Reconciliation Prior Balance shown is wrong and is different from the previous month's numbers

pkorisa

I have been using Quicken Deluxe for Windows for close to two years, and have been reconciling every month since then without any problems till now. I had successfully reconciled February, 2020, but for March, 2020, Quicken Reconcile an Account displays an INCORRECT PRIOR BALANCE number. I even RESTORED to my previous back up file, and still it shows the same wrong number. In either case, when I change the number to match February's correct number, Quicken just displays wrong number for CLEARED BALANCE. I am sorry because I know I am not able to express my problem clearly. I tried to call Quicken but looks like the tel number has been removed, may be for the time we are in. I can use your help, for sure.

pkorisa

I have solved my problem, I think, with the Reconciliation Prior Balance Issue.
First, I had RESTORED my backup file from the just previously reconciled month-end backup (Feb.). I was getting ready to RECONCILE March. And, I always enter my transactions manually. I just happened to have created this back up file (I always do a backup when I open & close my Q). The problem didn't get fixed by doing this alone.
So, I clicked on EACH "R" transaction for my Feb. reconciliation process, and made them "UNCLEARED." Then I started my reconciliation process with the FEBRUARY transactions again.

After finishing my February reconciliation, I started my March reconciliation. This time, the Q PRIOR BALANCE matched perfectly! PROBLEM RESOLVED.

I also did something for the first time. I opted to PRINT the RECONCILIATION REPORT at the end when prompted; in all these months, I never did that thinking I am good at this process and don't need this report.

But, I STRONGLY ADVISE new users of Q, particularly when entering all transactions manually, to PRINT this report a couple of times and review it. It isa very helpful report that VERY NICELY EXPLAINS how this PRIOR BALANCE is arrived at and it lists all the transactions involved in coming up with the Prior Balance.

Thank you all for your suggestions and help.

Boatnmaniac

What kind of account are you seeing this issue with?

Also, how do transactions get entered into your account register?  Via OSU or are they manually entered?

NotACPA

"Prior Balance" is NOT a stored figure.  Rather, it's the sum of all transactions in the account (past, present or future) that have an "R" in the CLR column.

SO, if the Prior Balance shown on the Reconcile screen doesn't match the statement prior balance, one (or more) of the following MUST have happened.

• An "R" value was manually changed to something else (or a transaction was manually changed to "R").
• An "R" transaction was deleted (or, if the "R" was a transfer & the other side was deleted, which caused the "R" side to be deleted also)
• The amount of an "R" transaction was changed.

The remedy for this situation is to pull out your prior statements and work backward until you find the point where the Closing Date and Amount of a statement match with a Date and Amount in Q.

Then UN-reconcile everything after that point  and re-reconcile month by month until you find the error(s).

To UN-reconcile, click on the 1st transaction after the "match point" (sentence before last) and hold down the SHIFT key while you click the last transaction (past or future) in the account.  Then RIGHT click on any selected transaction and change the "Reconcile Status" to "Not Reconciled"

mark_j_rossetti

The problem with this solution is that the unreconciled transactions go all the way back to 2008 and are for multiple accounts. Every closed credit card, paid loan and closed account.

Quicken Francisco

@mark_j_rossetti

Thank you for reaching out on the community and telling us about your issue. I see that you're having issues since switching to the latest version. If you loaded up an old backup and tried again to bring it over do you know if it would pull up the same thing? 

Also when it comes to old transactions that aren't marked reconciled you  can also right click on them and go down to reconciled status - reconciled so that they don't appear when trying to reconcile in the normal reconcile screen.

When you get a chance please let us know how the backup does. 

 

Thanks,

 

Quicken Francisco

NotACPA

mark_j_rossetti said:

The problem with this solution is that the unreconciled transactions go all the way back to 2008 and are for multiple accounts. Every closed credit card, paid loan and closed account.

Why are you trying to reconcile closed credit cards, paid loans and other closed accounts?

AND, are they shown as closed in Q ... or only in real life, or both?

mark_j_rossetti

I’m not reconciling old accounts, but current accounts that made payments to the old accounts when they were active. They are closed both in Q and real life.

pkorisa

I have solved my problem, I think, with the Reconciliation Prior Balance Issue.
First, I had RESTORED my backup file from the just previously reconciled month-end backup (Feb.). I was getting ready to RECONCILE March. And, I always enter my transactions manually. I just happened to have created this back up file (I always do a backup when I open & close my Q). The problem didn't get fixed by doing this alone.
So, I clicked on EACH "R" transaction for my Feb. reconciliation process, and made them "UNCLEARED." Then I started my reconciliation process with the FEBRUARY transactions again.

After finishing my February reconciliation, I started my March reconciliation. This time, the Q PRIOR BALANCE matched perfectly! PROBLEM RESOLVED.

I also did something for the first time. I opted to PRINT the RECONCILIATION REPORT at the end when prompted; in all these months, I never did that thinking I am good at this process and don't need this report.

But, I STRONGLY ADVISE new users of Q, particularly when entering all transactions manually, to PRINT this report a couple of times and review it. It isa very helpful report that VERY NICELY EXPLAINS how this PRIOR BALANCE is arrived at and it lists all the transactions involved in coming up with the Prior Balance.

Thank you all for your suggestions and help.

Boatnmaniac

Thanks for letting us know your issue is resolved.  Also, kudos to you for backing up your data file every time you close Quicken.  That has been immensely helpful to me in the past.  I'm actually very surprised that not all Quicken users do this.  The automatic backup setting is so easy to use and adds only a couple of seconds to the program shut down time but the payback for doing this is invaluable.