Cleared” entry (a blank value) has been incorrectly set to “Cleared” since the previous reconcile operation, the “Starting balance of this statement” should be correct and you can proceed to reconcile the account as usual, leaving or removing the entry “Cleared” status as required to balance the account.
If any account entries that have been incorrectly marked as “Reconciled” since the previous reconciliation, the “Starting balance of this statement” value should be correct. The incorrectly reconciled entries should be visible during reconciliation. However, this type of entry value change appears to break the reconciliation process. If you proceed with a reconciliation any entries you mark as cleared do not change the “Cleared” or “Difference” values at the bottom of the screen. The solution is to cancel the reconciliation and to correct any entries that have been incorrectly marked as “Reconciled” since the previous reconciliation. Now start the reconciliation process again. Note that if you are in the reconciliation process, and entries are inadvertently marked as “Reconciled” rather than “Cleared”, the reconciliation process does work, in that the “Cleared” and “Difference” values at the bottom of the screen change.