Problems reconciling a linked transfer

pls

I am used to seeing the two sides of a linked transfer have independent reconciliation status. This is correct, since the two sides of the linked transaction are in different accounts and those accounts are reconciled separately.

This seems to have changed.

I have a transaction in credit card account A which has a split that is a transfer to credit card transaction B. The transaction in A in marked reconciled, as is the side of the transfer in B. I need to unreconcile the transaction B so that I can redo the reconciliation.

Changing the transaction in B gives me a message saying that the transaction is a split and has to be changed in the original transaction. Unreconciling the transaction in A does not unreconcile the linked split in B, and, of course, there is no reconciliation indicator on the individual lines of a split.

So how can I unreconcile the transaction in B? There seems to be no way.

Tom Young

I just tried your scenario in a test file - a split transaction in CC Account A where one of the split lines was a transfer to CC Account B and the transaction in CC Account A was marked as reconciled - and the "R" didn't show up in CC Account B.

I think the first thing I'd try is a Validation & Repair of the file probably with this transaction deleted.  File > File Operations > Copy... and then using the copied file File > File Operations > Validate and Repair...

If you don't want to do this right now then there's always some thrashing around you might try. Have you tried editing that transaction in Account A as a non-split entry, then editing it to post the split, to see if that gets to the right answer?  You might also try deleting the transaction entirely in CC Account A and re-entering it, as a split, and see if that works.  If neither of these suggestions work then you might try entering that one transaction in CC Account A as two transactions, both marked "R"

pls

I should note that I also cant reconcile account B because I also can't change a linked transaction from unreconciled to reconciled.

pls

>Tom Young : The R shouldn't show up in account B. That's because the transaction in A in reconciled, but the transaction B has to be reconciled separately. You should have no problem setting the transaction in B to reconciled. That is what I meant by saying that the two sides of the transfer have separate reconciliation status.

My problem is that I can't change the transaction in B in any way. I can't reconcile account B because I can't change the part of the transaction in B to reconciled.

Tom Young

I understand every thing you've entered in your two subsequent posts, and did so when I made my initial reply.  What's really important here is that I couldn't duplicate what you describe in my test file.  The fact that I couldn't duplicate this in my file along with your statement "I am used to seeing the two sides of a linked transfer have independent reconciliation status" indicates to me that something might be wrong in your file, that some corruption might have sneaked in, and that's what's causing the odd result you are seeing.

Sometime editing the original transaction in one way or another or deleting the transaction entirely and re-entering it will put things to right, so you might want to try that first, if you haven't already.  But doing a validate and repair might be in order; it almost certainly won't hurt anything and it may fix the problem.

pls

I couldn't duplicate it in a test file either. Deleting and reentering the original transaction did not change anything, same problem.

This is going to be long, and I hope the developers see this. I spent about 3 hours on the phone with tech support today, with no progress.

Background: There are 3 accounts involved here:
- Checking, my primary checking account
- Amazon Card, my Amazon credit card
- Amazon Card Rewards, a credit card account tracking Amazon reward points.

Problem 1:
A payment to Amazon Card is done by entering a transaction in Checking with a category of [Amazon Card]. Recently when I enter this transaction, as soon as I tab away from the category field, the brackets vanish, and no transfer is recorded in Amazon Card. Deleting and reentering the transaction just does the same thing.

The tech support person had me look at the category list. There was an expense category Amazon Card, as well as category [Amazon Card], but removing the expense category did not solve the problem.

Problem 2:

To use rewards points, I would create a transaction with splits like this like this
Item 11.17
[Amazon Card Rewards] -11.00
Transaction net 1.17

There is no problem entering this transaction, and the transfer appears in [Amazon Card Rewards]. But I can't reconcile [Amazon Card Rewards] because attempting to change the reconciliation status of that transaction give me a message that this is a linked transfer and it has to be changed in the original transaction.

This is both a change in behavior, and impossible. This original transaction does not have reconciliation status on splits that I could change. Normally, reconciliation status on the two sides of a transfer can be set independently.

Result:

After getting off the phone with tech support, I happened to wonder why the category list had both an Amazon Card expense category and an [Amazon Card] transfer category. This normally can't happen.

So on a hunch I change the account name from Amazon Card to Amazon Credit Card. Now everything works as it should. Go figure.

Tom Young

I certainly have employed the same sort of split accounting on refunds granted by Amazon where the refund ends up on a gift card.  I have an "Amazon Gift Card (Refunds)" liability Account and simply haven't seen the "R" on a purchase transaction entered in my "Amazon.com VISA" credit card Account bleed over to the Gift Card Account.

My guess here is that something was indeed wrong with your file and the simple act of renaming your Amazon credit card Account somehow got things set to right.  That's a complete guess of course as I wouldn't think that having both a Category and an Account with the same name would cause a problem, though I could easily be wrong here.