Ending Balance
The ending balance is the closing figure a bank or card statement reports for a period, entered into BalanceMCP in the ledger's own signed convention rather than however the statement prints it.
In short
The number a statement ends on — used both when importing (checked against beginning balance plus every transaction) and when reconciling (checked against the ledger's own running total). For a credit card, it has to be entered negative, since it represents money owed.
Also called: closing balance, statement ending balance
The ending balance is the figure a bank or credit-card statement reports as an account's balance at the close of its period — the number both a statement import and a reconciliation are ultimately checked against.
During a statement import, the ending balance is what the beginning balance plus every transaction's amount is expected to equal; a mismatch flags the import as likely missing or duplicating a row. During reconciliation, it's compared directly against whatever the ledger's own running total works out to as of that date, with any gap reported as a reconciliation difference.
The convention that matters most here: an ending balance is entered in the ledger's own signed convention, not necessarily as the statement literally prints it. A checking or savings ending balance is entered as a normal positive figure. A credit card's ending balance — printed on the statement as something like "New Balance: $500.00" — needs to be entered as -500.00, since the ledger records money owed as negative.
Getting this sign backwards produces a specific, recognizable pattern: a discrepancy exactly double what would otherwise be expected. BalanceMCP checks for that exact signature during reconciliation and names it directly, rather than leaving a confusing doubled-looking gap unexplained.
What people get wrong
- Entering a credit card's ending balance exactly as printed (positive) instead of translating it to the ledger's negative convention for money owed.
- Confusing the ending balance used for an import (checked against beginning balance plus transactions) with the one used for reconciliation (checked against the ledger's running total) — same concept, two different comparisons.
- Assuming a flagged import or a reconciliation gap always means a missing transaction, rather than checking the sign convention first.
Common questions
- Why does my credit card's ending balance need to be negative?
- Because the ledger records money owed as a negative number, regardless of how the statement prints "New Balance." Entering it as positive produces a discrepancy exactly double what's expected.
- Is the ending balance used the same way for imports and reconciliation?
- The concept is the same — a statement's closing figure — but imports check it against beginning balance plus transactions, while reconciliation checks it against the ledger's own running total.
Machine-readable: /api/knowledge/concept:ending-balance