Bad reconciliation in checking account.

tknorris0001

I've been using Q19 Deluxe for a couple of years, started Reconciling using the Bank's balance (not from paper statement). Does anyone have a systematic method to find the mess I've got myself into. I had surgery 4 months ago and we are paying my wife's caregivers 24/7 and I have not felt up to entering data since surgery. When I try to reconcile I have a difference in the thousands of dollars. I have printed and checked banks entries actual online values against Quicken entries since last Reconcile to be good but I still have the thousands $ difference. I *think* that the previous Reconcile balanced but maybe not (it's been 4 months and a lot of pain ago). Help says I can't look at previous Reconciliations and I didn't save them as a pdf (lesson learned!). Thanks for any direction you could give me. Tom

NotACPA

In a reconciliation, the "Prior Balance" is a calculated NOT STORED figure.  It's the sum of all transactions in the account that have an "R" in the CLR field.

SO, pull out your statements and work backwards in time until you find a statement balance that agrees with the date and amount in Q.  I.E., the last time that the account was truly reconciled.

UNreconcile everything after that point and the re-reconcile the account month-by-month to find the discrepancies.  If you try to reconcile the entire account to date all at once, finding errors will be difficult.

NotACPA

In a reconciliation, the "Prior Balance" is a calculated NOT STORED figure.  It's the sum of all transactions in the account that have an "R" in the CLR field.

SO, pull out your statements and work backwards in time until you find a statement balance that agrees with the date and amount in Q.  I.E., the last time that the account was truly reconciled.

UNreconcile everything after that point and the re-reconcile the account month-by-month to find the discrepancies.  If you try to reconcile the entire account to date all at once, finding errors will be difficult.

tknorris0001

Thank you NotACPA! I'm going to follow your advice and see how I do (I'll make a backup before I begin). I read *somewhere* that it is not advisable to switch from using the on-line balance back to using the paper statement so I did not do that. I guess once I get this straightened out I will download transactions and reconcile more often if at all possible. I may be back with more questions :#