How to deal with wrong Prior balance?

Question

I've used Microsoft Money since the early 90s but switched to Quicken 2017 when Microsoft discontinued Money, even though I really tend not to like Intuit software. Note: It's been about a year since I've reconciled this account.

When the Reconcile dialog pops up, it shows my Prior balance as $7,710.43. For some reason, it doesn't tell me when it was last reconciled. But digging around, it seems I've found out.

My actual starting balance for the next month is $0.42.

- I have no way to see where this number came from or what might have contributed to such a difference.
 - I can edit this, but the the Reconcile window still shows it is off.
 - I have no way to review or undo the previous reconciliation.

The help is of no help. Aside from confusion caused by using different terminology in help than in the program, it offers no way to resolve this.

In short, I'm stuck and can't reconcile this account. Perhaps I can print the reports I need without every reconciling again. But I wish the software was capable of assisting me to do this more accurately.

Sherlock · Accepted Answer

The Prior balance is the total of the transactions marked as Reconciled (R) in the register.  The value entered is ignored.

Generally, the way to undo any change in Quicken is to restore a data file backup saved before the change was made.

If the reconciled opening balance has changed, a reconciled transaction has been added, modified, or deleted.  To determine the source of the change, I suggest you compare the running balance of the account register in the current datafile with the running balance of the account register from a datafile backup saved when the account was last reconciled.  One way to accomplish this is to print the registers to text files.