QFX Import - Account Balance

tashtut

I have been having the toughest time getting answers for my issue from support. Basically I needed to start my credit card import from scratch, after much back and forth from support here is where I am at and what I still don't understand.

1. Started new credit card and auto imported transactions from Citibank, which went back to July.
2. turned off auto downloads
3. imported transactions from June-July via QFX file from my bank account to quicken (confirmed there are no duplicates and that all transactions matched my statements.
4. HERE IS THE MAIN PROBLEM: Quicken support said I needed to change the live opening balance date to the date before the last transaction I imported....I did this and it made "today's balance" not match my bank account balance. Then I was told to change the live opening balance to match my bank account balance to match that date. This still made "today's balance" not match my online account. So I just started over steps 1-3 and imported June-July and then again May-June...and by not changing the live opening balance date or dollar amount my account now continues to match what my live balance is online as it auto-imports transactions.

So I don't understand why I need to change anything about the live opening balance yet that is continually what I am told to do.

Chris_QPW

tashtut said:

I needed to change the live opening balance date to the date before the last transaction I imported...

This statement is incorrect.

You are to change the OPENING balance not the balance for the last transaction.

When you downloaded the transactions, not all of them in the online account were downloaded.

That means unless you just happened to have zero dollars in the account at the start of that period Quicken had to put in an Opening balance for the amount that was in before that first transaction.

Now you come in and back fill the transactions.  Clearly your opening balance (the one before all the transactions in the register) needs to change so that as each transaction is added when you get to the end you will have your current balance.

I use Quicken Windows and the way it would do this is put in a transaction with a payee of "Opening Balance" with a date just before the first transaction, with a special syntax for the category that implies that the amount came from outside of Quicken.

Since it would have done that for the first download, you would go in and back date it to before the "back filling transactions" that you download, and for an amount of what would be in the account on the day before your first transaction.  This is what they are talking about, but the terms they are using are incorrect (as last transaction is actually the first transaction in the register).  Note if you have all the history of that account, then the account would start with a zero amount and as such just removing an "Opening balance" transaction would be the same as setting it to zero.

I'm not sure how Quicken Mac handles the opening balance, so someone that knows Quicken Mac will have to state how that is done, but the principal is the same, you are always talking about compensating for the amount that might be in the account before the transactions you do have in the Quicken register.

tashtut

@Chris_QPW, thank you, that all makes sense to me. I was using the wrong language but hopefully the gist is still the same. What I still don't understand is when I change the opening balance of the register what is shown as "today's balance" for the account does not match by current balance on my bank account. So for example...when I auto downloaded the transactions brought in transactions from citi on from 7/25 to 10/25...the live opening balance in quicken was dated 7/24 and matched my current balance on my bank account. The I imported transactions with a QFX file from 7/6 to 7/24. Per advice of quicken support team I just had to find the live opening balance transaction on 7/24 and re-date it to 7/5 and quicken would auto adjust. This didn't work and and "today's balance" was very off. Then I was told to change the live opening balance to the balance of my account on 7/5...I did this and "today balance" in quicken still didn't match my current balance on my bank account...there were no duplicate transactions and no transactions unaccounted for or that were off by any dollar amount.

So what am I supposed to do? Do I really need to change the live opening balance in quicken? When I leave the live opening balance that was started with the auto import on 7/24 without any changes and still import previous dates like I did from 7/6-7/24 and turn back on the auto-downloads then "today's balance" continues to match my bank's current balance.

Chris_QPW

What I would is use reconcile to workout where it is going wrong.

Start from the the older transactions working to the newer ones, monthly would probably be a good interval.

So you would do a reconcile for from 7/5 to 7/31.  You will be reconciling to what your online balance was on 7/31.  That doesn't balance look over transactions, and because you downloaded them as should be right, especially look for missing transactions.  Another thing that might throw you off by a bit is if the date on the transaction online is a bit different that the one in Quicken.  Once you have that month reconciled move on the the next.

Breaking it up like this should make it a lot easier.  And note even though monthly is traditional you can break it up into even smaller chunks if that works better for you.

tashtut

@Chris_QPW thanks for all your help. I had checked every transaction meticulously and was still having problems. What I ended up doing was importing month by month and then not changing the opening balance date until all my transactions were imported and somehow it worked. I was previously doing it month by month and changing the opening balance each time after import and nothing ever lined up. I don't know why this other way worked but I'm glad to be done with this 2 month long journey of no answers and hopefully what I did will help someone else.

Chris_QPW

That is strange I'm glad you got it worked out.  And thank you for letting the community know.