Eliminating a column on reconcilement

Lynae Gieseke

Years ago, I did something, checked a box somewhere, and I can't remember where I did it, but I've been struggling with my reconcilement ever since. I have two of the exact same columns when the reconciliation form pops up. I have DATE and POSTING DATE. Since I download all my checking transactions, the dates in each column are the same. How can I eliminate the POSTING DATE column?

Tom Young

I don't think this has anything to do with your reconciliation process, it sounds more like columns you're seeing in the check register.

To change the columns that show up in the check register, open that Account, click the gear wheel in the upper right hand corner and click on "Register columns..."  I would expect you want to take the check mark out of the box next to "Downloaded posting date"

Lynae Gieseke

Tom, I tried your suggestion. Unfortunately, the "downloaded posting date" was already unchecked. Any other ideas?

Tom Young

@Lynae Gieseke

Would you please post a screen shot of where you are seeing this?  The reconciliation screens for all "Banking" Accounts show two columns - Charges and Payments, or Payments and Checks and Deposits - and likewise the reconciliation screens for "Investing" Accounts also show two columns - Decreases and Increases - and as far as I know those screen are hard-coded and can't be modified.  That's why I assumed you were really talking about a Banking register where the "Downloaded posting date" column is available to you.

Rocket J Squirrel

I see this column, also. Doesn't everyone see it for an online banking account? There is no way to remove it, but there's a brief explanation at the bottom of the dialog.

Chris_QPW

As pointed out the columns in this dialog have never been configurable.  If this is what you are thinking of then you must be mistaken on being able to change it.  Note that as it was pointed out the Posting Date is only there for online accounts, so if you happened to look at an offline account you would have not seen it.

q_lurker

I would bet that years ago there was only one date presented - probably the Date as the transaction date. Then Quicken changed (not the user) to show both dates because there was confusion about what transactions got offered. 

Chris_QPW

q_lurker said:

I would bet that years ago there was only one date presented - probably the Date as the transaction date. Then Quicken changed (not the user) to show both dates because there was confusion about what transactions got offered. 

That is how I remember it, but it is impossible to check, because with an unsupported version of Quicken, you can't connect it to an online account, so they are all offline accounts.

Tom Young

Rocket J Squirrel said:

I see this column, also. Doesn't everyone see it for an online banking account?

(Raises hand) 

I don't see that in any of my Banking Accounts and I don't remember ever seeing it, and all Accounts are online. 

I've always been the sort that didn't install every update that came down the pike and I know that there's long stretches that I never installed.  That's about the only reason I can come up with for not having that column, but even that doesn't make much sense.

Looking around a bit where users posted images of their reconciliation windows I see other users have the same view I do, using fairly current versions.

Chris_QPW

I don't know @Tom Young your accounts must be "magical" because all of my online non-investment accounts have the posting date column.  And every update is self-contained, you can't "skip" a change like this, not to mention we are talking many years ago, at least back to Quicken 2017 most like even earlier.

mshiggins

First sighting of the Downloaded Posting Date column in the Reconcile window is in the 2016 version of the Official Guide. 

Tom Young

Chris_QPW said:

I don't know @Tom Young your accounts must be "magical" because all of my online non-investment accounts have the posting date column.  And every update is self-contained, you can't "skip" a change like this, not to mention we are talking many years ago, at least back to Quicken 2017 most like even earlier.

Well, I did allow that it didn't make sense, I was simply trying to come up with some (maybe far-fetched) rationalization.  But clearly I'm not the only current user not seeing the Posting Date column on the Reconciliation screen.  I couldn't find any Preference or Account-level way to change the reconciliation screen but maybe there's a super-duper/eyes only/I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you key press combination?

q_lurker

Prior to today's comments, I had never noticed that my online accounts had a Posting Date column for that screen.  Weird.  Partly I suspect that those accounts reconcile so easily.  I just look at the "Difference", see a 0.00, and click Done.  Rarely if ever do I have to review individual transactions.   

Tom Young

@Lynae Gieseke

If you read the comments here you can see the cause of my confusion - for some reason I (and other Quicken users) don't have that Posting Date column showing up on our Reconcile screen.  Until and unless somebody figures out how to remove that column in the Quicken reconciliation screen, it seems like you're stuck with it.

But having said that it remains unclear why you think adding that column affects your ability to reconcile correctly.  ("I've been struggling with my reconcilement ever since.")  If you're not making manual entries into your check register and only seeing transactions in the register when they clear the bank I'd expect the check register and bank statement would line up exactly.  So what's the source of your reconciliation problems?