Why not autofill the Ending Statement Date when Reconciling an account?

Ray

Nearly all account statements close at the end of the month. Quicken leaves the Ending Statement Date blank, so I have to click the calendar icon next to the field, change the month to the previous month, and click the day. This is busy work and unnecessary. Quicken, like QuickBooks, could easily autofill the date based on the previous reconciliation date.

This could be the default or an option in Settings. It also could be a setting for each account with monthly, quarterly, etc.

Using Quicken Business & Personal R58.9 Build 27.1.58.9 with Windows 10

splasher

Your accounts may have end of month ending dates, but mine don't.

Mine end on the 3rd, 12th, 13th, 16th, 25th, 28th of the month. The fact is, most financial institutions will allow a client chose the closing date that fits their individual needs.

So, to generalize that "Nearly all account statements close at the end of the month" is not true and automatically entering the EOM as the date would be a great inconvenience to a lot of users.

NotACPA

My monthly statements occur on about 12 different dates throughout the month also. Only the Fidelity Investment statements are month-end.

But even that varies as it's actually "last business day of the month", and not "last day of the month".

Rocket J Squirrel

I have often wished QWin would fill in the date using the previous date plus one month, regardless of the day of the month.

NotACPA

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20447964#Comment_20447964

But what if that +1 date falls on a weekend, or holiday, in the current month? Which is going to happen with some regularity. OR, if last month had more days than the current month?

Rocket J Squirrel

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20447968#Comment_20447968

Lots of my bills/accounts have weekend dates, so that's a non-issue. If QWin wanted to be really smart, it could remember the number of days between due dates (or the day of month) for each account. As far as adjusting for the calendar, that's a small matter of programming.

I wouldn't expect QWin to get it right 100% of the time. But even 50% would be better than the nothing it's doing now. It's a wish, not a demand. 😀

UKR

so I have to click the calendar icon next to the field, change the month to the previous month, and click the day.

A simpler way to enter the Statement Ending Date would be to click on the date field, to activate it and use one of the available keyboard shortcuts for date fields.
Now type "m-" and see what happens … "m" inputs the 1st of this month's date (8/1/2024), "-" subtracts 1 day (7/31/2024)

For a list of available Keyboard Shortcuts

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7877943/faq-is-there-a-complete-list-of-keyboard-shortcuts-for-windows

Boatnmaniac

I would not support Quicken entering a default date simply because, as others have noted, the statement ending data is far from being uniform so many users would be inconvenienced by that.

However, if the proposal is to add an option on an account-by-account basis for the user to select a default date or time period between statements, then that is something I would support. That would leave the decision to about whether or not to have a default date solely up to each user.

Chris_QPW

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20447982#Comment_20447982

If you look at the original suggestion it was to use the pervious reconcile date. That certainly wouldn't be perfect, but it also isn't "one date for all accounts". And it might work for a lot of people. But I notice that no one has voted for this, including the original author.

Personally, for me this is a non-issue since I don't reconcile to the monthly statement.

q_lurker

But I notice that no one has voted for this, including the original author.

Clicking the voting arrow does nothing. Perhaps ideas need to be in the Ideas categories or need approval by a moderator.

Boatnmaniac

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20447986#Comment_20447986

I saw that. What I am stating is that I would not support any kind of blanket global Preference applied to all accounts by Quicken. That would be very problematic for many users.

But if the defaults could be optionally selected and defined by the user on an account-by-account basis, then I would be OK with that. The Op stated this option but not until the last sentence in their Idea proposal. I just wanted to state that this would be the only option I would consider to be reasonable and acceptable.

As with you, this would not affect me at all because I only reconcile to the Online Balance and I do that every time after transactions are downloaded. So if there are any issues I find out about it and can resolve it immediately with little effort. I've even stopped all mailed delivery of statements years ago and rarely even bother downloading or looking at online statements. I just don't find any need for statements (for reconciliation) anymore provided the transactions are reviewed and reconciled as they are downloaded….so much easier with a lower level of effort reconciling to the Online Balance.

Boatnmaniac

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20447990#Comment_20447990

I am seeing a note at the bottom of my screen that says "Category is not configured for ideation." I've reported it to the Moderators to see if they can fix this so people can cast their votes.

Rocket J Squirrel

I will just say that I do, unlike some, reconcile my accounts only to monthly paper statements. Reconciling to online balances is not reconciling, it is accepting what the FI says. This is almost always right. Almost.

retird

I too reconcile my accounts from statements. Numerous accounts have different ending dates. This vote is a bad idea IMO unless it is an option and not the default….

Quicken Anja

Hello @Ray,

I went ahead and moved your Idea to the proper Idea category so it can be voted on.

Please, be sure to add your own vote as well.

Thank you!

Chris_QPW

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20448010#Comment_20448010

I disagree, reconcile to online balances isn't "accepting what the FI says".

The process of reconciling is making sure your records (Quicken's) agree with the financial institution's records and if they don't you find the source of the problem and fix it. (Which a lot of people don't seem to understand and come here and say "I reconciled and it is wrong, what is the problem?". This statement to me is wrong for very fact that part of reconciling the process is "finding out what it wrong", not just looking at some green checkmarks.)

So, reconciling to an online balance is no different than reconciling to a statement balance. If my Quicken records and the online balance don't match, the reconcile "fails" and I have to figure out what is not right. It might be the online balance; it might be something in the Quicken register. that is the "process", and it is just as valid reconciling to the "online balance" as it is to the statement balance.

Boatnmaniac

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20448072#Comment_20448072

I agree with you and was going to post pretty much what you did but I would like to add:

• IMO, having Quicken set up to automatically add transactions to the register coupled with auto reconciling to the online balance is a very bad idea. This is essentially a blind acceptance of whatever is downloaded regardless of whether the transactions are valid or not and regardless of whether or not they have the correct category. If there are fraudulent or unauthorized or inaccurate charges or deposits the auto reconcile process will not catch these issues…it will simply mark them as Reconciled. So, if this is what @Rocket J Squirrel was referring to, then I would agree with him that this is not a valid and true reconciliation process because it does not include a review of the validity of he transactions and/or categories.
• However, if Quicken is set to NOT automatically enter downloaded transactions into the registers that will force one to review the downloaded transactions first before they are accepted into the register so the validity of the transactions and categories is completed up front. Then reconciling to the Online Balance is a very good and highly reliable method of reconciling. It is as at least as good as reconciling to a statement. In fact, I would say it is better and more reliably accurate than reconciling to a statement because there is no manual data entry that needs to be done. Whereas reconciling to a statement does require manual data entry which can introduce human error adversely affecting accuracy and efficiency,

But isn't it wonderful that Quicken provides multiple options for how to reconcile accounts? It all boils down to it being a personal choice as to which method to use.

Boatnmaniac

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20448026#Comment_20448026

Thank you, @Quicken Anja. I have voted for this idea assuming that if it is ever implemented it will simply be an account-by-account user-defined default option and not a global nor Quicken-defined default.

Jim_Harman

We are drifting off topic here, but one issue that auto reconciling to the online balance does not pick up is that Quicken does not include uncleared transactions in the balance that it compares to the online balance.

Thus there is no notification if you have recorded a transaction in Quicken but it has not cleared. This can happen for example if the recipient never cashes a check, or the check is lost in the mail, or you forgot to write the check, or you forgot to go to the bank's website to enter the payment in their Bill Pay system.

With a manual reconcile, at least you must view the Reconcile window and see the uncleared transactions .

NotACPA

The Old Auditor coming out. Technically, to "reconcile" is to Compare. You're comparing the expected (the amount from the FI) to the observed (what's in your Q account).

Where one gets that Expected amount really doesn't matter. But errors, such as induced by Pending Transactions can screw-up what's reported … which is why I don't download Pendings, and only reconcile to a paper statement.

Chris_QPW

@Boatnmaniac said:

IMO, having Quicken set up to automatically add transactions to the register coupled with auto reconciling to the online balance is a very bad idea. This is essentially a blind acceptance of whatever is downloaded regardless of whether the transactions are valid or not and regardless of whether or not they have the correct category. If there are fraudulent or unauthorized or inaccurate charges or deposits the auto reconcile process will not catch these issues…it will simply mark them as Reconciled. So, if this is what @Rocket J Squirrel was referring to, then I would agree with him that this is not a valid and true reconciliation process because it does not include a review of the validity of he transactions and/or categories.

Yes, I have been warning that this combination is wrong for years. I think I will put in a suggestion that Quicken should block it. The two "automatic modes" do not mix well.

@NotACPA said:

Where one gets that Expected amount really doesn't matter. But errors, such as induced by Pending Transactions can screw-up what's reported … which is why I don't download Pendings, and only reconcile to a paper statement.

In the latest implementation of pending transactions Quicken actually does handle reconciling correctly (when the bugs don't get in the way). This is a major change from the way it was done in the first two attempts.

The pending transactions whether they are in the Downloaded Transactions tab or automatically put in the register are never included in the reconcile, and the online balance never includes the pending transactions (provided the financial institution hasn't messed that up, which is one thing that prevents using the online balance for some financial institutions EDIT: even if not using the pending transactions feature.)