2 issues. Opening balance changed, reconciliation beginning balance wrong again

tjrob2000

I've done some searching here and it appears the first issue is ongoing with Quicken. I'm a bit behind on my personal account, but last reconciled in February. At that time the beginning balance was off 490.24. I couldn't find any errors, withdrawals and deposits all matched, so I let quicken make the adjustment. I started reconciling March today and the beginning balance is off by exactly $183.00, yet deposits/withdrawals match. I went back to February and the adjustment amount and found that was the opening balance amount, but the opening balance shows as a payment, not a deposit. This account was opened in 2015. I don't know how the opening balance gets changed to a payment. When I change it to a deposit and then subsequently remove the adjustment (which was recorded as a deposit) it throws the beginning balance off an additional $490.24. I know changing the opening balance from payment to deposit is a $980.48 shift, but how do I correct this along with the reconciliation balance being wrong?

splasher

The opening balance of the reconcile is the sum total of all of the R transactions in the register and is calculated at the time of reconciliation and not stored for future reference.

What could change that # is one of the following:

1. a blank or C was changed to a R
2. an R was changed to a blank or C
3. the amount of an R was changed
4. a new transaction was marked R to begin with
5. a R transaction was deleted

So, something changed.

The opening balance of your account should never need changing unless you delete some historical transactions to keep the ending balance the same, so the current advice is to enter the correct account opening balance in the memo field of the opening balance transaction for future reference.

gawws

I have been suffering with this behavior for nearly a year. On a live support call last month, Quicken admitted this is a bug they have not been able to fix. I was given an incident ticket number and told to wait. I am awestruck by how this data integrity issue is allowed to continue, and this is undoubtedly a comment on the Quicken team and owner. Unfortunately, there is really no alternative to Quicken that has the features I need, so I have documented the opening balance of the multitude of accounts. And then after every update, I manually correct the opening balance.

StaticWater

Just happened to me. I reconcile to the penny monthly. When reconciling an Amex statement just now, it was off by $1,600.59. I found that the opening balance for the account (the very first entry in the register made over a year ago) had mysteriously changed from $0.00 to $1,600.59. I never touched the opening balance, nor did I download or add any transactions of that amount. WOW.

TeriFL

This is happening to me every month, but only on one of my accounts. I finally gave up and just took the balance adjustment. I use Quicken for reports but not for how much I have in the account. Why haven't they fixed this??!!!

tjrob2000

I've checked for any R's or C's being changed and found none. When I open the reconciliation window the number of debits and credits match. The dollar amounts match as well. The first answer still does not tell me why the opening balance would change to a payment. This isn't something we'd do.

Ps56k2

the suggestion is to make an entry in the Memo field of the Beginning Balance … enter the actual beginning balance of each account as a safeguard - to be able to go back, compare, and resolve

tjrob2000

I just restored (as a copy) a backup from 1/17/23 and the opening balance shows $0 with a deposit the following entry. There is no entry for $490.24. How did Quicken change this? I might try doing an update, but that will be tedious.

splasher

Did you just re-activate the online download connection? Are you using QMobile/Q-Web? Either one can cause a change in the Opening Balance through no fault of the users. It is a Quicken design issue that is taking forever to fix.

tjrob2000

> @splasher said:
> Did you just re-activate the online download connection? Are you using QMobile/Q-Web? Either one can cause a change in the Opening Balance through no fault of the users. It is a Quicken design issue that is taking forever to fix.

No. I haven't updated the connection in a long time. I made the opening balance $0 as it should be and removed the one adjustment. May just have to take the adjustment on the reconciliation since I can't find the discrepancy.

splasher

I know it is more work in the future, but I came across a user that entered a $0 transaction at the end of the month with the current balance in the memo field. That way in the future, if the shown balance did not agree with the Memo recorded balance, they knew the issue was prior to that point and looking back until they agreed, helped find the cause.

I am considering doing this myself, but maybe at the quarterly or semi-annual points, but definitely at the end of the year.