Online account reconciliations are terrible

mmercer

i've been using this product for years. I'm so sick and tired of these online reconciliations making adjustments to my balances. I can no longer trust that what I see in my Quicken register is going to be the correct balance on any given day. Seems to work OK with credit cards with far fewer transactions, however, my checking account which I do all my purchases on using my debit card to avoid credit card debt rarely works out. [Removed-Solicitation]

Boatnmaniac

Which bank is your checking account with?

Which connection method is it set up with….Direct Connect, Express Web Connect or Express Web Connect+?

When do you usually furn OSU….mornings, afternoons or evenings or does the time of day vary?

How frequently do you run OSU?

(BTW, this is a Quicken website. If anyone does respond with any competitor's software there is a high probability that it will be quickly deleted.)

Rocket J Squirrel

• "Doctor, it hurts when I do this!"
• "Don't do that."

Seriously, online reconciliation is fraught with issues. I also see my opening balances change when I try it. But I don't use it in real life, only to test.

I recommend reconciling against statements, never online.

Boatnmaniac

I do not recall ever seeing a situation where reconciling to online balance caused an opening balance change. I only see that happen once in a great while when I deactive/reactivate or change the connection method. I use reconcile to online balance everytime I run OSU which is 1X-2X per day and I have done that for years in 4 (used to be 5) different data files. I would never go back to manual reconciliation as long as I can reconcile to online balance.

And in fact I only look at dowloaded or paper statements for a just a few of my accounts about 1X/year….when preparing tax returns.

That all being said, there have been some "timing" issues and pending transaction issues with some financial institutions and mostliy with EWC and EWC+ connections but which can also sometimes happen with DC connections. Understanding the answers to the questions I asked can help to provide some insight into which issue(s) are being encountered and perhaps a method to keep reconciling to online balance working reasonably well.

mmercer

My primary checking account is with Bank of America, where I have most of my issues. With BOA I am setup using (Express Web Connect+)

mmercer

In addition, when I have printed out my transactions from the BOA website, they match up fine. What concerns me the most is that I cannot tie the adjustment amount to specific transactions. I don't know why the balance seems to be mysteriously just decreasing. How do I categorize an unexplainable adjustment? It also appears that if it were a timing issue, the adjustment would reverse when I do my next update.

Boatnmaniac

@mmercer - Did this issue start when you reauthorized your BOA account(s) from EWC to EWC+?

Or did it start when you had done a Reset Account or a Deactivate/Reactivate of your account(s)?