From 042633d82d6a63a3c6d59c7572175966e4576b7e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Ben Sturmfels Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2022 15:12:33 +1100 Subject: [PATCH] reconcile: Update background docs. --- .../reconcile/prototype_amex_reconciler.py | 12 ++++++++---- 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) diff --git a/conservancy_beancount/reconcile/prototype_amex_reconciler.py b/conservancy_beancount/reconcile/prototype_amex_reconciler.py index d0a6215..2809517 100644 --- a/conservancy_beancount/reconcile/prototype_amex_reconciler.py +++ b/conservancy_beancount/reconcile/prototype_amex_reconciler.py @@ -13,14 +13,18 @@ This tool is still somewhat like an importer in that it needs to extract transaction details from a third-party statement. Instead of creating directives, it just checks to see that similar directives are already present. -Problems this attempts to address: +Problems in scope: - errors in the books take hours to find during reconciliation ("you're entering a world of pain") - adding statement/reconciliation metadata to books is manual and prone to mistakes + - Beancount doesn't provide any infrastructure for programmatically updating the books, only appending + - after updates to the books files, beancount must be restarted to reflect updates + - updates also invalidate the cache meaning restart takes several minutes - paper checks are entered in the books when written, but may not be cashed until months later (reconcile errors) - balance checks are manually updated in svn/Financial/Ledger/sanity-check-balances.yaml - - creating reconciliation reports - - jumping to an individual transaction in the books isn't trivial - Emacs grep mode is helpful - - normally transactions are entered manually, but potentially could create transaction directives (a.k.a. importing) + - jumping to an individual transaction in a large ledger isn't trivial - Emacs grep mode is the current best option + - Pam and other staff don't use Emacs + - auditors would prefer Bradley didn't perform reconciliation, ideally not Rosanne either + - transactions are entered manually and reconciled after the fact, but importing from statements may be useful in some cases Q. How are reconciliation reports created currently? How do you read them?