Reconciling Issue

Question

I was reconciling a credit card account in Windows Quicken.  I was off by a transaction that was not accepted yet.  I selected the transaction and reconciled.  Now I am off by that transaction when trying to reconcile as it is already in a reconciled state and can't be selected again.  I've had several strange issues recently.  I am a 20 year user so I feel pretty confident with Quicken.  I did a validate and repair and that did not fix the issue.  Puzzled.

Another issue I reported a while ago that ironed itself out is now reoccurring.  Trying to sell shares of a stock, both the register and holdings show the correct amount of shares.  The transaction won't thru as it states there are not enough shares to sell.  Frustrated

joev929 · Answer

I was able to get this corrected with Quicken support.  They had me go to the Opening Balance on the register and there was the $50.40 in the opening balance total.  They had me change it back to $0, and then Quicken balanced to the bank total.  The reconcile then worked.  Not sure why it happened exactly though.

joev929 · Answer

Sorry, I may have worded it poorly.  There was a transaction for $50.40 that I entered in the register.  It had not downloaded from the bank at the time of the reconciliation, yet was reflected in the bank balance as I was off $50.40.  So I selected the $50.40 (checked the box) to be included in the reconciliation.  The balance to adjust was now $0 and I finished it.  This is not the first time this has happened on several cards.  At times I waited until the transaction downloaded and tried again.  It is like the bank balance reflected the transaction in their balance even though it didn't download yet (pending/current balance VS end of day balance?)  Hope this makes sense.  Thanks for your help!

NotACPA · Answer

What were you reconciling TO?  Because a transaction that "was not accepted yet" shouldn't be included in a reconciliation.

To Reconcile is to COMPARE.  You're comparing the observed (in your Q account) to the Expected (from the bank's records.  And if a txn isn't part of the bank's balance, how can you Compare to it?