I recently started using KmyMoney. I’m confused about the reconciliation process. I may just be overthinking it.
When I created an account, it asked for an opening balance. My accounts go back years, and I do not want to go all the way back to then. I’m only interested in going back a few months.
When I first created the account, I told it a balance that matched the beginning balance from my bank statement for 10/2024. I then imported the transactions from CSV from 10/1 to current. When I go to do a reconcile, it shows an opening balance of 0 and I can not change it.
Is this the way its supposed to work?
Thanks
Jason
In general, the starting balance of a reconciliation should be the ending balance of the previous reconciliation. For the first reconciliation of an account, I think 0 is reasonable, as that was indeed the balance, actually prior to the “deposit” you specified as the opening balance. Picking an arbitrary starting date for a very old account is perfectly fine. For the first reconciliation, as long as the ending balance is correct, you are OK.
Note that the starting balance shown by the reconciliation wizard is simply the sum of all reconciled transactions prior to the previous reconciliation. It is indeed displayed read-only, but it doesn’t actually enter into any of the calculations done as part of the reconciliation. While the opening balance deposit is not really on the current statement, it should represent the starting balance of the statement.
Continue with the reconciliation, and let us know if it works or if you still have any questions.
I must be doing something wrong.
I created my account with starting date of 10/1/2024 and an opening balance that matches the starting balance of 11792.86 which matches the starting balance on my statement for October.
I imported all transactions from 10/1/2024 to current
I ran reconciliation for October. I entered in the closing balance as the one for 10/31/2024 from my statement 8306.02
I went through and clicked C on all of my transactions for the month.
The balance in the ledger after my last entry for October shows a balance that matches my ending balance for October 8306.02
It shows in the ledger a summary for deposits and payments which matches the credits and debts on my statement. Everything lines up
There is a line below my entries in the ledger that says
Statement: 8306.02
Cleared: -3486.84
Difference -11792.86
The statement number matches my October ending balance. That cleared number seems to come from the ending October balance minus the beginning October balance. The difference is a negative of my opening balance and beginning of October balance.
When I tell it to finish the reconciliation, it tells me
You are about to finish with a difference between my bank statement and the transactions marked as cleared. A you sure you want to finish the reconciliation?
So what am I doing wrong here?
Thanks
Jason
I don’t think you are doing anything wrong. I think the issue is that your printed statement has a starting balance of 11792.68, but the KMM account is actually starting at 0. The difference in cleared transactions is that the initial balance (essentially a deposit) is in the KMM account, but not on the statement. I think if you just accept the message and finish the reconciliation, you will be fine for next month.
One alternative, which would really just be for compulsiveness, is to do your first KMM reconciliation on 2 Oct, with only the starting balance transacction marked as cleared. That will have an ending balance matching the ending balance of your September statement. After that, the October reconciliation will not show that spurious difference.
Just FYI, even I get that “you are about to finish…” message. Eventually, I just gave up trying to figure out why, and accepted it, as long as the ending balance was right, and the right set of transactions got cleared and then marked reconciled.
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