Current Balance, Online Balance, and Ending Balance not matching. Need help troubleshooting

Oksana Baiul

I just clicked one step update for one of my accounts and now the Current Balance, Online Balance, and Ending Balance don't match. 

1) In reality I only have one account balance. Can someone please define what each of these three balance types mean to quicken?

2) I've just reconciled my entire account against all my paper statements, so I don't believe I have a register line mistake. What is the process for getting the account balance to match the real balance of the account? Why do I have three different balance amounts here and how do I get them to match the real balance?

Thanks!

Sherlock

Oksana Baiul said:

Charles, I just started using Quicken so my tech support won't be great but I can let you know what I've figured out for myself that might be helpful to you.

In my case, I always need to create an opening balance record in each register. This alone doesn't prevent my ending balances from getting messed up because the other part of the puzzle has to do with imports. Imports are always messing up my balances because, no matter what, some transactions import to the wrong account and some transfers automate to the wrong account category, and some transactions import as duplicates - within a single import so this is not user error.

What I haven't done yet because I'm still new to Quicken but it's on my list to troubleshoot this exact issue, is to look in to automatic renaming rules in my Quicken account. I'm hoping there is a way to bring these up as a list and make some edits that will stop the madness.

The other thing I've found helpful (but this will only work if there is a single record causing the issue) is to search the amount of the difference account by account. Like if my checking balance types are off by $50, I want to search for that $50 in the credit card I pay from that checking account. 

I've also found that Quicken's data entry navigation is often not helpful. The auto fill features can be nice, but if you're just editing the Payee name, it can often overwrite the entire row in one fell swoop. This will definitely cause the ending balance to be off. (And the way to correct it would be to follow the paragraph above). I haven't thought of a way to avoid making this particular mistake. It would be great if there were an interface setting for this. Hopefully an expert Quicken user can chime in here. 

If you haven't already, I suggest you set Automatic entry to Off: https://www.quicken.com/support/automatic-transaction-entry-preferences and choose  Don't show reminders (press Ctrl + Shift + N and select Reminders to show in register).

Rocket J Squirrel

These are 3 different quantities, and there are good reasons why they don't match. Do you see the little question mark at the bottom of the register near the balances? Click that for the explanation you seek.

Sherlock

The Online Balance is the last balance obtained for the account from the financial institution.  The Current Balance is the today’s running balance of the account register.  The Ending Balance is the last running balance of the account register.

The reconcile's Statement Ending Balance is the account statement’s closing balance and, when the account is succesfully reconciled, the total of all of the transactions that are marked as reconciled.  You may confirm the reconcile's ending balance by sorting the register by Cleared column and examining the running balance of the last transaction marked as reconciled.

Oksana Baiul

Hmmm. Thanks for the definitions.

I've actually never used quicken for future-dated transactions. So it seems like at least two of these balance types should match at all times in my particular case, according to the definitions given. Right? At least two of them have always matched for the time I've been using Quicken - until today. 

I just reconciled everything, very painstakingly, by paper statement and all three balances matched. Then I clicked one step update and the three balances did not match anymore. Then, (as I was instructed by quicken chat support) I deactivated and reactivated the account that would not one step update. I clicked one step update again and watched it import three months worth of duplicate records. My current balance now matches my ending balance though. So that's an upside...I guess...?

Charles@

So then, If those answers were correct, then why is my online balance in quicken showing less than the online balance from my bank for the past several days? I put in a transaction (transfer from checking to savings) and the balance in quicken only went up a couple of dollars and change, while the actual transfer was much much much.... higher. And, the current balance has yet matched what the bank shows. So what year am I expected to see the balance match? How long does it take quicken to figure the math?

Sherlock

Charles said:

So then, If those answers were correct, then why is my online balance in quicken showing less than the online balance from my bank for the past several days? I put in a transaction (transfer from checking to savings) and the balance in quicken only went up a couple of dollars and change, while the actual transfer was much much much.... higher. And, the current balance has yet matched what the bank shows. So what year am I expected to see the balance match? How long does it take quicken to figure the math?

The online balance in Quicken is the balance obtained from the financial institution when the data was last updated.  For an active account, the current and ending balances in Quicken may never match the online balance in Quicken or the financial institution nor should they.

Regarding the transfer issue, I suggest you review: https://www.quicken.com/support/advanced-data-file-troubleshooting-correct-problems-quicken-windows

Oksana Baiul

Charles, I just started using Quicken so my tech support won't be great but I can let you know what I've figured out for myself that might be helpful to you.

In my case, I always need to create an opening balance record in each register. This alone doesn't prevent my ending balances from getting messed up because the other part of the puzzle has to do with imports. Imports are always messing up my balances because, no matter what, some transactions import to the wrong account and some transfers automate to the wrong account category, and some transactions import as duplicates - within a single import so this is not user error.

What I haven't done yet because I'm still new to Quicken but it's on my list to troubleshoot this exact issue, is to look in to automatic renaming rules in my Quicken account. I'm hoping there is a way to bring these up as a list and make some edits that will stop the madness.

The other thing I've found helpful (but this will only work if there is a single record causing the issue) is to search the amount of the difference account by account. Like if my checking balance types are off by $50, I want to search for that $50 in the credit card I pay from that checking account. 

I've also found that Quicken's data entry navigation is often not helpful. The auto fill features can be nice, but if you're just editing the Payee name, it can often overwrite the entire row in one fell swoop. This will definitely cause the ending balance to be off. (And the way to correct it would be to follow the paragraph above). I haven't thought of a way to avoid making this particular mistake. It would be great if there were an interface setting for this. Hopefully an expert Quicken user can chime in here. 

Sherlock

Oksana Baiul said:

Charles, I just started using Quicken so my tech support won't be great but I can let you know what I've figured out for myself that might be helpful to you.

In my case, I always need to create an opening balance record in each register. This alone doesn't prevent my ending balances from getting messed up because the other part of the puzzle has to do with imports. Imports are always messing up my balances because, no matter what, some transactions import to the wrong account and some transfers automate to the wrong account category, and some transactions import as duplicates - within a single import so this is not user error.

What I haven't done yet because I'm still new to Quicken but it's on my list to troubleshoot this exact issue, is to look in to automatic renaming rules in my Quicken account. I'm hoping there is a way to bring these up as a list and make some edits that will stop the madness.

The other thing I've found helpful (but this will only work if there is a single record causing the issue) is to search the amount of the difference account by account. Like if my checking balance types are off by $50, I want to search for that $50 in the credit card I pay from that checking account. 

I've also found that Quicken's data entry navigation is often not helpful. The auto fill features can be nice, but if you're just editing the Payee name, it can often overwrite the entire row in one fell swoop. This will definitely cause the ending balance to be off. (And the way to correct it would be to follow the paragraph above). I haven't thought of a way to avoid making this particular mistake. It would be great if there were an interface setting for this. Hopefully an expert Quicken user can chime in here. 

If you haven't already, I suggest you set Automatic entry to Off: https://www.quicken.com/support/automatic-transaction-entry-preferences and choose  Don't show reminders (press Ctrl + Shift + N and select Reminders to show in register).