When is the best time to start over? also is it better to use the online reconcile or paper

Chuck88

I want to start from stratch. Do I use the online balance for reconcile or paper?

splasher

At the beginning of your tax year is a good time to start over.

Personally, I prefer reconciling to paper.

UKR

splasher said:

At the beginning of your tax year is a good time to start over.

Personally, I prefer reconciling to paper.

I second that.

Instead of starting from scratch with a brand new, empty Quicken data file and trying to get that off to a good start ... if your current file isn't too far out of whack, I'd fix this year's data by manually reconciling the transaction registers to the printed bank statements. If you have to, input a Balance Adjustment transaction as of 12/31 of last year to make your register balance match the bank statement balance on that date.

Reconcile against the paper statements every month, to stay on top of things. Do not rely on auto-accept of downloaded transactions and auto-reconcile against online balance. It's too easy for Quicken to mess up. You need to keep an eye on things every time you download transactions and resolve any discrepancies right away.

Chuck88

My entire Quicken network needs cleaning up, I transfer between accounts. I have 2 main accounts and then loans and lines of credit. I was reading an article about quicken or it got changed accidentally. How do I stop the reconcile window to stop coming up when Im done entering new downloaded transactions. I think that is the only thing I have done that I cant fix. There is one transactions I think that is complicating things and I cant find it. My accounts are off by about $27.

UKR

I think reading this article https://www.quicken.com/support/reconciling-account-quicken-windows will help you with turning off auto-reconcile to the online balance.

As far as the transaction difference is concerned, you'll eventually find it with a thorough manual Reconcile. Do make sure that the account register's Opening Balance transaction is correct and that your register's Running Balance at the end of each month exactly matches the bank statement's ending balance for the same day.

About the Opening Balance transaction in your register:

Make sure that the "Opening Balance" transaction in your register
- always is the oldest transaction by Date
- its amount matches the bank statement balance shown on that day
- the transaction is marked "R"(reconciled) in the "Clr" column
- occurs only once in your register
- uses the same account name, surrounded by [square brackets], as Category as the account it's in (e.g., Opening Balance transaction in your MyChecking account has Category = [MyChecking]) *
- if you owe money in a credit card account, the Opening Balance transaction as shown in the register must be a negative amount, e.g., $-123.45

If the Opening Balance isn't correct, your register balance on any given day will never match the bank's balance on the same date.

* that's called a "transfer back into the same account" and is OK. Quicken uses this method to establish the Opening Balance without making it appear as an Income or Expense in any views or reports.