Cannot reconcile CC account after restoring

OTTBMom

I am on Win11, R59.6, Build 27.1.5.9.6

I am also one of those unlucky individuals who had problems with my Costco Citi Visa at the end of September. I was unable to connect and update for about a week, and then when I was able to connect my Reconcile report contained about 15 items that were in my register, but that the Reconcile thought were not there. I was also missing about a week's worth of transactions.

After various tries on my own, I restored back to an earlier time (Sept 17, before the problem began) and then re-set up the downloads. Many problems ensued. I kept restoring, kept trying to get downloads to start working again, no luck.

Finally went to Support online, after restoring again to a "clean" point. The online support rep had me essentially "remove" and re-add the account, and link it to my existing account, which was the one that was messed up. Again, everything downloaded, but nearly all of the new transactions showed up on the Reconcile Report as needing to be reconciled. My balance was off by about $600 as a result.

The Support rep wanted me to delete the duplicates from the Reconcile Report, but when I do that the txn disappears from my register as well, and that of course makes the problem worse. At that point, I got called to an online meeting and had to end the Support session.

I still have the problem, and now every time I download, I have to set up downloads again, and all new transactions go to the Reconcile report as well as to my register.

It took me nearly an hour to get online with Support, so if there is an easier fix for this, maybe someone here can provide one.

Thanks

Quicken Kristina

Hello @OTTBMom,

To assist with this issue, please provide more information. Do you reconcile using the online balance, or do you reconcile using the statement balance? Are you able to narrow down what is throwing your reconcile off (duplicate transactions, missing transactions, etc.)?

I look forward to your reply!

OTTBMom

I use the online balance to reconcile this account, and until the problem with Quicken and CitiCards at the end of September, it was working fine.

So if you read my original post, you would see that this started when the Quicken/Citi glitch occurred around 9/27. At that time, I lost connectivity to my Citi account and could not download transactions for a few days. When the problem was "fixed" I went back in, but had to set up txn download all over again. When I did that, all of the transactions that came down into my register from when the problem began until the current date showed up in my register, but also in my Reconcile Report. I decided to restore from a backup that I knew was taken before the problem surfaced, so I did that. I then re-set up the download, downloaded, and had all those dupes again — once in my register, and again in the Reconcile Report. So I had a $500 plus difference between the Reconcile and the online balance.

I restored from backup again, and contacted Support. They had me run a verify on my Quicken file (it came out fine), then completely re-ADD the Costco Citi Card account, and link it to my existing account. Again, though, I had the same transactions go to my register as to my Reconcile report. At that point, I had to get off the phone with Support, and I'm still stuck.

So, an example: Let's say that on Sept 29 I spent $10 at Starbucks, and put it on my CC. When I download the transaction, I see it in my register, but it also appears in my Reconcile report as a transaction that needs to be reconciled. If I delete it from either place, it disappears from both, and does not get downloaded during my next online session.

At this point, I have almost 20 transactions sitting in the Reconcile screen that are just stuck. I also now have 4 transactions that are "Pending" (I have never had Pending transactions before) that are also already in the register, but that Quicken now thinks are Pending, whatever that is.

I don't want to share screen shots here, obviously, but I can send them if you can tell me where to send them. TIA

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

Could you clarify what you mean by Reconcile Report? Are you going to Reports>Banking>Reconciliation and running that report? If so, what are you doing when you edit the report? It's a report that gets printed out, and editing the print-out wouldn't impact your Quicken register.

If you're doing something else to see a Reconcile Report, please tell me what process you are using.

The example you give with the $10 Starbucks transaction sounds like expected behavior. When a transaction downloads from the financial institution, Quicken will show that transaction as cleared. It won't show it as reconciled yet, since the transaction just downloaded and you wouldn't have had a chance to reconcile it in Quicken yet.

Pending transactions are a relatively new feature in Quicken. If it's a feature you don't want to use at all, you can turn it off by going to Edit>Preferences>Pending transactions. Click the switch so it shows OFF instead of ON. That would turn the feature off for your entire Quicken file.

If you use the feature in some registers, but do not want it in your Citi register(s), then you can also turn it off for a specific register. Go to the register that you don't want pending transactions to show up in and click the hourglass icon at the bottom of the register, just to the left of the Ending Balance. Uncheck "Show Pending transactions" and that will turn the feature off for that specific register.

Thank you!

OTTBMom

No, it's not the Reconciliation Report. It is a Reconciliation window that opens when I download new transactions. I have made a screen shot of it, but I don't want to share that in a public forum. If there is a way for me to send it to you, please let me know.

I don't reconcile anything manually. I download the transactions, and they go to the register. That's how it's always been, until this problem with the Citi cards raised it's ugly head a couple of weeks ago.

My cc balance is now off by some $534 plus change, due to the fact that none of the transactions that have downloaded with dates newer than 9/15 or so (when I restored) are showing as reconciled. I hope you have a way for me to fix this! :-)

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

To clarify, are the transactions with dates newer than 9/15 duplicate transactions (eg: you already have them in your register, but they are downloading a second time)? If they are duplicates that have already downloaded once and already been reconciled, then the simplest fix would be to delete the duplicate transactions.

If they are not duplicates, then screenshots would be really helpful to figure out what is happening. Would you be comfortable sharing screenshots via Direct Message (DM)? If so, let me know and I can send you a DM.

Thank you!

OTTBMom

They are duplicates, in that they go to the register but show up in the Reconcile screen as needing to reconcile. But they can't be deleted in one place without them deleting in the other. I tried that already, and the transactions are deleted from my register forever, they don't download the next time I update the account.

Yes, I would be happy to send you a screen shot. I just don't want to post my transactions here.

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

I sent you a DM. To view it, please click the envelope icon near the upper right.

Thank you!

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for sending the screenshot,

Based on the screenshot, these aren't duplicate transactions. It is normal for non-reconciled transactions to be visible in your register and also in the reconcile window. I can see that the sum of the cleared transactions showing in the reconcile does not match the online balance. Are there any missing transactions that would explain this difference? Are there transactions still pending with Citi that make up the difference?

Thank you!

OTTBMom

I don't think any are missing, but I will run a report and compare the actual credit card transactions to what's in my register. Give me a day or so to do that. Thanks for the help. I'll let you know if I find anything missing.

OTTBMom

I printed out all of the transactions since 9/1, and compared them to my CC transactions online. Nothing was missing.

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

If there are no missing or duplicated transactions, the next thing that may be throwing off the balance is if the opening balance changed (see this article for more information: https://www.quicken.com/support/why-did-my-opening-balance-change-after-changing-ewc-quicken-windows/ ).

If you're not certain whether the opening balance has changed or not, then the simplest way to check is to take note of the opening balance listed in your current file, make a backup of your file, then restore a backup from before the problem started and check the opening balance in the newly restored file. Once you've confirmed what the opening balance should be, you can return to your main file and correct the Opening Balance if needed.

Please let me know how it goes!

OTTBMom

Well, this only started after I had to restore from backup. I had a lot of problems with missing transactions after that Citi glitch happened at the end of September. I ended up restoring back to an earlier time, but then continued having problems getting back connected to Citi and then this balance problem began.

So I will try the steps you suggest, and maybe we can get things back to normal. Thanks! I'll let you know how it goes.

OTTBMom

I went to do this, but I'm confused. When you say "Opening Balance" and I look that up in Help, it seems I'm supposed to go all the way back to my earliest transactions? Because that would be like 2018, and I'm sure that's not what you want me to do. Do I get the balance from my last Reconciled transaction? Or my last paper statement? Can you help me out by clarifying, so I don't do something wrong? Thanks.

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

When I say Opening Balance, I am referring to that very first transaction in the account register. It will usually show Opening Balance for the payee.

The Opening Balance shouldn't change, but there is a known issue where it sometimes does after the account has been reconnected/reauthorized.

Thank you!

OTTBMom

OMG thank you! And thanks for being so patient with me. I went all the way back to the opening balance, and it had been changed — I confirmed that by restoring a backup from the beginning of September. I changed the Opening Balance on my current file, and now everything is matching up and all the transactions have the 'R' next to them, indicating they are happy little transactions!

Big virtual high five to you for helping me with this!

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for the follow-up,

I'm glad to hear that the issue was resolved by correcting the Opening Balance!

If you need further assistance, please feel free to reach out!

OTTBMom

Things have gotten out of kilter again.

After downloading transactions, my "Online Balance" does not actually reflect my real online balance. My 'real' online balance does not include pending items, so today that balance on the Citi site is $345.78. But in Quicken, it thinks my online balance is $238.85, and it shows that as my Statement Ending Balance on the Reconcile screen. This total has $106.93 subtracted out — that amount is Pending on Citi's site, so it's not included in my running balance there.

My Reconcile shows two transactions that ARE included in my running balance — meaning, they are reconciled according to Citi — but Quicken thinks my balance is out of kilter.

This is confusing to follow, I know, unless you can see everything. I think it has something to do with the Pending Transactions. I went into Quicken and told it to not include pending transactions, but now it seems to be subtracting them from my Quicken balance, making it look like it's out of sync when it's not.

So I'm not in the clear yet. I can send you a snap of the screens if that will help. But I'm still off by some amount every day.

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for the follow-up,

If the online balance in Quicken is reflecting transactions showing pending on the financial institution's side, that typically indicates that the financial institution is sending the available balance rather than the current balance to Quicken. Due to the nature of the issue, I would recommend contacting Quicken Support directly, since they have access to tools that we on the Community can't access and they're able to escalate the issue as needed. The Quicken Support phone number can be found through this link here. Phone support is available from 5:00 am PT to 5:00 pm PT, Monday through Friday.

In the meantime, there are a couple possible work-arounds:

1. Reconcile the account in your Quicken when there are no pending transactions.
2. Switch to using Statement Balance when reconciling.

I hope this helps!

OTTBMom

Thanks. I will contact Support.

Quicken Jasmine

Hello @OTTBMom,

Please come back and let us know if they are able to help you resolve the issue and what troubleshooting steps were taken. This is so that other users may find this thread and some assistance if they are experiencing the same issue.

Thanks!