checking account getting out of balance - why

Rick Dalf

for the past two months my checking account has been out of balance. I have had to plug a number to balance. I only have around 20 transactions a month and have been using Quicken for years, What is going on with this, Quicken just seems so buggee lately and takes time to load in Windows as well. I surely wish someone from Quicken can contact me and look at my file. Please help

Boatnmaniac

Rick Dalf said:

for the past two months my checking account has been out of balance. I have had to plug a number to balance. I only have around 20 transactions a month and have been using Quicken for years, What is going on with this, Quicken just seems so buggee lately and takes time to load in Windows as well. I surely wish someone from Quicken can contact me and look at my file. Please help

If you want to speak with Quicken you will need to contact them because if you do not they will never know that you are experiencing this problem.  If you contact them, be sure to call or chat with them per the information at this link:  https://www.quicken.com/support#contact-support.  Or you can log into your online Quicken.com account and call the phone number that is listed there.

But out of curiosity, what connection method is your checking account set up with?

Also, is your account going out of balance frequently and, if so, are you reconciling your account to the online balance? 

Jim_Harman

This is a user to user forum. To interact with Quicken Support, go to Help > Contact Quicken Support.

Rick Dalf

ok, thanks to you both, I think it has some kind of corruption because I have been using for 20 years, and yes I have to balance to bank balance. Just frustrating, and not sure how much of a windows problem this is, and quicken updates and have toyed with MacPro. I will try to contact them

Boatnmaniac

@Rick Dalf - The reason why I asked which connection method you have set up and if you reconcile to the online balance is because sometimes (especially with EWC but sometimes also with DC) there is a timing issue that can make reconciling to the online balance not immediately possible.  This timing issue is caused by when the Financial Institution (FI) completes their server updates with all the day's transactions and when the data is captured by Quicken.  If the data is captured by Quicken before the FI completes updating their server there is a possibility that transactions will be downloaded but the online balance is not yet updated or vice versa.  The only fix for this is to try updating again later in the day or in the evening and it will almost always be self-resolved within 12-24 hrs (often less than that).  IMO, this is more of an FI issue than it is a Quicken issue because they are permitting data to be downloaded that is not yet completely processed.

If this is what is happening with your account, then entering account balancing transactions is likely actually perpetuating the issue.

What you might want to consider doing is the following:

1. Back up your data file in case something goes wrong so your file can be quickly restored if needed/desired.
   
2. Delete all of the account balancing transactions that you have manually entered since you began to notice this issue.  Do the account register balance and the online balance now match?  If they do match then this timing issue is likely the cause of the issue you have been seeing and it is now resolved.
3. If they do not match, then run OSU.  Do the account register balance and the online balance now match?  If they do match then this timing issue is likely the cause of the issue you have been seeing and it is now resolved.
4. If they do not match, try running OSU, again, tonight.  Do the account register balance and the online balance now match?  If they do match then this timing issue is likely the cause of the issue you have been seeing and it is now resolved.

If these steps do resolve the issue for you then if/when you see it happen again you can know that running OSU or Update Now later will likely resolve it without needing to enter any balancing transaction.

If these steps do not resolve the issue, then there is something else going on and perhaps Quicken Support can assist is resolving it.