reconcile to online balance not available for cash account linked to brokerage

dave7865

I have an investment account with an associated cash account. I'm using one step update to update my quicken data. I can successfully reconcile my cash account to the latest statement but would like to reconcile to the online balance but I don't see any way to switch to that option. How do I switch to reconcile to online balance?

I'm using quicken for windows and my executable was just updated this morning (version R34.20 / build 27.1.34.20)

Just to avoid any confusion, this problem was not caused by this morning's update. I had the same problem last week.

Chris_QPW

The basic answer is you can't reconcile to an online balance in a link checking account.

In theory I suppose they could do it but in reality they have never done it and the probable reason is because it is a virtual account.  They aren't really downloading from a checking account as your brokerage.  What is happening is they download the investment account and when they see it cash transaction they push it off to the linked checking account.

UKR

I used to have a linked cash account myself, years ago, but stopped using it due to lack of activity and have never used Reconcile to Online Balance myself.
But, IIRC, all settings that control this linked account can be found in the investment account's Edit Account Details section. Look there to see what you can change.

dave7865

Thank you for responding. For a minute I thought this was the answer. I went to the "Edit Account Details" section for the linked account and saw that "Reconcile using online balance" was not checked (!!). So I checked it but the linked cash account still is configured to link to most recent statement.

Problem not yet solved.

dave7865

... linked cash account still is configured to *reconcile* to most recent statement. (not "link")

Chris_QPW

The basic answer is you can't reconcile to an online balance in a link checking account.

In theory I suppose they could do it but in reality they have never done it and the probable reason is because it is a virtual account.  They aren't really downloading from a checking account as your brokerage.  What is happening is they download the investment account and when they see it cash transaction they push it off to the linked checking account.

dave7865

Thanks. That sounds reasonable. I was starting to suspect something along these lines. Would have been nice but I can get by without it.

dave7865

I'll just put this out there for any Quicken developers/product managers who might be reading this:

If you have a cash account linked to an investment account, it would be nice to have a way to reconcile to online balance. This could either be tied to the investment account setting (which already exists) or an independent option specific to the cash account ( might be easier for the user to find ).