Process of reconciling statements: When a transaction is made, the field stat_date is automatically set to today (i.e., the system date, not the date of the transaction). When you receive your bank statement, select the menu item reconcile. You choose the repository and date of the statement. Be careful not to choose the date due, which is usually prominently displayed on the statement. When this is done, you will see a list of transactions for that repository which have not yet been reconcilled. Click the field checked for all transactions appearing on the statement. Press Done when finished. You will then see all the transactions which should appear on the statement, along with balances'.
The order of the transactions depends upon the repository(bank). Some banks list transactions by check number. Some list all transactions merely by date. In the former case, the field ckinx of the table chfi is set to true. In this case, first the transactions that have no check number will appear, followed by those with check numbers. You can then look at the screen and the statement and compare.
A number of verification processes are done. The program compares the initial balance, adding the transactions, with the final balance. If they do not agree, it means the data corruption, and an error message will appear: Error in balances: balance #1, balance # 2. This should never happen, and you should investigate the tables.
For mutual funds, the program does not look at balances. The dollar values of the balances change as the share prices change. Instead, the program looks at the initial gross, which is the total number of shares owned, and adding and subtracting the changes in number of shares (noshares), to compare with the final gross. A repository is considered a mutual fund if the field moneymkt of the table chfi is set to M.
Otherwise, the status bar will display the sum of withdrawals and deposits, along with a number which should be the balance in the statement. If this does not agree with the statement, it means you may have forgotten to make a transaction. When you find your errors, and make the necessary transactions, you can enter again reconcile.
At the completion of this process, field statdate is automatically set to the date of the statement for all checked items, and to the next day for other items.
The transactions appearing in the statment remain in the table temp, which you can always view at any time.
If there is a problem with the reconcilation, it is easy to do it again.
Press Recon Again to reconcile the statement again, without the need to select the bank account and date.
Press View Reconcile to view the checked records. You can easily sum over the credits and charges.