Opening Balance Error - NOT a reconciliation problem

AncientOne

I recently had to correct a download/sync problem with USAA. After doing this I am attempting to reconcile my various accounts (including non-USAA accounts), and the opening balance/prior balance on ALL of the accounts is suddenly incorrect. I haven't been able to figure out where Qucken is getting the Prior Balance from, but in some cases it is off my thousands of dollars. Anyone with similar problems?

splasher

I haven't had the issue, but normally, when an account is created, Quicken starts with the known current balance and then back calculates the transactions in the register to come up with Opening Balance.

Just to clarify, you reference both opening and prior, but to me those are two different things:

  Opening Balance is the first transaction in a register.

  Prior balance I consider to the the ending balance of the last reconcile when doing the next reconcile.

Is that what you mean?  Please be very specific.

Chris_QPW

From the context I take the it that the balance that you are referring to is the one that Quicken calculates for the start of the reconcile.

Quicken calculates this by adding up all the reconciled transactions in the register.  note it will even include ones in the future so watch out for that.

To see that total in the register sort by the clear column.  That will put all the reconciled transactions first.  Now look at the last reconcile transaction and it's balance and that will be what Quicken starts with.

If any of the reconciled transactions were altered or new ones were added or any of them were removed for any reason then this number will be off from what you think it should be and to be able to finish your reconcile successfully.

Unfortunately by its very nature the problem could be anywhere in all those reconciled transactions.

AncientOne

OK, guess I was typing too fast...

I do mean the 'Prior Balance'.

When I say it is not a reconciliation problem, I mean that this is not because I've missed a transaction or accidently deleted a cleared transaction - this appears to be because Quicken is not using the prior balance from the last reconciled statement.

For example: On one of my credit cards when attempting to reconcile, I enter the date, new charges (a few hundred dollars), previous payment (a few hundred dollars) hit OK... and on the Reconcile screen it lists the 'Cleared Balance' for the statement period as ~$10k ? As near as I can tell, this is approximately the grand total that I've put on the card - but of course those prior transactions are reconciled...

Another example: On none of the bank statements (I have five bank accounts now, including kid's accounts) does the Quicken 'Prior Balance' match the Statement - although they were all previously reconciled perfectly.

Although I have certainly missed something on a reconcile before, this is totally across the board...

The only change I can think of is that I fixed the known issue to Direct Connect with USAA recently - but have made no other changes since prior reconcile...

splasher

I refer you back to @Chris_QPW 's response.  The Prior Balance in the reconciliation does just not change on its own.  Something happened with which transactions that were "R" and were not "R" and the possibility that some new transactions snuck (duplicates) in during your re-establishment of the download connection and were marked "R".

NotACPA

Extending @splasher's reply, "Prior Balance" is NOT a stored figure .... it's a calculated figure which is the sum of all "R" transactions in the account.

SO, if the calculated "Prior Balance" doesn't agree with the previous statement, one (or more) of the following happened:

1. You manually changed a transaction to "R" (this includes manually inputting a new transaction and assigning it "R")
2. You manually changed a transaction that was "R" to something else
3. You deleted an "R" transaction
4. You deleted the other side of a transaction that was "R"

You need to go back to a prior statement where the statement and Q agree, change all of the succeeding transactions to be not "R", and re-reconcile from that statement forward to find the error.

zulujumper

I'm having similar problems. Ever since USAA made us redo our direct connect, my register has been a huge pile of crap and I have no idea how much money I have. I have been using Quicken since the DOS days. Getting ready to go back to paper registers, as this is beyond ridiculous.

AncientOne

Yes, this is not a problem where I missed/deleted a couple of "R" transactions and am off by a few bucks... I'm on the verge of just putting in 'Adjustment' transactions as uncatagorized transactions to get things to fit again and move on...

dupontj

Is there a resolution to this. I recently reconnected / readded my USAA accounts. Now my checking won't reconcile (difference -$46K). Shows unreconciled entries all the way back to 2018. My last reconcile before having to reconnect was $0 balance.

splasher

Have you checked to see if the unreconciled transactions might be duplicates that were imported when you reconnected?  

charles.haseltine

Im having the same problem and its frustrating. Since USAA made us redo our direct connect, my register has been incorrect. I cannot reconcile without making adjustments. The online balance includes pending transactions so its always incorrect. I have over drawn an account two times because of this stupid mess. I wrote Quicken telling them Im about done and want a refund. This cannot be happening to an application that I have used over 10 years without a problem until now.