Why does the balance assertion fail if the math is right?

[Paulo Phagula]

Hi,

I noticed that on my bigger ledger file some balance assertions fail, even though the math is right, like in the reduced example below:

2019-01-01 Opening Balances
   Assets:Banks:MPESA850 MT5735.00
   Equity:Opening Balances

2019-03-20 * Bananas
   Assets:Banks:MPESA850 MT-10.00
   Expenses:Banks:Fees MT10.00
   Expenses:Food:Bananas MT1500.00

   Assets:Banks:MPESA850 MT-1500.00 = MT4225.00

While parsing file "/home/phagulap/Dropbox/financials/minimal.ledger", line 9: While parsing posting: Assets:Banks:MPESA850 MT-1500.00 = MT4225.00 ^^^^^^^^^ Error: Balance assertion off by MT-10.00 (expected to see MT4235.00) [1] 23522 exit 1 ledger -f minimal.ledger

Does this mean I have to post the fees independently for ledger to understand?

Cheers

[Paulo Phagula]

Attaching screenshot

[Robin H. Johnson]

On Fri, Jul 26, 2019 at 10:21:04AM -0700, Paulo Phagula wrote:
> While parsing file "/home/phagulap/Dropbox/financials/minimal.ledger", line
> 9: While parsing posting: Assets:Banks:MPESA850 MT-1500.00 = MT4225.00
> ^^^^^^^^^ Error: Balance assertion off by MT-10.00 (expected to see
> MT4235.00) [1] 23522 exit 1 ledger -f minimal.ledger
>
> Does this mean I have to post the fees independently for ledger to
> understand?

Exactly what version of Ledger are you using? Your reduced example works
fine on Ledger 3.1.2.

$ ledger -f minimal.ledger bal
MT4225.00 Assets:Banks:MPESA850
MT-5735.00 Equity:Opening Balances
MT1510.00 Expenses
MT10.00 Banks:Fees
MT1500.00 Food:Bananas
--------------------
0

--
Robin Hugh Johnson
Gentoo Linux: Dev, Infra Lead, Foundation Treasurer
E-Mail : rob...@gentoo.org
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GnuPG FP : 7D0B3CEB E9B85B1F 825BCECF EE05E6F6 A48F6136

[Paulo Phagula]

Hi,

I'm using Ledger 3.1.2-20160801 in Ubuntu 18.04. Its on the screenshot.

Cheers

[Colin Dean]

I'm using Ledger 3.1.3-20190331 and your example works.

There were some changes to balance assertions that make them work better in subsequent versions.  It would likely be worth your time to use a more recent version: when I went from 3.1.2 to 3.1.3, my older tx records' BAs began to fail. I could trust that they _were_ working, so I could remove them or use the flag that turns them off (--permissive, iirc) when interacting with those records' files. I upgraded at a year boundary and simply sealed off my old records with an opening balances transaction.

[Paulo Phagula]

Hi,

Indeed it is a version thing. I just compiled the latest and worked fine!

Thanks