HOW DO I FIND DUPLICATE, MANUALLY-ENTERED TRANSACTIONS

jgtibbs

I enter all transactions into Quicken Deluxe (1 year subscription 2021) manually, i.e. no downloads from institutions (yep, the old-fashioned way) and am searching for a way to find duplicate transactions. All I have found, so far, only addresses duplicates that occur when transactions are downloaded from banks, etc.
In my case, is there a way to easily find duplicates?

Frankx

Hi @jgtibbs,

If the transactions are "exact duplicates" (where the data in each field is exact) it is very easy to find them, all you need to do is sort the register (by any field, really) and then scan the register.  If there are some differences (e.g. you manually entered one and downloaded the other - but both "entries" are the same "transaction") then its a little more difficult.

In that case, I'd suggest that you use the "Filters" at the top of the register and set the first filter (the "date" filter) for a specific time frame like the last month, or 60 days, etc. Then also set the "type" to further narrow down the results.

After that, it is simply scanning the transactions for identical amounts and deleting the dups.

To prevent this, I'd suggest that you carefully review the downloaded transactions before accepting them into your registers.  You should also regularly monitor the account balances to make sure they "make sense" and - last but certainly not least - you should reconcile your bank accounts monthly (or at least quarterly).

Let me know if you have any followups.

Frankx

Chris_QPW

Personally, the way I would find these is by reconciling.

NotACPA

Reconciling is the way that I go, also.  Reconciling also finds transactions with incorrect amounts and the inability to reconcile MAY lead to missing/deleted transactions.

Frankx

Hi @jgtibbs,

If the transactions are "exact duplicates" (where the data in each field is exact) it is very easy to find them, all you need to do is sort the register (by any field, really) and then scan the register.  If there are some differences (e.g. you manually entered one and downloaded the other - but both "entries" are the same "transaction") then its a little more difficult.

In that case, I'd suggest that you use the "Filters" at the top of the register and set the first filter (the "date" filter) for a specific time frame like the last month, or 60 days, etc. Then also set the "type" to further narrow down the results.

After that, it is simply scanning the transactions for identical amounts and deleting the dups.

To prevent this, I'd suggest that you carefully review the downloaded transactions before accepting them into your registers.  You should also regularly monitor the account balances to make sure they "make sense" and - last but certainly not least - you should reconcile your bank accounts monthly (or at least quarterly).

Let me know if you have any followups.

Frankx

Chris_QPW

Personally, the way I would find these is by reconciling.

NotACPA

Reconciling is the way that I go, also.  Reconciling also finds transactions with incorrect amounts and the inability to reconcile MAY lead to missing/deleted transactions.

jgtibbs

Thanks. Reconciling looks like the way to go.