re: Reconciling brokerage accounts = no reconciliation history?

ZerMunde

When a bank account is reconciled, a reconciliation history is generated that can be accessed under the "Accounts -->Reconciliation History… " menu.

When a brokerage account is reconciled, there is no reconciliation history generated like a bank account. Is this an oversight or bug?

QMAC Version 6.10.3 running on macOS 13.0.1

Mark1104

@ZerMunde - it is not an oversight or a bug; it is not part of the design.

you can go under "online center" and check that the brokerage account reconciles by security.  

what type of reconcilation history are you looking for and for what purpose?  the cash transactions? all the trade transactions between two dates? 

ZerMunde

@Mark1104 – Thanks for the input. Traditionally, every account (bank accounts, CC accounts, brokerage accounts) can be reconciled each month by a user. QMAC catalogs these monthly reconciliations and they can be reviewed under "Accounts -->Reconciliation History… " Except for brokerage accounts which do not archive the reconciliations apparently. This is not consistent IMO and it would be an improvement if brokerage reconciliations were archived in the "Reconciliation History…" menu.

I believe the "Online Center" you reference is found under "Window-->Connectivity Status" in QMAC. An account can be reconciled regardless if it's connected online or not. Online connectivity is not necessary to keep accounts accurate – a user may prefer to input transactions manually.

Having the reconciliation history available can help keep accounts accurate. A user can easily see when an account was last reconciled and keep consistent with 12 reconciles/year. If a user hasn't reconciled a brokerage account for a few months, without the history, they have to decipher what month they need to start with based on unchecked transactions. Not super difficult, but it would be faster to reference the reconciliation history. Also, the history provides a sort of stamp of completion – a user will never wonder if a monthly reconcile was completed as there is a record of each month's reconciliation; and they match the statements from the bank, brokerage, or CC.

And if a problem arises, say a user accidentally deletes a transaction from years ago, throwing off the balance, referencing the reconciliation history can pinpoint exactly where the error is in the timeline (there will be a discrepancy in one of the prior reconciles). The error can be fixed by re-adding the deleted transaction. This is a very simplistic example but having the reconciliation history available can aid in resolving issues quickly.

Mark1104

I see your point, but the software is 'working as designed' - 

jacobs

@ZerMunde The capability to save a history of reconciliations is a relatively recent addition to Quicken Mac: it was added to in version 6.1 in January 2021. But it was built to handle banking accounts. Investment accounts are organized differently; even though banking transactions are allowed within investment accounts, the developers didn't build a reconciliation history for investment accounts. There have been discussions about whether people just want to reconcile the cash balance, as is currently allowed, or to alternatively reconcile share balances/values. 

There is an Idea post — feature request — to add this capability for investment accounts; you should add your vote for that Idea (clicking the arrow under the vote counter in the yellow box). I'd note that the thread has not received votes from the user community; more users will need to add votes to advance this idea to the development team.

ZerMunde

@jacobs Thanks for the information. It's unfortunate QMAC didn't maintain legacy features like across-the-board reconciliation histories that existed for decades in prior versions. When reconciling a brokerage account, a user should be able to match exactly what is seen on a brokerage statement. So cash transactions, buys, sells, splits, etc. If you can't check off all transactions, why bother reconciling? I only recently upgraded so I haven't had a chance to delve into all accounts and transactions, but confirming developers skipped the reconcile history for brokerage accounts is disappointing.

jacobs

ZerMunde said:

It's unfortunate QMAC didn't maintain legacy features like across-the-board reconciliation histories that existed for decades in prior versions.

Keep in mind that they didn't maintain anything; they started over for scratch. So re-creating functionality which existing in the legacy version requires that it be built anew in the modern version. And it's certainly fair to wish for such functionality; that's why I referred you to the exiting feature request for this. The issue is that users have more than 500 feature requests, and the developers can only execute on all those requests slowly. 

You absolutely can reconcile your cash transactions, just as you would do in a banking account. There's a reconcile button in the bottom menu, and it works that same as for banking accounts; you enter the ending cash balance, then check off the cleared transactions, and assure your reconciliation zeros out; when you finish, the transactions get the free reconcile checkmark in the Clr column. The only thing you don't get is a recorded history of which transactions were reconciled month by month.

I don't find it hard to reconcile my brokerage statements to my Quicken accounts. Set the Portfolio view to Portfolio Value by Security, and set the "Data as of" date to the ending date of your statement; then check each security holding between Quicken and the brokerage statement. I do this every month or quarter, depending on the brokerage. No, I can't check off transactions or store the ending balance, but I nonetheless reconcile. I keep paper or digital copies of the brokerage statements, so I can revisit any time period should I need to. I'm not arguing against some form of reconciliation of holdings or reconciliation history — I'm just saying I haven't found the absence of those features to be problematic for my investment accounts.