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Previously reconciled statements now out of balance

EmKay

I wrote a lengthy explanation of my problem here last night but, for some reason, it didn't post - so I'm rewriting the short version:

My Bank of America checking was previously reconciled to my statement through early October. Now, when I try to reconcile to what I see as the current balance when I log into their website - or to the balance on any date, going back a couple of years - I am off by just over $25. I cannot find a transaction either in Quicken or online that is the same amount as the amount that I am off.

Yesterday, when trying to download an import a web connect QFX file from them, nothing happened - so I followed the suggestion in another post and edited one FITID amount to add an "A" to the end, just to make sure that Quicken was pulling the file in. It did, and I accepted that transaction on a matched transaction. That's the only thing I can think might've messed up my reconciled balance, but I don't know why.

Any suggestions how to find why I'm suddenly out of balance?

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Accepted answers

mrzookie

@EmKay - if this proves to be the problem, it really doesn't matter when it happened. Don't knock yourself out searching it down -the fix will be the same.

All comments

Sherlock

If the reconciled opening balance has changed, a reconciled transaction has been added, modified, or deleted. To determine the source of the change, I suggest you compare the running balance of the account register in the current Quicken file with the running balance of the account register from a Quicken file backup saved when the account was last reconciled. One way to accomplish this is to print the registers to text files.

mrzookie

Check the account's opening balance -it may have changed.

Is this a checking account? If yes, did you, by any chance, do a deactivate/reactivate (or similar) process on the account? I've seen behavior where if there are one or more transactions in a pending state on the bank's site, and you run this process, the value of the pending transactions are added (or subtracted) from the Quicken register's opening balance. I was able to confirm this by restoring an older backup and comparing the data going all the way back (and my account is 14 yrs old). This has happened to me more than once. My workaround is to create a dummy offsetting transaction on the same date that the opening balance was recorded and then re-reconcile the account. I now have 3 or 4 such transactions entered into the register, but the account is fully reconciled going back all 14 yrs.

EmKay

Sherlock said:

If the reconciled opening balance has changed, a reconciled transaction has been added, modified, or deleted. To determine the source of the change, I suggest you compare the running balance of the account register in the current Quicken file with the running balance of the account register from a Quicken file backup saved when the account was last reconciled. One way to accomplish this is to print the registers to text files.

Is there any way to know (see in a log file?) when I last reconciled and what values were entered? My last reconciled transaction now, and in a file from two days ago (when I thought I was okay) is 10/6, but that's not a statement ending date (or anywhere near a statement ending date).

So I don't really know, I guess, when I last successfully reconciled. Opening a file from 2 days ago (before I realized I had a problem) and reconciling shows an "ending statement date" WAY off what it should be.

EmKay

mrzookie said:

Check the account's opening balance -it may have changed.

Is this a checking account? If yes, did you, by any chance, do a deactivate/reactivate (or similar) process on the account? I've seen behavior where if there are one or more transactions in a pending state on the bank's site, and you run this process, the value of the pending transactions are added (or subtracted) from the Quicken register's opening balance. I was able to confirm this by restoring an older backup and comparing the data going all the way back (and my account is 14 yrs old). This has happened to me more than once. My workaround is to create a dummy offsetting transaction on the same date that the opening balance was recorded and then re-reconcile the account. I now have 3 or 4 such transaction entered into the register, but the account is fully reconciled going back all 14 yrs.

Thanks. I will probably have to open a number of older backup files to see when the opening balance changed, but I definitely did deactivate and then reactivate the transaction downloads. This stinks, but thanks for the tip. I worry when Q does weird stuff and I start to mistrust it.

mrzookie

@EmKay - if this proves to be the problem, it really doesn't matter when it happened. Don't knock yourself out searching it down -the fix will be the same.

Sherlock

EmKay said:

Sherlock said:

If the reconciled opening balance has changed, a reconciled transaction has been added, modified, or deleted. To determine the source of the change, I suggest you compare the running balance of the account register in the current Quicken file with the running balance of the account register from a Quicken file backup saved when the account was last reconciled. One way to accomplish this is to print the registers to text files.

Is there any way to know (see in a log file?) when I last reconciled and what values were entered? My last reconciled transaction now, and in a file from two days ago (when I thought I was okay) is 10/6, but that's not a statement ending date (or anywhere near a statement ending date).

So I don't really know, I guess, when I last successfully reconciled. Opening a file from 2 days ago (before I realized I had a problem) and reconciling shows an "ending statement date" WAY off what it should be.

The date of the most recently transaction in the register should be a good clue. You may examine the backups from the date forward to identify the first backup you saved with the good reconcile. Then, compare the running balances of the good backup's register against bad current register to determine what cause the change to the reconciled balance. Note: If the reconciled balance in the backup you saved is already wrong, you may want to compare the backup register with an earlier backup.

EmKay

As suggested by @mrzookie, I went back a few backup files until I found the one right before the beginning balance changed. I then entered an adjustment transaction, and reconciled through the October statement. Seems okay now. Don't like when weirdness like this occurs in my financial data!

mrzookie

@EmKay - glad you figured it out!