Cleared Balance not correct when Reconciling

Adrienne

I am on Windows, release R57.16; The issue started today (07/05/24).

Hi, Something that should take two minutes at most has me asking a question. I am reconciling one of my accounts where the Charges are 241.56, Payment, Credits, 105.54 and Ending Balance 240.49.

On the Reconcile page: The total changes shows 241.56 and total payments shows 105.54. These match the figures entered on the first page. However, the Cleared Balance shows 46.49 and the Difference is 194.00. Not sure what to do since everything looks correct. Thanks for any assistance is I need to set this payment out.

Chris_QPW

When using Quicken's reconcile you have to realized that it will include all the transactions marked with a R in the Cleared balance even if they are after the ending statement date entered (Which BTW I think is wrong, but they have never changed it).

What that basically means is that you have to make sure that if there are transactions that are marked with the R past the ending state those have to be changed to c (cleared). Otherwise, you shouldn't have to change them. You can if you want to see them on the reconcile window (the transactions marked with R are included in the Cleared Balance, but not shown on the Reconcile Window).

Chris_QPW

The Cleared balance is a calculated value base on ALL of the reconcile transactions in the register (even if they are past the ending date entered for the reconcile) and all of the cleared transactions up to the date entered for the ending date.

When the cleared balance is suddenly wrong the reason is because one of these has changed (either changed amount, removed, added …).

And the most likely transaction that gets changed without you doing it by mistake is the Opening Balance transaction (usually the first one in the register), because of a long-standing bug in Quicken.

Adrienne

Thanks Chris for your response. At this time, not sure if my question has been answered or not since I am not sure how to tell if a previous transaction has been changed or not.

Chris_QPW

It would be done by either comparing to the financial institution's statements or if just started happening to a backup. Or in my case where I know that my accounts have started with an opening balance of zero, anything other than that is wrong. Some have recommended that when you do get it fixed that you put in a memo of what the correct opening balance is on the opening balance transaction, so that if it changes again, you can refer to that.

If it isn't the opening balance, I would start with the latest statement and see if Quicken matches it on that date, and if not work your way back until it does. And then work your way forward until you have found/fixed the problem.

Adrienne

If I would start with the latest statement and see if Quicken matches it on that date, would I need to change all of my reconciled transactions to not being reconciled? I am pretty sure that the Cleared Balance was 0 for the previous month. Chris, thank you for assisting me with this.

Chris_QPW

When using Quicken's reconcile you have to realized that it will include all the transactions marked with a R in the Cleared balance even if they are after the ending statement date entered (Which BTW I think is wrong, but they have never changed it).

What that basically means is that you have to make sure that if there are transactions that are marked with the R past the ending state those have to be changed to c (cleared). Otherwise, you shouldn't have to change them. You can if you want to see them on the reconcile window (the transactions marked with R are included in the Cleared Balance, but not shown on the Reconcile Window).

Adrienne

Thanks for all of your advice Chris.