Poll: So you tend to clear transactions, review transactions, or both.

TLMurray74

For many decades I've been using only "review" and it serves me. But I'm wondering what most in the community use, and if there is a benefit to one or the other, and, of course, to using both. (FWIW, I'm using a Mac.)

RickO

Marking as reviewed (which clears the icon in the status column) really means whatever you want it to mean. For example it could mean (to you) that you've checked the amount against the receipt and/or it could mean that you've properly assigned (or checked) the category and/or several other things. It has no functional implication in Quicken other than for your record keeping.

Clearing (marking a blue checkmark in the Clr column), on the other hand, has functional meaning in that it is directly tied to the reconcile function. Transactions are automatically marked as cleared when/if they are downloaded. Then when you reconcile, Quicken uses the Clr status to determine which transactions get added into the total to compare to the bank balance.

Personally, I use both. I use Clr for its intended function as related to reconcile. I use mark transactions as reviewed when I have nothing left to do with them, which includes verifying the transaction details and saving or shredding the receipt.

NotACPA

I manually input all txn, that I've initiated, in my checking/card/investment accounts. Biggest reason for this is so that I can get MY categories recorded.

For example, my state doesn't have an income tax, so I can deduct my sales taxes on my IRS 1040. The ONLY way to get that number in a txn is thru manual input.

The download thus becomes a confirmation that I got the amount and account correct and at least close on the date (since txn date isn't downloaded for most accounts).

Chris_QPW

It is my understanding that Quicken (both Windows and Mac) mark a transaction cleared when you download it (and if it is matched to an existing transaction in the register, the two are merged and the resulting transaction is marked cleared).

So, unless you are manually entering transactions and not downloading you shouldn't have to touch the Cleared status (and if you try to use this as "reviewed" like some people have stated they do it mostly will not work the way you think, as shown by the fact that they are coming to complain about that fact.)

@RickO correct me if I'm wrong about this for Quicken Mac. It would seem very wrong to me that a downloaded transaction isn't marked cleared. The whole point of the cleared field is to say that it has cleared the financial institution, and clearly if it is downloading that transaction (which has to be a posted transaction) it has cleared the financial institution.

That brings use to "Reviewed". Again, this might be a place where Quicken Windows and Quicken Mac disagree in how they act, and I will rely on @RickO correcting me if I'm wrong.

The "cleared" ties into the reconcile. As in only the transactions marked "cleared" will be included in the reconcile. But one has to understand the limitation of reconciling. It is reconciling an amount. It isn't checking that the payee, category, tag, or memo is what you might want.

That is the purpose of reviewing the transactions. To ensure that this information is correct, not just the amount.

From what @RickO said I gather that you can mark a transaction "Reviewed" in Quicken Mac even if it is a manually entered transaction. This isn't true for Quicken Windows. The "Reviewed" is only used for clearing the "New" or "New Match" status of a downloaded transaction.

Note that in Quicken Windows the "Reviewed" is only used if the transactions are downloaded directly into the register. If one is using the "Downloaded Transactions tab". Transactions go into a tab at the bottom of the register and are accepted into the register by click on them in the Downloaded Transaction tab and then hitting Enter to put them into the register. So, it is expected that the "reviewing" is done before accepting the transaction into the register. And as such there more accurately termed "Accept" instead of "Review".

Jon

I use both. The reviewed column shows me manually entered transactions which either haven't been matched to a download (orange pencil) or have been matched (blue pencil). When the pencils turn blue I mark them as reviewed so the pencil goes away; if there's still an orange pencil after a couple weeks I start investigating to see why that transaction hasn't been matched up yet - maybe I mistakenly entered it in the wrong account, or maybe there's still an uncleared check floating around out there.

The reviewed column also shows a blue dot for downloaded transactions that didn't match anything, those I check to make sure I'm OK with the transaction (usually something like Starbucks where I didn't get a receipt) and then mark reviewed.

The cleared column has either blue checks for unreconciled transactions or green checks for reconciled. I don't pay a lot of attention to the blue checks since for me they generally are redundant with the reviewed column, but if I see a blue checkmark in the middle of a bunch of green checks that'll get my attention - maybe the transaction is misdated.

RickO

@RickO correct me if I'm wrong about this for Quicken Mac. It would seem very wrong to me that a downloaded transaction isn't marked cleared. The whole point of the cleared field is to say that it has cleared the financial institution, and clearly if it is downloading that transaction (which has to be a posted transaction) it has cleared the financial institution.

If you re-read my first post, you'll see I said exactly that:

Transactions are automatically marked as cleared when/if they are downloaded. 

From what @RickO said I gather that you can mark a transaction "Reviewed" in Quicken Mac even if it is a manually entered transaction.

That is correct. I that's part of why I said you can really use Reviewed in however manner you want to interpret it.

I purposely avoided distinguishing between those who manually enter pre-enter transactions vs those who download everything without manual entries. I also avoided differentiating between connected vs non-connected accounts. These are because it doesn't really affect the use of these columns and would only confuse the discussion.

For non-connected accounts, you would still want to use the Clr field solely as an indicator that the institution has acknowledged/entered the transaction on their end. You would need to manually check the Clr box when you learn (say from reading a paper statement) that the transaction has been entered on the bank's end.

Personally, I manually enter almost all transactions and let Quicken match them with downloads. I use the Clr and Status columns as a check that both my and the bank's records are correct. IOW, I use these columns pretty much exactly in the way in which @Jon has described.

Chris_QPW

Thanks @RickO for confirming all of that.