Is there a best way to reconcile previous months?

John Sellers

There have been times over the past years when I have to catch up reconciling against my receipts for several months in a row.

For practical reasons in my case, it works out better if I reconcile two or three of the most recent months and then move back in time and reconcile a few more months as I get the chance.

The way I have been doing it was put in a fake entry that matches one of the recent months and then reconcile from there to the present time in one sitting, and then remove the fake balance and move it backward in time two or three months. Then later I do a 2 or 3 more months, etc. until I am caught up.

Yea, I know it is better to keep it all up to date, but sometimes that is just not in the cards.

So here is my question:

DOES QUICKEN HAVE ANY MECHANISM THAT WOULD MAKE THIS PROCESS EASEIR?

Thanks, JS

Tom Young

No, it does not, though I'm not sure I understand your process to begin with. 

"Reconciling" in Quicken essentially amounts to putting an "R" in the Clr column of transactions such that the sum of all transactions with an R in the Clr column as of a given statement date equals that statement's balance. 

So I assume you have statements from a financial institution and when you sit down to reconcile you pull out that beginning statement from "one of the recent months", create an entry (probably "as of" the statement date) of a transaction with an R in the Clr column, such that you've created a "correct" opening balance for your reconciliation of the subsequent months?

If you've get an actual reconciliation from somewhere back in time - a reconciliation that doesn't have that "fake entry" that makes it work - it seems like it would be easier to work forward from there, not backwards.  No fake entry needed, no need to move that fake entry each time you do a reconciliation.

Chris_QPW

This is something I have complained about for years.
Currently Quicken includes the reconciled transactions in the "Cleared Balance" even if they are past the ending date.  If it didn't include these then it would be trivial to reconcile past timeframes.
Not too many people voted to change this:
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7889248/reconcile-shouldnt-include-reconciled-transactions-past-statement-end-date