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Why are credit card charges decreasing balance and payments increasing it?

FlyGuyTx

Once again having issues with downloading from Citi. Did a "reset" on three different credit card accounts. Seemed to work and downloaded transactions (including old ones that had previously been downloaded...but that's not unusual). However, for two of the accounts, suddenly the debits and credits were reversed and payments increase the balance, while charges are decreasing it. This goes back many months, it is not just the most recently downloaded transactions. I cannot figure out how to resolve. Reverted to last backup...so I lost the downloaded transactions, and now the account once again does not update. I am hesitant to do another reset.

I have seen sporadic reports of this when searching for a solution, but other than some less-than-helpful "advice" and on suggestion to manually modify the QFX file, I cannot find a solution. Certainly this should never happen in a program designed to manage finances!

PS - also ran into the same issue with Synchrony Bank/Amazon, so it is not isolated to Citi.

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NotACPA

For those two problem accounts, what COLOR is the balance column at the point of the most recent transaction. Click on the DATE column header to sort the account in Date order.

Chris_QPW

When a credit card balance changes from negative to positive (the bank owes you money) it behaves like you describe.
You can see this if the balance now black instead of red.

Most likely what happened is that because you the reset you got an payment transaction that turned the amount positive.
I suggest that before you do a reset you put a comment in the memo on the last transaction so that you can find it. And then sort the register by "Order Entered". That will put all the new transactions at the end of the register so that it is easier to clean them up.

FlyGuyTx

Thanks for the suggestions. I had reverted to my last backup, losing the downloaded transactions, but the accounts were displaying correctly. Now none of the problem accounts will do a reset, all give an error. For now, I have manually downloaded transactions using QFX and imported them, since nothing from Citi or Amazon/Synchrony Bank had downloaded since 01APR2021.

Next time I am successful in getting a reset to work, I will try your suggestions. Thanks again.

Rechelle2Quicken

@FlyGuyTx It looks like you solved your own problem. This just happened to me because I reset my credit card account instead of "updating" in a pop up window that was asking me to re-enter my username and password. What a pain. Now I will have to go back to a previous backup like you did. It seems like there should be a way to "tell" the Quicken software about this error and have a setting that reverts all transactions within the account back to the way they are supposed to be. My credit card account transactions all changed so that payments increase the balance and charges decrease the balance creating a false balance (obviously). If you hear about a real solution from the software standpoint, I would love to know about it.

volvogirl

Nobody has posted this so here's my standard answer for it.

First make sure you are sorted in Date order with the newest date at the bottom. If you are not then click the DATE Column heading to sort.

Sounds like you're running a credit balance. Is the balance in red or black? Look back through your transactions and maybe you'll spot one that was entered backward. Or a payment in the charge column or a charge in the payment column. Look around back where this first started happening. Or maybe you are missing some charges?

If the balance is in Black, it means you have a credit on the card. Like if you overpaid the bill or got a refund for something you returned. When you enter a charge it will reduce (decrease) the credit you have available on it. And a payment will increase the balance.

Also make sure you have the right starting balance. If it's zero you might need to add a beginning balance for when you started the account in Quicken.

The credit card balance you OWE should be in RED. If the balance is Black then it's showing the credit card company owes you and you have a credit balance. And then when you make a payment it's like the cc owes you more. So you need to go back though your entries and find where the balance switched to black to being in your favor.

See this for more info.....

https://www.quicken.com/support/positive-black-balance-credit-card-account

judyg26

I'm having the same issue. 1st question - how do you RESET the column? By just clicking on the up arrow in the date field and hitting enter? If so - nothing resets 2nd question -this file goes back to 2017 - I've made adjustments as time went on and verified my purchases and payments, yet always seemed to be off by a few cents with my paper summaries. have checked my entries and set those minimal amounts My starting balance has been 'lost' in the file since there have been so many goofs and adjustments (I've never been good at balancing books), but I had to go and create a beginning charge to get my current balance to match the one from the cc company. Now it at least matches and what I have entered matches the paper files from 2017 (except the original balance).

Chris_QPW

“Reset” is a button at the top of the register right after the filters. It resets the filters to make sure that you are including all the dates and transactions instead of filtering some of them out by accident.

bellbill

I've also had issues with checkouts in the past. It is really important to sort the invoices from the initial amount so that you can quickly check the entire history of transactions. [Removed - Disruptive]