GnuCash makes reconciliation of your bank account with your monthly bank statement much easier. Section 4.5, “Reconciliation” gives instructions on how to reconcile your transactions with the monthly bank statement. This is the main reconciliation task that should be done every month.

But what about all those other accounts you created? Should those be reconciled too? If you receive a statement for the account, then you should consider reconciling that account. Examples include the checking account statement, the savings account statement, and the credit card statement. Credit card statements and credit card transactions are covered in the Chapter 6, Credit Cards, so if you are interested in tracking your credit cards in GnuCash, take a look at the instructions provided there.

Income and expense accounts are usually not reconciled, because there is no statement to check them against. You also don’t need to reconcile cash accounts, for the same reason. With a cash account, though, you might want to adjust the balance every once in a while, so that your actual cash on hand matches the balance in your cash account. Adjusting balances is covered in the next section.