Getting negative balance in Wells Fargo Checking after updating from Express Web Connect

Scotsman

I transitioned to the new system and found that the balances in my checking account were listed as negative (all red). The negative (red) balance was close to the actual positive balance. I cannot understand what happened. I had to restore a previous file from backup which means I will have to go thorough the authorization process with Wells Fargo again. Quicken R53.26, Windows 11.

Boatnmaniac

Before you go through the reauthorization to EWC+, again, you might want to enter & save the Opening Balance transaction dollar amount into the Memo field of that transaction. Do this for all WF accounts you have. Then backup your data file. Sometimes changing the connection method of an account will change the Opening Balance transaction dollar amount so doing this will make it fast and easy to determine if that has happened and to correct it if it has.

If after completing the reauthorizaton you still have account balance issues:

1. Scroll through the account register looking for duplicate transactions. If you find any, keep one and delete the other. When duplicates are entered into the register they will usually be within the last 90 days.
2. If the account balance is still not accurate, scroll through the register looking for a 2nd Opening Balance transaction that does not have the dollar amount entered into the Memo field. If you find one, delete it.

Let me know if this resolved the balance issue or not.

Scotsman

By opening balance do we mean the inception of the account? That could be the cause of the problem, as I have been using Quicken for Windows since 1999, and the earliest transactions go back that far (and I have no real reason to track them). I just discovered that the original opening balance is listed as zero on the register. Is it feasible to back up my current account for this calendar year only, or to save it for only the past three years, in order to "clean out the attic" of all of those old transactions?

Boatnmaniac

Yes, the Opening Balance transaction of an account is the very 1st transaction in the Account Register. It should actually say "Opening Balance" for the Payee. If the original Opening Balance dollar amount was $0 but if after reauthorizing it shows some other dollar amount it means that you should correct it to show $0, again.

Yes, it is possible to archive older data so that what remains in the main data file is only more recent data. You can read up on how to do this at https://help.quicken.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=17891968. You might find the section about Create a year-end archive to be most applicable to you since it talks about how to select a custom starting date for the data you wish to keep, not just about creating a year-end archive. NOTE: Be sure to backup your data file before you do this because if you make a mistake it will permanently remove data that afterward you might wish you had kept. The backup file gives you the opportunity to put everything back to the way it was before archiving if you don't like the results of the archiving process.

It's a personal choice as to whether or not to remove older data from the data file. I and many others find retaining the complete old history in the data file to be nice, if not necessary, for things like tracking Net Worth, old tax data records, old and current loans history/payoffs, investments history (including lots and cost basis history), etc. But each person needs to decide what it is about Quicken that they find to be valuable and important. As for me, I found out the hard way a long time ago that archiving data resulted in permanent loss of some data that I later found out would have been really good to have kept, so I will not ever do archiving again unless I have absolutely no choice.

Scotsman

Perhaps the Opening Balance of 0 had something to do with the negative balances I got later. This account has been though quite a few iterations due to bank mergers. It was originally South Trust, then Wachovia, and finally Wells Fargo. It might be a good idea to see if I can locate the opening balance when it all transitioned to Wells Fargo.

volvogirl

Yes check the Wells Fargo opening balance. Did you setup a new WF account or just kept using the same account and changed the name? If you find the right opening balance for WF you can edit it. Sometimes the opening balance gets changed to zero so also put the real balance in the memo line so you can fix it if it happens again.

Boatnmaniac

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20404264#Comment_20404264

If you have an older backup file you could restore that (save it to a different file name to prevent it from overwriting your main data file) to see what that account's Opening Balance showed there. That Opening Balance is likely going to be correct and you should be able to use that dollar amount to edit the Opening Balance dollar amount after the reauthorization process is completed.

Scotsman

It looks like the problem was solved with the latest Quicken update—the negative balances are now positive, and accurate. I also deleted the 0 Opening Balance and left the 1999 balance (immediately below it) intact. My Quicken files are huge, since I first began using Quicken for Windows in1994.