reconciliation problems with brokerage account linked to checking account

Unknown

I have two separate account files.  Both have brokerage accounts linked to checking accounts.  When I finish reconciling the accounts for the current statement period in both Quicken Premiere 2015 and the upgraded 2017, the checking accounts need a balance adjustment.  As it turns out the adjustment is exactly the same amount as the next month's entries that for some reason are now all marked as "Reconciled."  I can go in and "Unclear" each entry for the month being reconciled and also the next month that should remain "Unclear"-ed and reconcile the current statement month again.  But again the reconciliation requires a balance adjustment for the current statement month and the next month's entries are once again tagged as "Reconciled."  Again the total of the balance adjustment is the exact amount of the next month's entries.  Does any of this make sense!?!  Does anyone have any idea what's going on?  Thank you for your time, Bob H.

Vetta

When you reconcile are you adjusting the date to match last month's statement date? Otherwise Q will default to the current date.

Unknown

Thank you for replying so quickly.  Yes, I make sure the reconciliation date corresponds to the statement's closing date.

Vetta

Something isn't making sense. Q should not reconcile transactions on its own. Are you saying you un-reconcile manually and the program reverts those entries to an R by itself?

Unknown

Yep.  And only with the accounts that are linked checking and investment.  My investment only accounts have no problem.  And I agree, it doesn't make sense, but it's been doing this for several months, first with Q Premiere 2015 and now with my upgrade to 2017.  That's one reason I upgraded hoping to alleviate the problem.  Thank you for your concern and thoughts!

Jim_Harman

Are you downloading transactions for this account? If so, it may be auto-reconciling to the online balance. If you download after the statement date, your account in Quicken may have transactions that are not on the statement. It is also possible that the dates on the downloaded transactions are different from those on the statement.

If this is causing problems, make sure the Auto reconcile option is turned off by clicking the gear at the top right of the checking register, then select Reconcile, Use online balance, and de-select Auto reconcile.

Unknown

Jim,
Thank you for joining in on my dilemma.  The reconcile feature on my banking accounts does not appear to have the options you mention.  However, my credit card account does allow me to choose between online or paper statement and does offer the auto reconcile feature.  Am I overlooking something here?  Thanks!

Jim_Harman

You didn't say whether this account is set up to download transactions. It sounds like it is not, so Quicken is smart enough to not offer to auto reconcile.

Banking accounts that are set up for downloading (including linked checking accounts I think) give you this option, and I was hoping that that setting was your problem.

Jim_Harman

One other thought:

Are you sure any month-end interest or fees are always entered in the same month as they show in the statement, and you haven't forgotten any monthly fees?

It looks like the reconcile might get confused if you had 2 entries in one month and none in the next, or if the fees were off by a month.

Unknown

Jim,
Both accounts I'm having problems with are set up for downloading and have been doing so for years.  This only began happening about a year ago and I've just been accepting the balance adjustment that Quicken suggests after each reconciliation and dealing with it the following month.  Depending on my brokerage activity in the linked account, that adjustment can be several thousand dollars.  I figured it was time to get to the bottom of this.  Between the time that this used to work correctly and now, I have not changed anything in my normal routine.  This is definitely a quirk that I need to understand and fix.  Although your suggestions don't seem to be the solution, I appreciate all of your input.  Please keep those ideas flowing.  At some point we'll hit on the answer.  Thank you, Bob Horne, Dallas

Jim_Harman

OK, I see now that the Reconcile dialog is different for linked checking accounts regardless of whether downloading is enabled.

So it is a mystery why your account entries are getting reconciled.

BTW I never reconcile investment accounts, I just set the As of date in the investment account Holdings view to the statement date then compare the statement to the holdings and cash (if any.)

If I pay careful attention to the transactions as they are downloaded and correct them if needed, Quicken always agrees with my statements.

Unknown

Jim,
I'll keep plugging away at this. Thank you for all your thoughts!
Bob

leishirsute

This problem was reported a while back and has not been fixed.
https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/problems-reconciling-linked-accounts

For me, the problem was introduced with the upgrade to R15.

When I spent 15 minutes getting to support, they acknowledged it is a bug:
https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/linked-account-reconcile-problem-incorrect-trans...

I was hoping it would have been fixed with the latest update, but the problem still exists.

Geobrick

I have the same problem with my linked Merrill Lynch checking account. Somehow the downloaded transactions are automatically set to R in the linked account and there's no way to change them back. The associated investment account transactions all say "c". Changing them have no impact on the linked account transactions. ('reconcile using online balance' is NOT checked).

Sherlock

Geobrick said:

I have the same problem with my linked Merrill Lynch checking account. Somehow the downloaded transactions are automatically set to R in the linked account and there's no way to change them back. The associated investment account transactions all say "c". Changing them have no impact on the linked account transactions. ('reconcile using online balance' is NOT checked).

Geobrick: Your description of the issue you're experiencing does not appear to be the same issue being discussed in this post.  I suggest you post your own query.

Geobrick

Geobrick said:

I have the same problem with my linked Merrill Lynch checking account. Somehow the downloaded transactions are automatically set to R in the linked account and there's no way to change them back. The associated investment account transactions all say "c". Changing them have no impact on the linked account transactions. ('reconcile using online balance' is NOT checked).

It seems very similar to the original post. I was getting a mismatch between my statement balance when reconciling the linked brokerage checking account. It turned out that all the downloaded transactions from the statement ending date to the current date were already reconciled (and not by me). This threw the balance off by the same amount as the incorrectly reconciled transactions.

For example. When I tried to reconcile my Nov 30, 2018 statement on Dec 20. 2018, the balance was off by the exact amount of all the post Nov 30th transactions that were downloaded (and somehow marked 'R'). If I tried to un-reconcile them by selecting cleared or uncleared, I get the message I "should make this change from the investment account to avoid losing transaction detail" because it's a linked account. In the linked account, those same transactions are marked "c" not "R". Changing them in the investment account (one at a time) to uncleared changes the linked transaction to the same. At that point, if I go back and change the same investment transaction to cleared, it will show as cleared in the linked checking account.

Quicken seems to be incorrectly marking the linked transactions as reconciled when they are downloaded and then accepted into the investment account (or maybe it happens later when reconciling the linked account). I will pay more attention to it when I reconcile January next month.

If you still think this is a different problem, I'll start a new thread. 

Sherlock

Geobrick

Geobrick said:

I have the same problem with my linked Merrill Lynch checking account. Somehow the downloaded transactions are automatically set to R in the linked account and there's no way to change them back. The associated investment account transactions all say "c". Changing them have no impact on the linked account transactions. ('reconcile using online balance' is NOT checked).

Quicken 2017 Home and Business R17.4
It's now seeming probable these post statement date transactions are being changed to R when reconciling the prior month transactions. I first noticed the issue when trying to reconcile my November statement so I decided to waited until December rather than having to individually reset all the inappropriately reconciled December transactions. I successfully reconcile the December statement a few days ago and now I'm seeing all previously downloaded January transactions in the linked checking account marked as "R". Today I downloaded and accepted 2 new transactions into the investment account and they're properly marked 'c' in the linked checking account register. It must be happening during the reconciling process.

Sherlock

Geobrick said:

I have the same problem with my linked Merrill Lynch checking account. Somehow the downloaded transactions are automatically set to R in the linked account and there's no way to change them back. The associated investment account transactions all say "c". Changing them have no impact on the linked account transactions. ('reconcile using online balance' is NOT checked).

When you next reconcile, save a data file backup and verify the transaction counts match that number of transactions displayed in the reconcile window.  If the issue reproduces, restore the data file backup and, when you reconcile, try selecting Mark All then Clear All.  (The idea is to coerce Quicken into unchecking the transactions not displayed but apparently included in the reconciliation.)