I am a new user, setting up KMM. So far, I've been able to make things work. However, I'm bogged down with understanding the KMM reconciliation process for my checking account. Perhaps I'm being dense and someone can set me straight.
I started out by loading my checking account info into KMM with an opening balance of what I knew it to be as of May 1st, and added each transaction afterwards.
I recently received a statement and I balanced my account manually, to the penny, as I always do. No problem.
When trying to do so in KMM however, I'm running into problems and I must not be understanding the process.
First, the Reconciliation Wizard shows the Starting Balance of This Statement as $0. How can that be? Is the "Starting Balance" the same thing as the "Previous Balance" that appears on my statement? It doesn't allow me the opportunity of changing it to match the starting balance on my actual statement.
And then unsurprisingly, as I go through and check "C" for the entries that appear on my statement, I don't get anywhere near to zero once I get through the process; which indicates to me that I have missed something basic.
Thanks in advance for any help that comes my way.

Before I start digging into possible solutions I would like you to take a look at the section of the manual covering the reconciliation process if you haven't already done so. Maybe that will also provide some more details.

The starting balance (or previous balance) is calculated by KMyMoney each time you start the reconciliation process by summing up the balances of all transactions in the account that are marked with an 'R' (for reconciled) in the ledger column with the title 'C'. Since you started using KMyMoney none of the transactions may be marked that way and so the sum is zero. You can simply change that if you select the opening balance transaction (should be the first one in the ledger), open the context menu (right mouse button) and select 'Mark transaction as reconciled'. (Note to myself: it might be an idea to avoid this by always marking the opening balance transaction as reconciled). The opening balance amount should be equal to the amount of the "previous balance" on your current statement.

Now start the reconciliation process again. Make sure the statement date reflects the date of your statement. Now clear all transactions that you find on your statement and the difference should go down to zero. Once it is zero, finish the reconciliation which will turn all states 'C' into 'R' for you.

During that process, KMyMoney calculates the 'Cleared' amount by summing up all transactions that are marked 'R' and 'C' from the beginning and displays the 'Difference' of that sum to the 'Statement' amount.

BTW: clicking with the mouse into the column 'C' of a transaction also changes the state. The state is changed round-robin between ' ', 'C', 'R' and back to ' '.

Hope that helps. If you still have questions we may find more answers.

Update: I was able to change the opening balance like you described, but I still couldn't get the difference to zero, which suggests to me that I must have an error somewhere in my postings (most likely in how I figured my opening balance). I think I need to go through it all in detail tomorrow; I'll let you know whether I'm successful. Thanks.

Updated update: Success.
I had originally gone back to only May 1st, and couldn't get it to reconcile.
Today I went back to the opening date of the bank statement (4/10), added all those transactions prior to 5/1, and it reconciled. So somewhere in my initial calculated opening balance, I was off. I don't know why/where...or maybe it was just pure magic...but I'm good to go now.
I'll have another 6-8 accounts to build and then reconcile as the statements come in, but I got the hardest one out of the way.
Thanks for your help.

Thanks for the update and glad you found and fixed the problem.