Reconcile problem
Hi there, I'm new with Quicken, but I see that transactions reconciliated are not blocked. At anytime, you can modify, cancel any conciliated transaction!! Am I alone to see that like a real bug? Reconciliate option must secure all transcations of a period, to avoid any modifiaction or cancellation error, right? Thanks for your help !
Answers
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Quicken lets you shoot yourself in the foot, in this regard. What's more nothing is "locked down" this isn't an accounting program that will have audit trails and systems for preventing the changing of the history.
About all you have in that regard is these preferences:
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Many thanks Chris for your comment - Your tips is also very good!!
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Someone mentioned something in another thread that I had forgot about and that is you can set a "Transaction password", that should block changing transaction before a certain date.
File → Set Password for modifying transactions…
See this thread, where the behavior of it changed some time recently, but it will still block the first attempt per session:
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@Chris_QPW , appreciate you sharing, I have learnt something new.
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Suggestion to Quicken:
Apply the same safeguards/notifications against changing reconciled transactions to let us know when Quicken changes a reconciled Opening Balance transaction!
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@Jim_Harman but why ever change the reconciled Opening Balance, there should never be a need to do so.
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200% agree! It’s a big source of error. And why calling « reconcile « if it’s not the exact definition and parameter of a reconcile standard option ? For pleasure? It’s really a bug in my opinion.
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I think most people know about this setting and have it set:
So, why has can the Opening Balance be changed with notification even though this setting is on?
One has to understand that there isn't some kind of "security system" in place like might be built into a true accounting problem that prevents "anything" from changing a record. What Quicken is doing is while the user tries to change something there will be a check for that setting or the password just before they do operation. This very "top level".
Whereas "code" has no such restrictions. For instance, Sync to Mobile/Web can pretty much change anything it wants without notifying the user. Most likely the same goes for all One Step Update operations.
So, basically calls to put in a password for changing reconcile would be just as ineffective on solving the Opening Balance change bug as the setting above is without some major infrastructure changes to Quicken.
There is actually a need to set the Opening Balance, but it seems like there must be some kind of complications in this implementation because all Quicken Inc's attempts to fix this problem have failed. And they also haven't taken my suggestion on what should be done (which probably means that either I don't understand the underline code, or they don't or both).
Why is Quicken setting the Opening Balance in the first place?
Imagine that you setup an account for downloading, and it is older account and not all the transactions download. If there are transactions in that account before the first one downloaded, then the Opening Balance isn't zero (note if this account already had transactions in it, then they might be using those in the calculation too, I'm not sure).
What Quicken gets in that first download are the transactions and the current Online Balance for those transactions. And what Quicken does is back calculate the Opening Balance from the Online Balance using the transaction amounts. And then sets the Opening Balance based on that.
Quite a few things popup from this idea that scream "why in this situation?"
Why not only put in the Opening Balance if none is there? (maybe because a step before like when creating an offline account already put one there) Maybe they just feel like they should "help the user".
Why does this bug mostly come up with someone resets the account or deactivates/reactivates? Most likely because it runs the same code as the original create.
My suggestion for this problem has always been to change the code so that it ALWAYS asks if the Opening Balance it is about to set is correct and let the user cancel adding/changing it. But either because pig headiness or fear of changing that code they have never done that.
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Can this problem not be addressed by making sure the first download is done with the user specifying a start date that matches the first account entry date — I know my bank has the feature — with all subsequent downloads being "since teh last download"?
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How far back transactions can be downloaded for the first time for that automatic downloading connection types is determined by the financial institution. A typical number is 90 days. Most people outside of the Canadian version are doing this kind of downloading, not downloading a Web Connect/QFX file where you might state the start/end.
In fact, whenever people start up one of the first questions they have is "How do I get all of my transactions…" and the answer is to use Web Connect/QFX to back fill, but that is a "shallow" answer because these days most financial institutions don't support Web Connect/QFX.
Personally, I don't know why this is such a hard problem to solve, but then again, I haven't seen Quicken's code, I would bet it is a nighmare.
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@Chris_QPW I tend to agree that the code is likely a mess. That said, when I setup an account I login to my bank and select the start date of the download to avid this exact problem and the login a second time and change the setting to "since last download" and it seems to work for me.
I think the approach I use is simpler and provides the user more control, but other may feel differently.
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