Check Register

Pharmer Larry

What is the difference in green or blue check marks in register?

jacobs

For the majority of Quicken users, who download transactions from their bank, the downloaded transactions appear with the blue Cleared checkmark. Which makes sense when you think of what it's showing you: in the real world account the transaction has cleared the bank, which is why it's available for your bank to download to Quicken; once downloaded, Quicken mirrors the real world by showing the transaction is Cleared with the blue checkmark.

For the smaller number of Quicken users who enter transactions manually and don't download them, marking transactions as cleared is entirely optional when entering the transactions. I enter transactions manually and don't mark them cleared until I do a reconciliation. On the reconciliation screen, as I check my bank statement versus the transactions in Quicken, I click the Cleared box to get a blue checkmark for each transaction that appears on the bank statement. Any transactions I've entered but which aren't on the bank statement remain white, because they weren't cleared as of the statement date.

In both cases, when you complete your reconciliation, making sure the blue-checked transactions match your bank statement and Quicken shows a $0 difference between the statement balance and your Quicken balance, clicking Finish in the reconcile window turns all the blue checkmarks into green checkmarks. (It is possible to override Quicken to create or remove a green checkmark, but it's generally not advisable as it could throw your reconciliation history out of whack.)

jacobs

@Pharmer Larry If you manually enter your transactions, as I do, you should do what I wrote above:

• Enter transactions manually; don't put any mark in the Clr column.
• When you get your monthly bank statement, start a reconciliation by clicking the option to "Use statement balance" and entering the ending balance from the statement. No transactions on the reconcile screen should have any check mark when you start.
• Go through the bank statement line by line, and identify the same transaction in Quicken and click the Clr box to create a blue checkmark to indicate the transaction cleared.
• When you get through all the transactions on the statement, clicking them cleared in Quicken, the top of your reconcile screen should show Difference = 0 in green.
• If there are any transactions remaining in Quicken where the Clr column has no checkbox, that's because they don't appear on the bank statement and didn't clear during the statement period. They'll be available to clear when you do the next monthly reconciliation.
• Click Finish, and all the blue checkmarks will change into green checkmarks.

Note, this process should go smoothly if your prior months were correctly reconciled. If not, you may need to create som adjustments or clear some transactions which should have previously been cleared just to get to a point where the right transactions are marked cleared at the end of one month, so you can do a clean reconciliation the following month.

If you haven't reconciled regularly since you created the account in Quicken, or if your Reconciliation History shows errors for prior months and things are a mess, you've got to take steps to get to a clean reconciliation you can maintain in future months. The sort of "nuclear option" is to go to Reconciliation History and click the Clear History button to delete your entire reconciliation history; then do a reconciliation as of the prior month's statement, clicking the Mark All As Cleared to clear every transaction from the beginning of time through the end of that month, so you can start clean doing the next month's reconciliation. (You may need to enter an adjustment transaction or adjust the opening balance transaction to get your balance correct and your reconciliation totaling zero.) I suggest if you're going to try this that you save a backup before you start, in case you end up making things worse instead of better! 😉

Jon

A blue check mark is a cleared transaction, a green check mark is a reconciled transaction.

Pharmer Larry

What is the difference between a cleared transaction and a reconciled transaction?

Thank You

NotACPA

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20408589#Comment_20408589

A cleared transaction has cleared your bank. A Reconciled transaction has been reconciled, by you, after clearing the bank.

Jon

A cleared transaction is one where the money has been transferred. For example, you write me a check, I cash the check at my bank, and then my bank contacts your bank to get the money from your account. The check isn't cleared until the final step is complete.

jacobs

For the majority of Quicken users, who download transactions from their bank, the downloaded transactions appear with the blue Cleared checkmark. Which makes sense when you think of what it's showing you: in the real world account the transaction has cleared the bank, which is why it's available for your bank to download to Quicken; once downloaded, Quicken mirrors the real world by showing the transaction is Cleared with the blue checkmark.

For the smaller number of Quicken users who enter transactions manually and don't download them, marking transactions as cleared is entirely optional when entering the transactions. I enter transactions manually and don't mark them cleared until I do a reconciliation. On the reconciliation screen, as I check my bank statement versus the transactions in Quicken, I click the Cleared box to get a blue checkmark for each transaction that appears on the bank statement. Any transactions I've entered but which aren't on the bank statement remain white, because they weren't cleared as of the statement date.

In both cases, when you complete your reconciliation, making sure the blue-checked transactions match your bank statement and Quicken shows a $0 difference between the statement balance and your Quicken balance, clicking Finish in the reconcile window turns all the blue checkmarks into green checkmarks. (It is possible to override Quicken to create or remove a green checkmark, but it's generally not advisable as it could throw your reconciliation history out of whack.)

Pharmer Larry

Wow No I wonder I am having major problem. I manually enter all my transactions and balance my check book each month however, many of my transactions have blue check marks with a few green ones scattered throughout my register. What should I be doing?

Thanks, Larry

jacobs

@Pharmer Larry If you manually enter your transactions, as I do, you should do what I wrote above:

• Enter transactions manually; don't put any mark in the Clr column.
• When you get your monthly bank statement, start a reconciliation by clicking the option to "Use statement balance" and entering the ending balance from the statement. No transactions on the reconcile screen should have any check mark when you start.
• Go through the bank statement line by line, and identify the same transaction in Quicken and click the Clr box to create a blue checkmark to indicate the transaction cleared.
• When you get through all the transactions on the statement, clicking them cleared in Quicken, the top of your reconcile screen should show Difference = 0 in green.
• If there are any transactions remaining in Quicken where the Clr column has no checkbox, that's because they don't appear on the bank statement and didn't clear during the statement period. They'll be available to clear when you do the next monthly reconciliation.
• Click Finish, and all the blue checkmarks will change into green checkmarks.

Note, this process should go smoothly if your prior months were correctly reconciled. If not, you may need to create som adjustments or clear some transactions which should have previously been cleared just to get to a point where the right transactions are marked cleared at the end of one month, so you can do a clean reconciliation the following month.

If you haven't reconciled regularly since you created the account in Quicken, or if your Reconciliation History shows errors for prior months and things are a mess, you've got to take steps to get to a clean reconciliation you can maintain in future months. The sort of "nuclear option" is to go to Reconciliation History and click the Clear History button to delete your entire reconciliation history; then do a reconciliation as of the prior month's statement, clicking the Mark All As Cleared to clear every transaction from the beginning of time through the end of that month, so you can start clean doing the next month's reconciliation. (You may need to enter an adjustment transaction or adjust the opening balance transaction to get your balance correct and your reconciliation totaling zero.) I suggest if you're going to try this that you save a backup before you start, in case you end up making things worse instead of better! 😉