Chapter 14 (Reconciliation) of the KMyMoney Handbook sequentially walks the user through all the steps needed to reconcile a KMyMoney account against the latest bank statement received for said account. Said chapter 14 starts as follows:

- To reconcile an account, choose your account from the drop down box and click on the reconcile icon, select the Account → Reconcile... menu item or use the Ctrl+Shift+R shortcut.
- This will open the reconciliation wizard. The first page of the wizard briefly describes the process you will follow. Click on Next to actually start the wizard.
...

I have found that strictly following the steps listed above does not work for me. Instead, prior to launching the reconciliation wizard, I must do something else, as follows:

The account Ledger on KMyMoney has one column named " C ", each cell of which is blank by default. If the user clicks on the " C " column cell for any transaction in an account, the value of this cell toggles from the default blank, to " c ", then to " R " and back to blank. The way I interpret the KMyMoney Handbook instructions as listed above, the reconciliation wizard would be launched while the " C " cell for all the transactions listed in the bank statement is still blank.

Instead, the only reconciliation procedure I have been able to successfully do includes one step missing from the official instructions, prior to launching the reconciliation wizard, and that is, carefully go through each transaction listed on the bank statement just received, find said transaction on the KMyMoney ledger, do a single click on the corresponding " C " column cell for said transaction to bring said cell from its default blank to a " c " value, and only after every single transaction listed on the bank statement has been manually " cleared " in this manner I launch the reconciliation wizard, which then completes the task successfully, and at the end of this reconciliation process all the manually entered " c " values are automatically replaced with an " R " and the account is marked as reconciled for the month in question.

Therefore, I am asking, am I doing something wrong, or is the KMyMoney Handbook simply missing this step?

Thanks

Nothing wrong - I check my bank balance every few days marking relevant entries as 'c' so that the Kmy 'cleared' balance matches the bank. This helps flag up any items which are late in being presented that you may wish to chase up!!

Thanks, jmacleod.
Then, if "clearing" all these transactions is a pre-requirement to launching the reconcile wizard and to successfully and accurately completing the reconciliation process, why is the handbook completely silent on this? It would seem to me the developers have a vested interest in providing the end user as accurate instructions as possible.
That's what's confusing me.

I typically only have transactions pre-cleared before reconciliation when I have downloaded and matched transactions before reconciling.

Generally, I open the account ledger, then go through the reconciliation wizard, which hides all previously reconciled transactions, then mark cleared transactions, then (when the cleared balance matches), click the Finish button, which changes all cleared transactions to reconciled. Although I guess it really wouldn't matter if I manually cleared transactions before reconciling

herlock wrote:Instead, the only reconciliation procedure I have been able to successfully do includes one step missing from the official instructions, prior to launching the reconciliation wizard, and that is, carefully go through each transaction listed on the bank statement just received, find said transaction on the KMyMoney ledger, do a single click on the corresponding " C " column cell for said transaction to bring said cell from its default blank to a " c " value, and only after every single transaction listed on the bank statement has been manually " cleared " in this manner I launch the reconciliation wizard, which then completes the task successfully, and at the end of this reconciliation process all the manually entered " c " values are automatically replaced with an " R " and the account is marked as reconciled for the month in question.

Therefore, I am asking, am I doing something wrong, or is the KMyMoney Handbook simply missing this step?

I think it does not: see the section about Clearing transactions which explains in the very first sentence what you describe above. It does not matter to KMyMoney if you mark the transaction C(leared) in the regular ledger or during the reconciliation. The only difference regarding the clearing operation during the reconciliation process is that a summary of the cleared balance, the statement balance and a difference of the two is presented at the bottom of the ledger. It definitely is no pre-requirement to clear the transactions before starting the reconciliation wizard.

Hope that helps. BTW: if anything in the manual is unclear or can be improved, please let the devs know and send in your suggestion for improvement.

ipwizard, thank you very much for your post. Based on my experience with KMyMoney, I have to respectfully disagree with you, as follows:

Case 1: I receive a bank statement, and prior to launching the reconciliation wizard, I carefully mark in KMyMoney all transactions listed on the bank statement as C(leared). I then launch the KMyMoney reconciliation wizard, enter the statement's date, and KMyMoney's "Ending balance for this statement" correctly matches the closing balance shown on the bank statement. Everything goes smoothly. This is the method I have been using since my first day with KMyMoney.

Case 2: I receive a bank statement, and I then launch the reconciliation wizard without marking in KMyMoney all transactions listed on the bank statement as C(leared). The reconciliation wizard then incorrectly lists the "Ending balance for this statement" as the exact balance the account had on the date the last transaction had been cleared, typically a month earlier.

Oh, well, my method works perfectly for me. I was just trying to be helpful by having someone in the development team add that step prior to launching the reconciliation wizard.

Thanks again for all your help.

herlock wrote:ipwizard, thank you very much for your post. Based on my experience with KMyMoney, I have to respectfully disagree with you, as follows:

Case 1: I receive a bank statement, and prior to launching the reconciliation wizard, I carefully mark in KMyMoney all transactions listed on the bank statement as C(leared). I then launch the KMyMoney reconciliation wizard, enter the statement's date, and KMyMoney's "Ending balance for this statement" correctly matches the closing balance shown on the bank statement. Everything goes smoothly. This is the method I have been using since my first day with KMyMoney.

Case 2: I receive a bank statement, and I then launch the reconciliation wizard without marking in KMyMoney all transactions listed on the bank statement as C(leared). The reconciliation wizard then incorrectly lists the "Ending balance for this statement" as the exact balance the account had on the date the last transaction had been cleared, typically a month earlier.

Oh, well, my method works perfectly for me. I was just trying to be helpful by having someone in the development team add that step prior to launching the reconciliation wizard.

Thanks again for all your help.

Thank you for your post. I also have to respectfully disagree with you, at least partially.

Case 1: total agreement from my side
Case 2: What you describe is true, nevertheless you seem to have missed an important information on the start page of the wizard, which asks you to modify the data presented with that found on your statement. Here's the text of that first page (the important part marked in blue)

Reconciling your account ensures your records match those of your institution, and that there are no mistakes on either side. You should reconcile your account whenever you receive a statement from your institution.

All relevant information necessary for this process is usually printed on your statement.

On the next page you will verify that the ending balance matches that on your statement. If not, please modify it.

The starting balance is the sum of your cleared and reconciled transactions.

Once you update the ending balance to the amount shown on the statement and continue with the process, KMyMoney will show a difference displayed between the cleared balance and the ending balance of the statement. This is an aid for the user when he/she carefully marks all transactions listed on the bank statement as C(leared) to see if there is something missing to be marked or not. In case the user finishes reconciliation and that difference is not zero a warning will be displayed. Once all transactions are marked cleared, that difference is zero and the result of Case 1 and Case 2 is identical. So either way works.

Thank you for your help in getting this a bit clearer. We'll see what we can do with respect to documentation. I think to remember (from way back when) that the ending balance field was always presented empty and the user had to provide it manually. Then a user suggested that we could provide the amount of cleared statements directly at start of the process which would make his work easier, as he cleared transactions as soon as he had seen them cleared on the web interface to his bank (days and weeks before he reconciled).

Thanks again for your kindness in answering to my post. In said answer, you state, in pertinent part, as follows:

I think to remember (from way back when) that the ending balance field was always presented empty and the user had to provide it manually.

I believe that if KMyMoney will neither recommend, via its documentation, that the user clears the pertinent transactions prior to launching the reconciliation wizard, nor programmatically force the user to do so, then the approach you describe in the above quote (ending balance field was always presented empty) would be superior to the current approach, that is, less confusing for those who, as myself, have inherited a lower level of intelligence and need perhaps a bit more guidance to complete the process properly. A blank ending balance would provide the user with a clear visual cue to "fill in the blank" as it were.

Once again, thanks much. And kudos on such an excellent product, on par with the entire, wonderful family of KDE products.