The ‘Use statement balance’ figure is not being brought in (Q Mac)

Question

On the latest update it seems to have stopped bringing the previous ‘Prior Balance’ figure from the last statement, i have always used this figure as on some of my accounts cheques are often written and not presented for a while. Why does it to bring it in any more ?? If it won't then i will have to start writing down the figure or keeping loads of old bank statements that i print out from the web ??  Please where is it, or if not bring it back on the next update !! Thanks for a great product - have used it for 25 years now !

jacobs · Answer

First, please bear in mind that I'm just a fellow Quicken user; you're not speaking to the programmers or Quicken management here. Sometimes we can explain what the developers were aiming to do, and sometimes we have no idea what they were thinking. ;) 

I think you didn't understand my point. You don't need to see the previous reconciliation balance to deal with old checks which haven't previously cleared. It doesn't matter how old they are, because and uncleared transactions will always appear at the top of the list of transactions in your reconciliation window. If a check from 6 months ago finally clears the bank this month, it will be near the top of the transactions in your reconciliation window, and you click it. If you reach a point that you decide to void/write off a check which hasn't cleared, you can double-click it in the reconcile window to edit it (such as adding a note that the check never cleared; you can either record the original amount in the memo and set the check amount to zero, or you can leave the check, create a new negative entry to write off the check, and check off both items in the reconcile window. None of this involves seeing the previous reconciliation balance.

Like you, I reconcile my accounts monthly, and when I enter the ending balance on the new statement and check off the items which cleared during the month, Quicken shows the account is balanced — without me ever needing to see the prior month's reconciliation balance.

But here's another key point: you can always see the previous reconciliation balance with one click, simply by going to Accounts > Reconciliation History. The first line shows your last reconciliation balance.

It sounds like you don't have the preference setting for QuickFill Rules turned on (Preferences > Register). Once you turn it on, then every new transaction you enter will create a QuickFill rule so that the next time you use that Payee, the category, memo and value will automatically be filled in (you actually have a choice in the settings whether to save just the category, or all the files, like amount and memo).

You can also manually enter QuickFill rules, but you don't need to. You can either memorize them as you go, or you can easily scroll back through old transactions and create QuickFill rules for each Payee by clicking Command-Y (Transactions > Save QuickFill Rule). Command Y brings up the QuickFill Rule window, and you can tweak what is saved, or simply press Return to save it as it is. So in three quick clicks -- click on a past transaction, Command-Y, Return -- you can create a QuickFill rule for a Payee. You could probably do 50 of them in a few minutes. Or, as I said, just wait until the next time you use a Payee, enter the details manually that time, and it will be saved for subsequent uses. (I now have more than 250 Qyic kFill rules for Payees in my database just by building them up as I've described.)

Stephen Duxbury · Answer

Why cant we have a choice ??  In my case it does cause me lots of problems as sometimes it can take over six months before someone pays in a cheque, we are running a charity lottery for the village and some times people never pay the cheque in and eventually i have to reverse the cheque, hence my request for the previous balance to be brought forward. l do reconcile my bank to the penny every time l do it, i have probably at least 50+ transactions a month to tick off but the old figure makes it much quicker. Please re-instate it !!

Its also like a few years ago you stopped bringing in the previous amount from a payee, this again made it so much quicker and easier to complete, and also you could compare the figures from the last time, i was told by one of your advisors that you can simply add it into the payee list, but i have a few hundred payees and when am i supposed to find time to go through them all and alter them !

Thank you very much for taking the time and trouble to reply, but sometimes you feel its three steps forward and then two back !! Cheers Stephen

jacobs · Answer

It's true that the developers removed the prior period ending balance (E.g. the starting balance for the current reconciliation) from the screen. I'm not sure why; apparently they felt it caused confusion for some users.

But it shouldn't cause you the problems you describe. If you previously wrote a check which did not clear in a prior reconciliation, it will be in the list of transactions available to be checked off in the current reconciliation. If the older check is present on your new bank statement, then check it on the reconciliation; if not, don't check it, and it will remain un-cleared to carry into the next reconciliation.

The point here is that you shouldn't need to see the prior period balance in order to do the current reconciliation. If your prior reconciliation was correct, and if you correctly match all the money in and out between your statement and Quicken, then your current reconciliation will zero out and work.