MoneyManagerEX_SVN-3085 - Major mistake in Un-Reconciled

[lotsofjunk]

The balance at the various dates of the unreconciled items is utterly meaningless.

What meaning or benefit does a recalculated balance offer?

I went through 13 pages of feature request and could not find any request or reference to change the the un-reconciled view. Jamie made a very good recomedation to show the previous balance on the first line of the ledger. I totally agree with his recomedation.

I assume that now you concur that the calculation and ledger un-reconcile view is incorrect and now you are requesting justification for the view.

The balance at the various dates of the unreconciled items is not utterly meaningless. It prevents overdarfts. That is what a single line ledger is basicaly for. One that shows actualy bank balances is much more accurate than one that does not.

No matter how you want to justify your ridiculus view about balance, the attachment really says it all. Does 777.25 - 52.52 = 41.07? NO

[GregChapman]

Hi lotsofjunk,

You're a little behind in the discussion and repeating yourself. (More of the "it's what I'm used to why change" stuff.) However, Jamie is answering my questions and giving explanations

I assume that now you concur that the calculation and ledger un-reconcile view is incorrect

Not at all - for the reasons given in my post made while I guess you were composing yours. However, thanks to Jamie's post I perhaps begin to see where you are coming from.

The balance at the various dates of the unreconciled items is not utterly meaningless. It prevents overdarfts. That is what a single line ledger is basicaly for. One that shows actualy bank balances is much more accurate than one that does not.

In saying that you are not seeing where I am coming from. Read my previous post.

No matter how you want to justify your ridiculus view about balance, the attachment really says it all. Does 777.25 - 52.52 = 41.07? NO

But as I pointed out right at the start of this debate, the extract you show is not a showing a calculation as it did under earlier versions of MMEx. In the current version of MMEX it shows an extract of your ledger with many records missing. There is no arithmetic taking place. There may be an argument for reverting to the old way, but you're not presenting that argument. Jamie is.

[lotsofjunk]

Here is where I am really confused, but from your replies it is obvious.

How is it that I am a new user, been using since 2009, and you've been using 6 months and your are a super MMEX User?

Question of the day?

[GregChapman]

Don't pay it too much attention. I think it's just a title awarded by virtue of my post count. I don't think it means I'm any better respected by the management than you.


EDIT:
Just checked the membership list. Seems the critical point between New and Super is 20 posts.

Welcome lotsofjunk, to the world of the Super MMEx User

EDIT #2:
And it seems that somewhere between my 63 posts and 116, you get awarded the title "MMEx Developer".

[stef145g]

How is it that I am a new user, been using since 2009, and you've been using 6 months and your are a super MMEX User?

Question of the day?

Answer:

Any user who has made 20 or more posts, the forum software automatically reclassified the New User as a Super User.

A good observation, but when it comes to this, I was classified as a super user for a long time when I was actually a developer. As this is a manual change, given the permissions to do so, I have recently corrected this oversite.

I went through 13 pages of feature request and could not find any request or reference to change the the un-reconciled view. Jamie made a very good recomedation to show the previous balance on the first line of the ledger. I totally agree with his recomedation.

This was my interpretation of the software when I formulated the new method of working out balances, as this method corrected the balances for a lot of views. This also affected, and changed the reconciled/unreconciled views, and for me this was not an issue, up until now.

I am following this discussion with great interest, in the hope of learning something. Thanks to all who add extra info to this discussion. Has anyone investigated the changes that I made to MMEX.
What is the verdict?

[jamie]

What is the verdict?

My preference is for the balance column to be recalculated in the filter views. The benefit is that the filtered balance more accurately forecasts the actual balance in the account (i.e. the bank's balance) without having to change the transaction dates of cleared transactions to match the bank's cleared date. I can keep the transaction dates as the bill due dates.

My standard way of working is to show unreconciled transactions only, to keep the transaction dates as the actual due dates, and to reconcile frequently. Under this scenario, recalculating the transaction balance is very beneficial and is my choice for the way to go.

[stef145g]

My preference is for the balance column to be recalculated in the filter views.

Which filter?

Note: The changes that I made are this:

• Using the Transacton Filter
  No recalculation of balances.

• Using the View Reconciled/Unreconciled/All except Reconciled.
  Balances are recalculated to new screen.

[jamie]

My preference is for the balance column to be recalculated in the filter views.

Which filter?

Note: The changes that I made are this:

• Using the Transacton Filter
  No recalculation of balances.

• Using the View Reconciled/Unreconciled/All except Reconciled.
  Balances are recalculated to new screen.

Exactly how you summarized it.

[GregChapman]

And that doesn't affect my way of working so I have no problems with it.

[stef145g]

I have been trying to get something clear in my own mind about the View Reconciled/Unreconciled views. To test the correctness of what I have done, I have created a spreadsheet and a database, then compared it with the results from mmex 0.9.8.0. With the un-reconciled view, I am getting different results.

Obviously not understanding the problem, can't explain why. I have also attached the files.
What am I doing wrong?

[jamie]

Your worksheet labeled "Unreconciled View Ledger" is missing a 50 in the withdraw column of row 4, the transaction that is dated 11/3/2012. If you add the 50, the "Unreconciled View Ledger" balance and the "Reconciled View Ledger" balance will equal the "General Ledger Example" balance.

-80 + 260 = 180

I'm not sure if this answers your question or not.

By the way, the "Displayed Bal" at the top of the account register is not needed when one is viewing all except reconciled. The Displayed balance will always equal the Diff.

[stef145g]

I did not spot this, but this is not the issue.
The Flagged transaction caused that mistake, as I did this at the last minute to test all-except reconciled.

Fixing this in the spreadsheet and removing the flagged transaction, when I compare the screens of 0.9.8.0 and 9.9.9.0_dev_3127 to view the View Un_reconciled, I have just now discovered that in 0.9.8.0, the balances have been increased by the value of the Reconciled Balance for View Unreconciled but not for All Except Reconciled.

[jamie]

I have been experimenting with the drop down list that includes View Last 30 days, View Last 90 days, and View Last 3 Months. All of these views exclude future transactions that are beyond the current month. If today is in month x and I have future transactions in the register that occur x+1, all of these views exclude the x+1 transactions. Thinking about it, it may be more appropriate to base the View Last 30 days or 90 days off of the date of the last transaction in the register rather than today's date. I'm not sure what to think about the View Last 3 Months, as that seems very similar in name to View Last 90 days. This view currently looks includes all transactions to the end of month x whereas View Last 90 days excludes all transactions beyond today. Maybe View Last 3 Months could be x-3, x-2, and x-1 transactions.

[Nikolay]

there is a parameter "ignore future transactions". It may be used for that filter. Now it does not used.

[stef145g]

I'm not sure what to think about the View Last 3 Months, as that seems very similar in name to View Last 90 days.

To answer the question:

• View Last 3 Months: Displays the dates within the last 3 months, based today's date month.
  If today's date is the 11th November, the start date is: 1st September

• View Last 90 Days: Displays the dates within the last 90 Days, based today's date day.
  If today's date is the 11th November: start date is: 13th August

The reference point for these views is today, as the title suggests.

Current Month, Last Month and Last 30 Days - A similar thing aplies.

Ignore Future Transaction status, refers to calculations, therefore Future transactions are not displayed in these views.

[summitmcl]

I am firmly on lotsofjunk's side on this one and would like to see this change in the next official version.

Hi, I'm a new user and have just tried my first reconciliation, anticipating that MSMoney will eventually pack up on the only PC in the house that will still run it. Because I still have access to MS Money, a direct comparison was possible. I've tried to follow the debate of about 5 years ago but was completely baffled by it.

My balances from the Money Manager EX and MS Money were different and I can see that Money Manager is mostly right, but wrong for 4 calculations out of nearly 30 - all the rest are correct. Clearly a calculation has taken place, but it's just wrong. What am I missing?

Regards
Terry

[stef145g]

As you can see from the postings, this has been a long standing discussion over many years. Over the years, the way balances are being calculated have changed, and therefore the balances no longer try to present a balance ledger. This has been clearly explained by Greg Chapman in past posts.

When I attempt to reconcile an account, I often discover that the dates that I have recorded, are different from the dates that the bank has recorded them, so my balances always appear to be incorrect. The order of transactions entered into MMEX also makes a difference to the balances for the same day.

The way to solve this is to use the 'Reconciled Balance' in the header, and then setting the individual transactions as reconciled in the order recorded by the bank. This will show up any irregular or missing transactions if any.

In the latest version, View Reconciled and View unreconciled has been removed to avoid confusion. Use of the 'Transaction Filter' can also generally display the required transactions, then use the popup menu 'Mark all being viewed' to assist in the reconcile process.

Conclusion: No mistake, just different.

[summitmcl]

As you can see from the postings, this has been a long standing discussion over many years. Over the years, the way balances are being calculated have changed, and therefore the balances no longer try to present a balance ledger. This has been clearly explained by Greg Chapman in past posts.

When I attempt to reconcile an account, I often discover that the dates that I have recorded, are different from the dates that the bank has recorded them, so my balances always appear to be incorrect. The order of transactions entered into MMEX also makes a difference to the balances for the same day.

The way to solve this is to use the 'Reconciled Balance' in the header, and then setting the individual transactions as reconciled in the order recorded by the bank. This will show up any irregular or missing transactions if any.

In the latest version, View Reconciled and View unreconciled has been removed to avoid confusion. Use of the 'Transaction Filter' can also generally display the required transactions, then use the popup menu 'Mark all being viewed' to assist in the reconcile process.

Conclusion: No mistake, just different.

Hi Stefano and thanks for your comments. However, I'm not comparing the reconciled MoneyManagerEX with any bank statement - just with MS Money, with all the transactions entered in exactly the same order and with exactly the same reconciliation. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that I would expect the projected balances to be the same too, but they're not.
Conclusion: No mistake if you say so, just absolutely useless!

[summitmcl]

As you can see from the postings, this has been a long standing discussion over many years. Over the years, the way balances are being calculated have changed, and therefore the balances no longer try to present a balance ledger. This has been clearly explained by Greg Chapman in past posts.

When I attempt to reconcile an account, I often discover that the dates that I have recorded, are different from the dates that the bank has recorded them, so my balances always appear to be incorrect. The order of transactions entered into MMEX also makes a difference to the balances for the same day.

The way to solve this is to use the 'Reconciled Balance' in the header, and then setting the individual transactions as reconciled in the order recorded by the bank. This will show up any irregular or missing transactions if any.

In the latest version, View Reconciled and View unreconciled has been removed to avoid confusion. Use of the 'Transaction Filter' can also generally display the required transactions, then use the popup menu 'Mark all being viewed' to assist in the reconcile process.

Conclusion: No mistake, just different.

Hi Stefano and thanks for your comments. However, I'm not comparing the reconciled MoneyManagerEX with any bank statement - just with MS Money, with all the transactions entered in exactly the same order and with exactly the same reconciliation. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that I would expect the projected balances to be the same too, but they're not.
Conclusion: No mistake if you say so, just absolutely useless!

Hi All, I've devoted more time to this programme and issue than it merits and those that know don't seem to understand that the programme is simply not fit for purpose. Today it's getting uninstalled and I'll go on hunting in the hope that I will eventually find a logical replacement for MSMoney.
Regards
summitmcl