Why is my newly added credit card account changing my bank account balance?

Tseab

I have added a credit card account to my Quicken file and upon uploading my credit card transactions, my reconciled bank account balance has changed. Are these linked and if so, can I unlink them?

volvogirl

If you downloaded any payments that were paid from the checking account it probably made it a Transfer transaction.  But you already had the payments entered into the checking account.  What category are on those?  You might need to delete the original payment transactions in the checking account and use the Transfer ones.

To enter credit card....

The proper way is to set up a credit card ACCOUNT and enter the charges into it when the purchase is made and assigning it to a category. The transactions need to be entered with the date you charged it, not the date you pay the credit card bill.

Then when you pay the bill you TRANSFER the payment from your checking account to the credit card account. Then when you download the payment from the bank you match it to the one you already entered.  Then your credit card account should match what you actually owe at any time.

When you enter the payment in your checking account you put the credit card account name in for the category using square brackets around the name to indicate it is a transfer...like this… [credit card] or newer versions have a Transfer column.

Tseab

Ouch. Not the answer I was hoping to get. I have my bank account reconciled for the past 5 years and only now want to add the 2022-only credit card account I have had for 10+ years. Surely there must be a way to prevent this from happening so that the balances are correct in both accounts.

volvogirl

Shouldn't be hard.  Just delete the duplicate payments from the checking account.  Like 12 payments in 2022.  Or when does the credit card account start?  OR change the category on the credit card account payments to go to the same category as the payment in the checking account.  That's probably the best way.   But the next time you pay a credit card bill transfer the payment to the credit card account.