I have a mess I need help with

PBMom

I'll spare you what has happened in my life but my Quicken file is a mess. I haven't reconciled any accounts since 2016 & not all of my transactions are in here; only those that were tax-related. I was hoping that there was an "update" function so I could just zero-out up to 11/7/2019 & start reconciling from there. But I can't; it's going to make me reconcile the account (or manually go in there and put an R next to each one and make a "payment" that would clear it out to zero & make that box "R" as well. I don't really want to start a new Quicken file either. I have to get my 2020 tax return done and I'm just overwhelmed with my entire life right now. Is there anything else I can do here that I'm not thinking of. I just cannot go back and go through my finances from 2016 forward. I'll just cry.

Frankx

Hi @PBMom,

Sorry to hear about your troubles.

If your goal is to prepare your tax return for 2020, you really don't need to have complete, accurate and reconciled records in your Quicken file - you just need to have all tax related transactions in the file.  You can produce tax reports from Quicken without reconciling your bank accounts.

I would suggest that you focus on entering only the tax related transactions in your Quicken file, and then use the tax reports that Quicken produces, as well as other tax documents (Forms 1099, W-2s, 1098, etc.), to prepare your return.

If I've misunderstood or missed anything, get back to me.

Frankx

Chris_QPW

For doing your taxes I think @Frankx's suggestion is best, but I just wanted to point out that it should also be possible to do what want to do.

First off you seem to be avoiding reconciling your account because you believe that you have to do the account all the way to the present date.  You don't.  You can reconcile to a past date as long as there isn't any reconciled transactions after that date.  What's more you can run a reconcile with an ending date of 11/7/2019, do a Select All, and then Done.  And it will prompt you to put in a balance adjustment for that date.  That will "zero-out " the account.

You can also do the same kind "zero-out"/update by putting in your own balance adjustment transaction.
Say you are in account MyAccount.  You can put in a transaction where the category is [MyAccount] (the account name in square brackets) and an amount deposit/withdraw for the amount that will get you the balance of your account on that date, that is a "balance adjustment" transaction.  The payee can be whatever you like.

Frankx

Hi @PBMom,

Sorry to hear about your troubles.

If your goal is to prepare your tax return for 2020, you really don't need to have complete, accurate and reconciled records in your Quicken file - you just need to have all tax related transactions in the file.  You can produce tax reports from Quicken without reconciling your bank accounts.

I would suggest that you focus on entering only the tax related transactions in your Quicken file, and then use the tax reports that Quicken produces, as well as other tax documents (Forms 1099, W-2s, 1098, etc.), to prepare your return.

If I've misunderstood or missed anything, get back to me.

Frankx

Chris_QPW

For doing your taxes I think @Frankx's suggestion is best, but I just wanted to point out that it should also be possible to do what want to do.

First off you seem to be avoiding reconciling your account because you believe that you have to do the account all the way to the present date.  You don't.  You can reconcile to a past date as long as there isn't any reconciled transactions after that date.  What's more you can run a reconcile with an ending date of 11/7/2019, do a Select All, and then Done.  And it will prompt you to put in a balance adjustment for that date.  That will "zero-out " the account.

You can also do the same kind "zero-out"/update by putting in your own balance adjustment transaction.
Say you are in account MyAccount.  You can put in a transaction where the category is [MyAccount] (the account name in square brackets) and an amount deposit/withdraw for the amount that will get you the balance of your account on that date, that is a "balance adjustment" transaction.  The payee can be whatever you like.

PBMom

Thanks Chris. I am concentrating on my tax return, of course, but I didn't realize it had been so long since I reconciled. I was always trying to catch up with my taxes (filing by the extension date each year as we always got a refund) and I was already doing what @Frankx was saying about just concentrating on the receipts that were tax-related items. When I'm done with this, I'm hoping I can catch up and keep current with 2021 receipts. I saw that I really hadn't reconciled all 2016 forward and from 2016 forward I was only putting in the tax-related receipts so I could get the numbers. The thought of going back to 2016 and putting the rest of my receipts in from that point forward to try to get a correct balance (on my checking account there will not be a zero balance, however, because my checking account had money in it), wanted to make me cry because I just felt like I would never catch up with all this. But I'm going to print out what you've said and do this once I have 2021 receipts caught up (and I can file ON TIME next year).