Reconciled balance keeps changing

Question

I was reconciling my bank account last week and found the opening balance to be incorrect.  I finally found the issue and got it back to the correct balance.

Now I'm going back to finish reconciling and it is off again, this time by a different amount.  I don't understand why this keeps happening.  My computer has been turned off since yesterday morning.

I'm running Quicken Classic Premier vR56.9, build 27.1.56.9

Windows 10 Home

Version	22H2

Installed on	‎10/‎7/‎2020

OS build	19045.4412

Experience	Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.19056.1000.0

Michael Rosen · Answer

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20435777#Comment_20435777

Yeah, I think I'm following you.  I sorted the CLR column and checked the balance at the last R.  Prior to today I had entered missing transactions and marked them reconciled to correct the opening reconciled balance.  I didn't change anything else.  I had also found a duplicate transaction that had been marked as reconciled but should not have.

q_lurker · Answer

Just to be clear on the semantics, Opening Balance is the first, the earliest, transaction in an account.  It is the amount that the account starts with within Quicken.  For unestablished reasons, in some cases downloading transactions will alter that initial entry messing up the ensuing balances in the account and causing reconciliation problems.  This bug has led to a common recommendation to enter the correct opening balance figure in the memo field of that Opening Balance transaction for reference when needed.  (I happen to have all my Opening Balance values at $0.)

When reconciling a checking account manually to a paper statement, Quicken prompts with the "Prior Balance".  That is (should be) the value of the account at the end of the last reconciliation, often at the end of the month.  As @NotACPA notes, Quicken presents a newly computed value reflecting all 'R' transactions in the account.

Both balance values have been problematic at times for various users.  I think @Michael Rosen is referring to the "Opening Balance" value and change issue.

NotACPA · Answer

The  Opening Balance in a Reconciliation isn't a stored figure … it's calculated as the sum of all transactions in the account that have an "R" in the CLR column.

SO, if you manually set, or unset that R, or

add or delete an R transaction, or

delete the other side of an  R transaction, that Opening Balance will be changed.