Why is the reconcile function giving incorrect information?

vocpsych

Over the last few months there have been more and more problems reconciling accounts. In particular, Quicken seems to not like to correctly add up the total amount. For example, two transactions on an account + the interest charge. When I use a calculator to balance the account, it balances fine. When I use the Quicken reconcile function, it does not. Is there a way to fix this? Thanks.

Quicken Jared

vocpsych said:

Over the last few months there have been more and more problems reconciling accounts. In particular, Quicken seems to not like to correctly add up the total amount. For example, two transactions on an account + the interest charge. When I use a calculator to balance the account, it balances fine. When I use the Quicken reconcile function, it does not. Is there a way to fix this? Thanks.

Hello @vocpsych,  

I am sorry about this frustration with the Reconcile feature. Thank you for asking about this here on the Quicken Community.

First, are you reconciling to an Online Balance or a previous statement? Are you noticing this issue across all accounts? If one account in particular is being affected, you may try looking at the Opening Balance in the account register to confirm that this appears correctly.

I hope to hear additional recommendations if you have the chance to discuss this further.

Thank you,

Quicken Jared 

vocpsych

Hi, @Quicken Jared! Thanks for responding. I'm reconciling to a "paper" statement and have been doing so for years. Most of the time there's been no issue, however, lately it's happened a number of times across several types of accounts - checking, credit cards, and savings. The accounts balance the previous month, then suddenly don't balance. I've quadruple checked all items and amounts and added everything up on a hand calculator. The reconcile box indicates that I spent $50 more hand-calculating (and summing in Excel) the same numbers. I even tried deleting the most likely candidate for being problematic and re-entered the expenditure. Does this suggest anything? BTW, I previously updated the software, so there is no more recent update to install.

Quicken Jared

vocpsych said:

Hi, @Quicken Jared! Thanks for responding. I'm reconciling to a "paper" statement and have been doing so for years. Most of the time there's been no issue, however, lately it's happened a number of times across several types of accounts - checking, credit cards, and savings. The accounts balance the previous month, then suddenly don't balance. I've quadruple checked all items and amounts and added everything up on a hand calculator. The reconcile box indicates that I spent $50 more hand-calculating (and summing in Excel) the same numbers. I even tried deleting the most likely candidate for being problematic and re-entered the expenditure. Does this suggest anything? BTW, I previously updated the software, so there is no more recent update to install.

Hello @vocpsych, 

Thank you for following up with me again, and for answering my earlier questions. I do apologize that this problem remains ongoing, for the moment.

I am just curious: are you also noticing difference between the balance of an account displayed in the left-hand Account List versus the balance displayed for the same account in the register? Either way, you could try restoring from a backup saved prior to when this issue emerged by navigating to File > Restore a Backup File... in the upper menu at the top of the screen. Note that we recommend saving backups often by navigating to the same menu and selecting File > Copy or Backup File...

Another option - in the event that you are noticing discrepancies between the balance displayed in the Account List and that of the Register - would be to save another backup, then proceed through the following steps:

1. Navigate to File
2. Select Validate and Repair File...
3. Select Validate File
4. Click OK
5. Close the Data Log
6. Close Quicken (leave it closed for at least 5 secs)
7. Reopen Quicken and see if the issue persists. 

If you are still noticing difficulties after you have attempted those recommendations, you may try the following:

1. Navigate to File
2. Hold CTRL + Shift and click Validate and Repair File...
3. Select Super Validate File
4. Click OK
5. Close the Data Log
6. Close Quicken (leave it closed for at least 5 secs)
7. Reopen Quicken and see if the issue persists.

Let us know how these recommendations work for you. 

Thank you,

Quicken Jared

vocpsych

Thanks for the information. There's no discrepancy between the account balance and the balance in the left-hand column.

After having to recreate my entire Quicken file due to a power outage that blew out my hard drive (and backup drives) to the point of nothing being recoverable by data recovery experts, its really daunting that the only way to "fix" problems in quicken is to go back to a file from before the "error" and re-entering all the data that has occurred since that file was "backed up".

So, I tried the two "validate & repair" options you provided. No impact. The reconcile function still says that the balance in Quicken differs from the paper statement by $50 - that is, that Quicken has $50 less than is reported on the paper statement - even with 1) having the same number of items with the exact same amounts and 2) the previous month's statement balancing perfectly with the Quicken program. Now I'm wondering if an update has a problem. What's the best way to get this information over to R&D so they can check their coding for cross-contamination (or, whatever it's called in the computer industry). Thanks!