Reconciling Cash with tiny differences

[chucksf]

Is there an easy way correct reconcile error for cash differences that are less than one cent ($0.01)? I'm having trouble adjusting them in the transaction window.

I have a large number of entries and I'm getting errors in the third decimal place and beyond that are from rounding errors in calculations.

Ideally I'd like to be able to not have reconcile flag differences that are smaller than some threshold.

[Mark]

Hi Chuck,

The reconciliation compares share balances out to 6 decimal places. This is currently not user-adjustable. When recording transactions you want to make sure rounding errors go into the "price" field, and not the "value" or "shares" fields, those should be left exactly as reported by your broker. For tips on how to record this way, please read this:

http://www.fundmanagersoftware.com/help ... rrors.html

To find which transactions have these rounding errors in the shares field currently, turn up your share display to 6 digits under "Options / General Preferences... / Display". Now, in the Data Register you can see which transactions have shares specified past the point where you want. Edit these transactions using the method described at the above link so that you have the exact, non-rounded, share balance recorded for each transaction.

[chucksf]

Comparing to 6 decimal places is OK for share balances but does not make sense for Cash.

I suggest that Reconcile treat Cash accounts differently from other investment types and round share balances to two decimal places before computing totals.

Another option to consider is rounding Cash account number of share values to two digits during transaction import. I'm getting share values with six digits to the right of the decimal point from some mutual funds.

I'm seeing some behavior in the Data Register Transaction edit window that may have contributed to the tiny differences in numbers of Cash account shares in my data. I normally display share prices to 3 digits. When I edit a purchase transaction the behavior varies appears to vary based on the investment type. If I open a transaction window and click on shares field:

• A non-cash investment changes from displaying 3 digits to the right of the decimal to showing 6 digits. This makes sense as the 6 digit value must be what is stored.
• A cash investment changes from showing 3 digits to showing only 2 digits. Clicking OK stores the 2 digit value, this has the effect of changing the number of shares even if I did not edit this number!

[Mark]

Hi Chuck,

I believe it makes sense for all investments, including Cash. Cash is just like any other investment, but it happens to typically have all transactions done at a price of 1. If you record your transactions without rounding errors, reconciling cash will work just as well as reconciling any other investment, and you shouldn't have share balances past the 2nd decimal place. Forcing this to always round to 2 digits may not always suit everyone. It could be made an option to allow you to specify some forced rounding, but always making cash round to 2 decimals seems to be possibly restrictive.

How are you importing transactions that you get rounding errors? Are you retrieving from your broker, or importing from some file, or how specifically. If your data source is specified properly you shouldn't be getting any rounding errors. Maybe you can provide an example?

The transaction entry behavior is not investment type sensitive. I suspect you just have different sample transactions you are viewing. When you edit a transaction, the value/shares/price are filled in to your specified number of significant digits. In some cases, you could have rounding that needs to happen to make the 3 self consistent. The value = shares * price. When you click on any one of these 3 fields, if the other 2 are already filled in, that one you click on will be adjusted. Just make sure that you have the value and shares entered exactly, to the number of decimal places you want recorded, and then click on the "Price" field last, so any rounding goes into the price edit box. When you press the OK button the Value and Shares should be displaying how you want them recorded, with no rounding errors. That link I included in my last reply goes into more details on avoiding rounding errors.