Can't Reconcile a Cash Account. Launches the Update Balance window.

Joe_Sykes

Quicken Business & Personal b55.26. Attempt to reconcile a cash account by cntrl+r OR Tools / Reconcile an Account… incorrectly launches the Update Balance window. No access to the Reconcile Account window for a Cash Account.

UserDavidC

I believe this is the correct behavior.

I believe the developers assumed that a cash account would never have a typical statement and therefore there was no need to do a reconcile.

NotACPA

To "reconcile" is to compare, the expected (per a statement/online) to the observed.

For a Cash account, there's nothing to compare to … thus you can only update the balance to what you've observed/counted.

mshiggins

I agree that it makes no sense to "reconcile" an account which has no real world counterpart to reconcile to.

But I think Quicken could make it easier to denote the fact that a user has determined the accuracy of such accounts.

I suggest the Update Balance dialog be improved to:
a.) Provide a check box to confirm the account balance is correct as of the "Adjustment date" (so no amount need be entered by the user, and no Adjustment transaction need be created by Quicken).
b.) Provide an option to have Quicken mark transactions on (and before) the "Adjustment date" as "Reconciled".

-JP

Joe_Sykes

Thanks for comments all. Appreciate @mshiggins idea. The fact that a user is in a Cash account and clicks on the “Reconcile” function and Quicken launches the “Update Balance” window when the Update Balance function is also available to the user in a Cash account is inconsistent GUI and seems unnecessarily redundant.

NotACPA

I like idea B, of @mshiggins, but I fail to see how option A adds anything that marking the transactions as "reconciled" thru a particular date doesn't have the same effect.

And, as previously stated, since you CAN'T truly reconcile a cash account, "Update Balance" is the proper verbiage.

mshiggins

" ... I fail to see how option A adds anything that marking the transactions as "reconciled" thru a particular date doesn't have the same effect."

My suggestions aren't about simply achieving results that can already beachieved by other means: they're about achieving those results with far less effort.

If the user knows that the cash account balance is correct as of a certain date, there should be no need to enter the balance amount - the account is already "in balance" on the adjustment date. 

[I probably should also have mentioned that the Update Balance dialog updates the Account List "Last reconcile date" - which in my opinion adds to the value of the Update Balance process. Just manually marking the transactions as reconciled will not update the "Last reconcile date" in the Account List.]

For comparison:

The current process to "reconcile" a cash/asset/liability account is:
- Initiate the "reconcile" (Update Balance) dialog
- Key the "new balance" amount
- Key (or select) the "adjustment date"
- Key the category
- Click OK
If the user wants the correct transactions to have their Cleared Status changed to "R", the user must:
- Select the transactions whose Cleared Status should be changed to "R"
- Right-click a selected transaction
- Choose Reconcile status in the dropdown
- Click "Reconciled" in the resulting dropdown menu

In those situations when the balance was already correct on the "adjustment date", the register will now have an unnecessary balance adjustment record with an amount of $0.00.

If the option to tell Quicken that the balance on the "adjustment date" is already correct, the process to reconcile a cash/asset/liability account becomes:
- Initiate the "reconcile" (Update Balance) dialog
- Key the "adjustment date"
- Check the box "balance is already correct on adjustment date"
If the user wants the confirmed correct transactions to have a Cleared Status of "R":
- Check the (new proposed option) box to have Quicken make the Cleared Status, "R" for all the approved transactions (unreconciled transactions on, or before, the "adjustment date")
- Click OK

No balance to key, no category to key, no transactions to select and modify - and a correct "Last reconcile date" in the Account List.

To me that's a significant amount of effort saved to achieve the same (or better) result.
The account balance has been determined to be accurate, the transactions that made up that balance are marked "R", and the Account List reflects the date of the "reconcile".

[Quicken could also allow the designation of the balance adjustment category for all balance adjustments (or all adjustments in each cash/asset/liability account). A transfer back into the same account, for example, would work and be consistent with other Quicken adjustments.]


And as for the comment that " ... since you CAN'T truly reconcile a cash account, "Update Balance" is the proper verbiage": I already acknowledged that you can't truly reconcile a cash account, and I made no attempt to call for using different verbiage to refer to updating the balance of an account (even putting the word "reconcile" in quotes when I remembered to do so). Also note that despite the fact that you can't truly reconcile a cash account, the Cleared Status for transactions in cash accounts still has the choice "Reconciled" ... just like every other account, including those accounts that CAN be truly "reconciled".
My comments were/are strictly about trying to improve the update balance process.

-JP