Adding transactions that occurred prior to start of account register

Question

I registered and downloaded Quicken for Home/Business on 27 Apr.  I've linked my bank account, and my earliest transaction is 1/31/22 - my understanding is that my bank limits downloaded transactions to the last 90 days.  This is also the date used by my transaction register to calculate my initial balance.  I want my Budget to reflect actual transactions including Jan 2022, but I'm not sure how to add the transactions so they don't impact the register balance.  How do I enter transactions from 01 - 30 Jan so that they will show up as Actuals in my Budget, but also so they will not throw off my starting balance?

[Deleted User] · Accepted Answer

@scott_boger I am not sure how you plan to add the January 2022 transactions, but no matter how you do it, re-establishing the beginning balance to 1/1/2022 (or 12/31/2021) is pretty straightforward.  After you enter all of the transactions for January, subtract the net total of the transactions from your Initial Balance transaction and change the initial balance transaction date to 1/1/2022 (or 12/31/2021). This will keep your register balance intact.

Chris_QPW · Accepted Answer

EDITED to reword a "download"

You in fact want to affect the starting balance.  You want to change it to what it was on Jan 1, 2022 (and change its date to Jan 1, 2022), and then fill in all the transaction between that point and 1/30/2022 where your other transactions pick up.

The Opening Balance transaction is special in the "category" is [Account Name], but other than that you can change its date and amount to get the right starting point.

Another thing to look for is if your financial institution allows exporting transactions in Web Connect/QFX format.  If they do, you should be able to export transactions older than the 90 days to fill in January in QFX format and import that into Quicken using File -> File Import ->  Web Connect (.QFX) File.