Quicken R30.14 Build 27.1.30.14 Checking Account Balances lower

Joecs81

After receiving a new Quicken Update (R30.14), I signed on and hit One Step Update icon. It appeared to work but on my main checking account the running balance was lower than it should be. I reconcile every month when my bank statement is available. I've gone back looking at a years worth of statement and the ending balances are way off. Checked one month of transactions and all the transactions are present. Other Quicken discussions mention sync to cloud, I have never enabled Web/Cloud feature. Looked in Preferences an and Sync is OFF.

Michael Kaiser

Have you checked to see if the One Step Update changed payees and categories? If, for example, you had a savings to checking transfer and One Step changed the category of the savings debit to something other than your checking account, your checking balance would be off.
I've just experienced R30.14 trashing 3 months of payees and categories.

Frankx

Hi @Joecs81,

When you looked back at month end Quicken balances for this account, was the amount by which the account was off (i.e. the "difference" between what Quicken now has and what it should be) the same for each month?  If so, you should continue to go back - month by month - until Quicken's balance and your reconciled bank statement balances agree.  Then you need to look in the following month for an additional check, payment, or  other charge that matches the "difference" amount.

Get back to me if you have any questions.

Frankx

Tom Young

Before running back in time trying to determine what's missing, I'd suggest opening a backup from *just before* you updated to R30.14, which I'm guessing happened just a day or two ago.  If the checking Account has the correct balance (fingers crossed) you can pretty easily get that file up to date and use the new file instead.  Simply updating isn't supposed to affect your data but with the new cloud syncing feature there do seem to be lots of reports of data changing.

Joecs81

Hi All, I restored a backup file from my last bank statement (Nov) and the Balance is off again, same as before. I did catch a window for a second that had the message of Sycning....Cloud, it was so quick to catch all the message.

:( I need to restore Quicken to the previous good Version, how do I do that? Like Tom said "updating isn't supposed to affect your data...".

As Frankx suggested, I went back after restoring my Nov Reconciled backup for 12 months and none of the statements match the Quicken balances on the various statement dates. I did calculate the difference between bank balance and Quicken Balance, used Quicken Find for that amount - None found.

If there is an activity log that Quicken creates while doing its processes, I am willing to send it to you to help you discover the problem.

Sherlock

Before attempting to restore a Quicken file backup (or open an earlier copy of the Quicken File), I suggest deleting the Quicken Cloud dataset (aka cloud account) associated with the Quicken file.  Note: You need to open another Quicken file to delete the appropriate cloud account.  You may want to review: https://www.quicken.com/support/how-edit-or-delete-your-cloud-datasets-quicken-windows

The other Quicken file needs to have a distinct file identifier so that we may delete the cloud account associated with the original Quicken file.  For example, you may create a new Quicken file (select File > New Quicken File...) without any accounts, enable sync in preferences so you may view and delete the cloud account associated with the original Quicken file. 

This is necessary because when we open or restore an another version of the Quicken file with the same file identifier, Quicken is not resetting the cloud account appropriately at this time.  I hope they will let us know when they have addressed this issue, but for now before opening another Quicken file that has the same file identifier embedded, delete the cloud account.  

Note: Only File > New Quicken File... generates a distinct file identifier.  All other forms of creating Quicken file, copy the embedded identifier from another file.

Frankx

Hi @Joecs81

Thanks for the additional information.  As a followup - after you restored your November backup and then looked back for the 1 year period month-by-month and found that "none of the statements match the Quicken balances on the various statement dates"  did you happen to notice whether each month's "difference" between the bank statement and the Quicken balance was the same or were they different month to month?  If the difference is the same, that tells us that there are likely no errors during those months, while if they differ each month, that there are multiple errors for each month, and/or more than one error over several months - which makes it more difficult to pin down.

In any event, if you've gone back 12 months and still haven't found a month-end when the Q balance and your bank statement reconcile (or come close to reconciling), it points to the "error"  in your file being located in, and affecting, a time frame of more than a year.  Based on that, you have a choice to: a) keep restoring files from further and further back until you find one that reconciles, or b) find a month where the difference is not that significant and then make an adjustment to balance the account and move forward from there.

Once again, feel free to gat back to me with followups.

Frankx

Joecs81

Hi Sherlock,
Looking at your suggestion, I'm confused since I have never created a Cloud acct and looking at Quicken ID & Cloud Accounts in Preferences, I only have the Quicken Profile section, I do NOT have a Cloud Account Details section. I've been a Quicken user for a long time and feel my financial data should reside on my computer not someone else's computer. So I've never set up Mobile or Web functions.

So is it worth created a cloud account and then delete it?

Sherlock

Joecs81 said:

Hi Sherlock,
Looking at your suggestion, I'm confused since I have never created a Cloud acct and looking at Quicken ID & Cloud Accounts in Preferences, I only have the Quicken Profile section, I do NOT have a Cloud Account Details section. I've been a Quicken user for a long time and feel my financial data should reside on my computer not someone else's computer. So I've never set up Mobile or Web functions.

So is it worth created a cloud account and then delete it?

Quicken does synchronize some data in a Quicken file with a cloud account even when we have never enabled Sync and have never selected any accounts to be sync'd.  So, you do not need to create a cloud account for the Quicken file because the cloud account already exists.   

I do suggest deleting the cloud account before opening any other Quicken file that may have the same file identifier.  This also means we should not use File > Backup and Restore > Restore from Backup File... to restore an open Quicken file at this time.  Instead, we should copy the backup file and rename the copy to have the .QDF file type suffix.    After we have deleted the cloud account, we may open the renamed file and Quicken will recreate the cloud account properly.

Joecs81

Hi All,
I was looking at my other Banking Accounts and they were all reconciled with their respective bank statements except for one. This one had a smaller number of transactions and I was able to find where I had duplicate postings from another account that I transfer money from. This transfer account was added to the Online Update and when I did this the Account name changed and all the transactions were downloaded. I updated the transfer [to account] and hide the old transfer account from my account list. This update did not change the balance for the transferred to accounts until this new software upgrade. I have sense deleted the transactions from this account and its balances are correct.

I also deleted all the old transfers from my checking account that started this issue and my balances are now matching my years worth of bank statements.

This is a case of the old proverbial User Error. I have been working on the restored file from November. I will reload the original December file and correct my error.

If I delete the old transfer Account will it delete all of its transaction? Or would it be best to delete them manually?

Thanks for your help.

Joecs81

Hi All,
Quick follow up question. The reason I'm restoring the December File is so I don't have to manually enter a months worth of transactions. When a File is restored the Download Date is not reset, therefore One Step Update will not work.

Is there a way to reset the Download Date?

Sherlock

Joecs81 said:

Hi All,
Quick follow up question. The reason I'm restoring the December File is so I don't have to manually enter a months worth of transactions. When a File is restored the Download Date is not reset, therefore One Step Update will not work.

Is there a way to reset the Download Date?

The reason the One Step Update is not working is not the Download Date.  It is the cloud account not having been reset properly - which is why I suggest deleting the cloud account before opening the backup.

If you want to clear the Download Date, exit Quicken and remove/rename the runtime.dat file Quicken maintains in a Quicken file specific folder in the hidden ProgramData\Quicken\Inet folder.

Joecs81

Hi Sherlock,
I have deleted the Quicken Cloud dataset and Opened the Dec File but I was deleting transaction in an attempt to adjust the balances in the checking account. So, I'll be using the Balanced Nov File but I want to delete the Download Date per above instruction.

Question: When I do the Auto Download can I limit the days that will be downloaded?

If I can't limit the days and it downloads a lot of transactions that have to be deleted from the Download area, which is labor intensive, is there a way to delete all the unwanted transaction once I've accepted the December transactions?

Sherlock

Joecs81 said:

Hi Sherlock,
I have deleted the Quicken Cloud dataset and Opened the Dec File but I was deleting transaction in an attempt to adjust the balances in the checking account. So, I'll be using the Balanced Nov File but I want to delete the Download Date per above instruction.

Question: When I do the Auto Download can I limit the days that will be downloaded?

If I can't limit the days and it downloads a lot of transactions that have to be deleted from the Download area, which is labor intensive, is there a way to delete all the unwanted transaction once I've accepted the December transactions?

We may set a start date (DTSTART) for requested transactions: select Tools > Online Center, press Ctrl and select Contact Info

Quicken relies on the FITID field which should be unique for each downloaded transaction so that a downloaded transaction is only offered once for acceptance into a register.  When the algorithm used to generate the FITID changes (for example if we switch connection methods), duplicate transactions may appear.  It has never been too difficult to deal with the duplicate downloaded transactions (see https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7179327/faq-i-have-a-manual-account-i-want-to-activate-for-downloading-how-do-i-prevent-duplicates) but we're now able to select and delete multiple downloaded transaction at one time directly in the Downloaded Transactions tab.

Joecs81

I have Reconciled all my Accounts. I was able to reset the DTSTART date and download the December transaction.

Thanks for your help.