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Why is my HELOC balance changing?

Cobra53

I have a HELOC that I am tracking in Quicken Classic Premier. I am paying it down in chunks with an account that I am not tracking in Quicken, so I am using an account that is under "separate accounts". I was not too worried about the balance in that separate accounts since my thinking was its a one-time transaction.

The challenge is when I recorded a payment to decrease the HELOC balance, every so often, the HELOC balance goes back up but the balance in the separate account stays the same (higher). So I tried it again, the HELOC goes down, the transaction in the separate account is now double, and this cycle keeps repeating with the separate account now higher and higher.

I can't make any changes in the HELOC account - meaning, I can't go in a adjust the balance but I also can't make a payment directly in that account either, which is why I am using the separate account, but its not working.

Why does the separate account keep going up and the HELOC balance changes?? Even though the separate account is not showing up in my reports, its now a matter of principal why this is happening.

HELP!! The software has the most current version.

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Accepted answers

UKR

Is that HELOC account connected to the bank for transaction downloading?
It might be best if the account were maintained "offline", deactivated from the bank.
Manually record all payments, withdrawals, interest and fee transactions.

Reconcile your HELOC register with the monthly statements sent to you by the bank, to keep it in sync with the bank balance.

And you can totally skip that separate account.
Whenever you make payment to reduce the HELOC balance or draw more funds from it, categorize this transaction as a "transfer to itself", i.e., as a transfer to the name of the HELOC register, surrounded by [square brackets], instead of the name of the [separate account register]. When Quicken asks if you want to do that, just confirm it.

All comments

UKR

Reconcile your HELOC register with the monthly statements sent to you by the bank, to keep it in sync with the bank balance.

Cobra53

Thanks UKR for your response. I'll have to double check if the HELOC is linked to my bank - I don't remember linking it, but it does not show me a "check register" so that I can enter transactions. To be honest, that doesn't make sense to me because, as you said, if I am borrowing from the HELOC or making a payment, it does not show me where I can do that. The only thing I can do, is from another account (because I don't have a register on the HELOC as previously mentioned), I can enter the HELOC account in brackets to adjust the balance which is why I was using that separate account.

That was "working" until, when I would make a $5k payment to the HELOC, I saw that the balance would go back up on the HELOC, but that separate account would grow.

Thanks for the suggestion on unlinking but again, I don't believe I did. The only other thing I can think of is creating a new HELOC account, make sure its not linked, and then move the payments over to that new account and disable the one I am having issues with. I'll try it on a copied Quicken file in the event things don't go as planned, it won't mess with my "master" Quicken file.

Would appreciate any other suggestions…

Cobra53

HUGE shoutout to UKR!! It turns out the HELOC account was linked to the bank?! The account goes back to 2007 so I probably did forget that I had linked it. SO, I deactivated the link, and guess what: the register popped up!! NOW I CAN MAKE CHANGES TO THE ACCOUNT!!

I can't tell you the relief! Thank you very much for your help.