Linked transfers problem

salymsmommy

I just opened a new savings account. Yay me!

When setting up the account in Quicken I just allowed quicken to download the opening balance to complete the setup there and it looked great.

Then I created a transaction from my checking account and in the 'transfer' column, chose my savings account.

The transaction was deducted from the checking account total as I expected.

But in the savings account - while it was adding that actual transaction as it should, it changed my starting balance so that the total isn't correct.

Outline -
Lets say the starting balance of savings was $10
I made a linked transfer from checking to saving of $1
In savings now, the starting balance has been changed to $9
The linked transfer is showing in savings as a $1 deposit
Total in savings is now $10, but should be $11 after the deposit.

I tried to delete the new account and then created a new one. This time choosing not to link it to my bank for downloads. I entered starting balance manually and tried the entire procedure again with a linked transfer. Worked like a charm - UNTIL I chose to download transactions to reconcile. Then it went right back to changing my starting balance.

Why?

John_in_NC

It's a "feature", not a flaw :-) 

What is going on is that the opening balance isn't downloaded-it is created so that your final balance matches the bank's balance. Great.

If you modify/add/delete any transactions with a date before the account creation, then the balance will adjust as you are finding out. This is mainly so people can add in older transactions and not mess up the final balance. Any transactions after the account creation date will not modify the opening balance.

You have two ways of dealing with this: 1) you can use more recent date for the transfer, and it shouldn't affect your balance, to 2) you can simply recreate the opening balance adjust identically to what it should be and delete the auto created one. Your manually entered transaction is static and won't have the auto-adjusting magic status.

Valderi

I guess something: When you create your savings account, choose a date before the date of your first transaction.

John_in_NC

It's a "feature", not a flaw :-) 

What is going on is that the opening balance isn't downloaded-it is created so that your final balance matches the bank's balance. Great.

If you modify/add/delete any transactions with a date before the account creation, then the balance will adjust as you are finding out. This is mainly so people can add in older transactions and not mess up the final balance. Any transactions after the account creation date will not modify the opening balance.

You have two ways of dealing with this: 1) you can use more recent date for the transfer, and it shouldn't affect your balance, to 2) you can simply recreate the opening balance adjust identically to what it should be and delete the auto created one. Your manually entered transaction is static and won't have the auto-adjusting magic status.