reconciliation impossible

Jeanne

Today, two accounts are giving me a lot of reconciliation trouble. Quicken begins by telling me that the accounts' previous balances were many thousands in the negative, which they were not. Ever. The numbers are crazy and bear no relationship to the previous reconciliation session.

I'm used to seeing the lower right corner of the reconciliation window looking like simple_reconcile.jpg. But for these two messy accounts, the reconciliation window now has a new number "opening balance difference" as seen in citi_reconcile.jpg. Can anybody tell me exactly what the "opening balance difference" is? where it comes from?

In both of the troublesome accounts, in the reconciliation window, I saw a number of months-old transactions that I had had to edit in a previous session, and they were no longer reconciled. But even when I cancelled and went back and fixed the reconciliation status, the numbers still didn't work right. (Thus, I conclude that reconciling them in the reconciliation window or just changing the status in the register doesn't seem to make a difference. )

I've tried tweaking the opening balance in one of these accounts, but while I can get to the balance on display at the web site -- and all transactions at the bank are accounted for in Quicken -- I then cannot reconcile. Quicken wants to adjust the balance way way way below what is on display at the bank's web site and is, in fact, the correct balance.

NOTABLY, when I go to TOOLS > ONLINE CENTER and check the cash balances there, they are all correct. That is, Quicken's ONLINE CENTER disagrees with the Quicken's reconciliation process.

Still, I'd like to be able to reconcile all accounts. I've done it for decades. I understand it. In fact, I've done it in Quicken for quite a few decades.

I'll be eternally grateful for any advice about how to tame this reconciliation process.

Thanks,

Jeanne
Quicken Classic Deluxe
R58.14

simple_reconcile.jpg

citi_reconcil.jpg

NotACPA

It could be the the opening balance in those accounts got changed.

SO, restore from a backup that was created before this began (use a different file name when you restore to not overwrite your current file) and write down the opening balance in the accounts.

Then, go back to your current file and check those opening balances, correcting as necessary. It's also suggested that for any account as you download you store the opening balance in the Memo field of the OB, so that if this happens again you can quickly check this out.

Jeanne

Thanks, NotACPA. I did do some research here in the forum and learned about the drifting-opening-balance problem. So I did try what you suggest. I'll have to try going back even further and will do that later today.

It doesn't make much sense since I have literally never run into a reconciliation problem that I didn't solve pretty quickly—until yesterday. So how far back could the opening balance have changed? But it can't hurt to try this, I guess.

In the meantime, can you elucidate that "opening balance difference" in the lower right corner of the reconciliation window? Difference between what and what? I did figure out that the opening balance difference is the difference between the register's cleared balance as of the new statement's date and the prior statement's balance. Thanks for your patience.

I'll report back,

Jeanne

NotACPA

Another thing you can try, to see if it's the Opening Balance issue, is to pull out a statement from, say, 6 months ago and see if there's a difference between the statement and what Q shows from back then.

Since, presumably, you successfully reconciled back then, if you're out-of-balance now it Strongly suggests that the OB got changed.

Jeanne

Thanks, NotACPA. But I've gone all the way back to January trying to tweak the opening balances. One account now has the same opening balance as in January and one has something different. Each of these two accounts has the correct current balance. That current balance conforms with the balance in Quicken's ONLINE CENTER AND the online balance displayed when I begin the reconciliation process AND the balance at the bank's web site.

But I cannot reconcile. I can only reconcile to a wrong current balance. So I don't see much payoff in trying to manipulate the opening balances further.

HOWEVER I have made progress, even if I'm not quite home. At least the numbers look more reasonable, and right now, at least, I think I know what I can safely ignore. In the hope that some other idea might materialize or, at least, that someone else might benefit, here's where I'm at and how I got here:

- I suddenly noticed an 8/14 transaction with an 8/14 posting date in the register was displaying as unreconciled with a posting date of 1/10 in the reconciliation window. Well I had copied a transaction a half-dozen times a few weeks ago, changing the date as needed. Surprise, the "downloaded posting date" does not update -- and even tho my register is set to display the downloaded posting date, it does not in this circumstance. The register gives me a posting date different from downloaded posting date that is embedded and out-of-sight. Not very helpful to say the least. (Indeed, why both of these dates should exist is something of a mystery to me. Wouldn't the memo field serve better? But I'm not asking for a digression here.)

- Anyway, in my ordinary Citibank checking account, I'm down to a reconciliation difference that PRECISELY matches Quicken's mis-statement of the Cleared Balance. The reconciliation Difference = $1077. The Cleared Balance in the reconciliation window is $1077 lower than the number in the register as of the statement date. And there are no unreconciled items prior to that date. I've combed through the entire year looking for an anomaly and I can't find one. (I've got a very close deposit from early 2022--$1077.05--but it is reconciled so I don't think that explains anything.)

- Happily(?), after some clean-up of (fewer) copied transactions, the Merrill Lynch brokerage-linked checking account is in roughly the same place: (a) the reconciliation Difference is the same as the mis-statement of the Cleared Balance and (b) the correct ending balance in the ledger matches info from the bank but I cannot reconcile to that balance.

- So actually, these reconcile or balance in a sense. If my reconciliation Difference = a mis-stated Cleared Balance, I'm breathing easier. This is sub-optimal to say the least. But I can put it away and get on with my life for now, hoping something emerges some day.

I tried Validate and Repair, to no avail.

The only other step I can think of is restoring the file of mid-August, before I made all those copies, hoping that that IS where things went wrong. That was a looooong, multi-day session, a ton of work between Quicken, Excel, and tax forms. That would have to be re-created or at least double-checked. I'll have to decide on that soon before the catching-up and patching-up get even harder. In the meantime for a few days, I'll side-step transaction retrieval and rely on web sites. Happily, I have that luxury.

I guess I could start a new Citibank account, also sub-optimal. But I'd fear trying to start a new brokerage-linked checking account. Ugh.

Any suggestions/observations are welcome.

Thanks.

leishirsute

I always make my starting balance transaction $0.00 for all accounts.

That way if Quicken changes the opening balance, it's usually the starting transaction that has been changed and I just change it back to $0.00. It has worked to correct the opening balance issue every time. For existing accounts, I just make a transaction dated earlier than all other transactions with $0.00 value.

Regarding the Citi account, I had to change the Citi connection from Direct Connect to Express Web Connect+ because Direct Connect stopped downloading transactions and updating the online account balance.

Jeanne

leishirsute, thank you for such a fascinating suggestion on the opening balance. I don't think it would have saved me all this trouble but a changed opening balance was definitely at work on these accounts along with who-knows-what-else.

I over-estimated my tolerance for letting this ride. I got itchier and itchier by the minute. So I've just restored a file from 8/14 and retrieved a lot of transactions so I have a lot of work to do. But I will definitely try your suggestion very soon.

(My Citibank account has been on Express Web Connect+ for some time so that is not an issue in my current problems.)

Serious thanks.

Mousie

Leishirsute, I do have one question. You start with a starting balance at 0.00. Is the next entry listed as cash with the real starting balance? I'm just trying to better understand how you do it. :)

Thanks for the tip.

leishirsute

Yes. The next transaction is the actual starting balance. Which is usually a deposit transaction for a new checking or savings account and debit transaction for a credit card.

spank1024

Very frustrating that the opening balance for my Citi bank card was changed to another random value upon one step update, even though the transaction was reconciled 8 years ago. Apparently this has been a lingering problem for years. It has happened to other accounts I have, and costs me time and effort to locate and correct. I know better now, but seems like an easy fix to me… one step update should not touch transactions that are reconciled.