Enabling Online Services Changed Account Balance
I have credit union checking and savings accounts in Q. For reasons possibly relevant but not described here I disabled Online Services over a year ago. i tried adding these to the ~25 accounts already enabled for Online Services.
The tool to enable
Online Services: 1) found the accounts at the CU,
2) matched them to the existing accounts in Q, and 3) downloaded a large number
of historical transactions for matching and acceptance (or deletion). HOWEVER, I immediately noticed the
Account balances were no longer correct before any downloaded transactions (new
or matched) were touched.
I took a number of steps trying to understand and fix this, including
· Reverting to a backup copy of my QDF and trying again, with the same result.
· Sorting transactions by Cleared/Reconciled status trying to find new transactions.
· Searching this blog didn’t help,
· Calling Q tech support (reference 10027830), spending over two hours with a very patient person (thanks!) who remote linked to my computer. We tried several things, including…
o ran a validation,
o tried enabling Online Services with the same result, then
o deleted the Q software and containing folder and downloaded a fresh current copy of the program.
Working with the Q tech the One Step Updates were agonizingly slow: I un-selected cloud sync, I used end-task to terminate the update in process a couple of times to try again, until I finally thanked the technician and gave up.
I decided to try one more thing – I created PDF copies of the Account register from each data file to compare and see if I could find what was changing. The reports ran 335 pages so I didn’t print them and didn’t think I could stand looking for a needle in the hay stack.
Fortunately, starting with the first register transactions the cause was immediately apparent: the Opening Balance in the versions differed by the exact amount the current balances differed, i.e., the only discrepancy was in the Opening Balance.
I have no idea why Q was changing the Opening Balance when Online Services were enabled. Corrective action: an annotated adjusting entry dated just before the Opening Balance, making the current account balances match the accounts at the CU.
Maybe someone else would have figure this out more easily, but this post may help someone else with the problem, and maybe Q support can suggest this check when someone calls in for help.
FWIW, I’ve been using Q since the days of DOS, currently Q version R47.15 (build 27.1.47.15) on a PC with Windows 10 (OS build 19045.2486). I archived my pre-2000 data several years ago and my current data file is 341,272kb.
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Update:Today Q seemed to confuse my Credit Union accounts with a USAA credit card account that requires 2FA. When One Step Update got to the CU account it asked which phone number to send the code to, and instead of from the CU, I received a message from USAA with a code which when entered didn't work. The accounts in the account bar changed to have a red circle with line through it next to their names.I deactivated Online Services for the two CU accounts, reactivated and THE OPENING BALANCES WERE CHANGED, again! However this time just in the checking account, not the savings.I reset the Opening Balance to the value before I tired linking, then deactivated and re-activated Online Services. This time the opening balances didn't change and no transactions downloaded. I did a One Step Update of just the account and then another of all the accounts, without being asked for 2FA for the CU account.The current balance in the account is correct again, after resetting the account's Opening balance. However, if this keeps up I will go back to manual updates, and gremlins like this make me question Q's program integrity.0