Reconciliation beginning with cleared balance before I clear anything

DeeMT

I had 3 statement to reconcile. The first one was fine. The second one was not. I saw that it had a cleared balance that was different from the checks,debits total of what I had tried to clear. Then I realized the cleared balance was actually the previous balance. I cancelled and opened Quicken and then it was fine, showing 0 cleared balance. I reconciled and then went to my last statement and it happened again. I cancelled and closed then I opened the reconciliation again but this time it stayed the same, keeping the ending balance that I had previously enetered - so the cancel did not completely cancel this time. I closed quicken and still the same. I cannot reconcile. I see discussions closed on other similar problems but no solution. What's up?

I have noticed in previous years a problem similar to this and it seemed to occur when I saw that I was missing a transaction and used the NEW or EDIT button from within reconciliation to make the correction and then go back to reconciliation. I thought that was maybe the problem. This is years later so I admit I did the same thing with all 3 statements. I don't know if this has something to do with it or not but I have previously been able to cancel and now I can't and I don't know how to get past it. Did anyone find a solution for this? (BTW this is with the checking account - I reconciled about the same number of CC statements yesterday with no issues).

DeeMT

I forgot to add I am using windows latest version and quicken classic deluxe. And to clarify - I was trying to reconcile all 3 statements same general timeframe and day - jan 10 morning.

albesure

I ran into something similar using v59.6 for win that was updated yesterday 1/29/25. Entered 2 months of entries and today wanted to reconcile 1 of those 2 months. Everything started as usual when I opened the reconcile window including the last reconcile date & beginning balance.

Only started to clear the first 2 deposits by editing the amount from the reconcile window. So far so good. I had to add a deposit again via the reconcile window. This is where the problem started. Though I successfully entered the new $977.41 deposit, I could find it nowhere in the reconcile window.

Went back to the register & it was where it was supposed to be and within the timeframe of the reconciliation but still missing in the reconcile window. At this point, I started to un-clear the two previous deposits and then canceled the reconcile.

I restarted the reconcile but noticed that the last reconcile date & ending statement date had now jumped up one month and that the beginning balance was less $977.41. Looking into the register, I found that the deposit for $977.41 was marked reconciled and the transaction greyed out. I never made any attempt to clear that transaction as I never did find it on the reconcile page. And when I open the reconcile window, it shows $26500.26 cleared already which is clearly incorrect. Un-marking the deposit as reconciled did not change anything nor deleting the now un-cleared deposit.

So in the end, I now have three problems with the reconcile process: I have a prior ending statement date that is one month off, an ending statement date also one month off which I guess I can change though it doesn't seem to do anything and an incorrect prior balance that seems to reflect a deposit that simply isn't in the register any longer. Add to this that the difference balance in the reconcile window that seems to think most of my transactions are already cleared.

All I can think at this moment is [Removed - Language]! I think I know what I need to do, but dread it. I liked it better in the DOS days of Quicken.

Allan

Quicken Kristina

Hello @DeeMT and @albesure,

I'm sorry to hear you're encountering issues reconciling. To help troubleshoot this, please provide more information. When you reconcile, are you using the online balance, or are you comparing to a paper statement? Are the accounts you're encountering this issue with connected accounts that download from the financial institution into your Quicken file, or are these accounts that you update manually? Are the inconsistencies happening only when you use the "New" or "Edit" buttons in the reconcile window to add/edit a transaction?

I look forward to your reply!

albesure

Hi Kristina,

I always have used paper statements to reconcile and my accounts are completely independent, not connected to anything. Call me old fashioned. The "edit" button seemed to work fine, it was the "New" button in my instance where I could not find the new entry in the reconcile window.

Thanks for helping us,

Allan

albesure

Oh and the "Cancel" button was used when I tried to back out with only 1-2 transactions "cleared" the un-cleared and the one "new" entry that did not show up in the reconcile window but was in the register. I did not use the "Finish Later" or "Done" button.

Allan

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your replies,

I tried following the process you described in your initial post, making sure to use a manual checking account, but I'm not seeing the same behavior that you're describing.

Is this happening with only one specific type of transaction? When creating the new transaction, are you using the current date, a date in the past, or a date in the future? Is this behavior consistent across all of your accounts, or are you seeing it happen in just some of them (or only one)? When did you first notice this behavior?

Thank you!

albesure

Hello Kristina,

The only three transactions that I touched during the reconciliation were 3 deposits in the past on only one single account on 1/9/2025. I "canceled" the reconciliation after I couldn't locate the 3rd deposit that I entered as "new" after "editing" the amounts of the first 2 deposits.

Here is the literal order of events over two days. First day:

Opened Quicken which triggered update to v. R60.20 build 27.1.60.20 (Sorry, got the version wrong in my first post).

Entered about 2 months of transactions. Did not close or backup quicken (much to my regret).

Second day:

Started a reconcile, statement ending date (11/15/2024) & prior balance (27477.67) checked ok. Entered ending balance (26343.02) from the paper statement then "ok."

Adjusted the amounts of 2 deposits and cleared them. I don't think that these two deposits are relevant to the problem>

Added a new deposit (977.41) via the "new" button in the register, went back to the reconcile window and could not locate the new deposit.

Went back to the register and found that the new deposit was there where I expected it, but still could not find any trace of it in the reconcile window even though the deposit date was within the range of begin & end dates. I did not "clear" this deposit in the register. I never do.

Un-cleared the first two deposits and "canceled" the reconcile then "yes" to start over.

Restarted a reconcile but noticed that the statement ending date was now 12/15/2024, the prior ending statement date was 11/15/2024 and the prior balance was 26500.26, reduced exactly by 977.41, the new deposit.

In the register, I can still see the "new" deposit is there (977.41) but "reconciled & greyed out as if I completed the reconcile and hit the "done" button at the end. I did make the mistake of deleting that transaction after I could fix it otherwise, but it changed nothing.

At this point, I will throw in the towel and restart from the backup as I really need to get this done soon unless you have a better suggestion.

Thank you for your help and please forgive the length of this post.
Allan

q_lurker

Having found the $977.41 transaction “reconciled & greyed out”, I might have simply changed the status from R to blank or and then moved forward. Clearly (to me), the deposit was not showing in the reconcile window because for some unknown reason, Quicken had it reconciled.

For some reason, some people seem to view account reconciliation as some magical mystical process. It’s not.

Chris_QPW

Restarted a reconcile but noticed that the statement ending date was now 12/15/2024, the prior ending statement date was 11/15/2024 and the prior balance was 26500.26, reduced exactly by 977.41, the new deposit.

One thing that has always bothered me about Quicken's reconcile is that even though it will not include uncleared/cleared transactions past the statement date (which is what it should do), it will include reconciled ones!

For this use case, the simple solution is as @q_lurker suggested and change the status to uncleared or cleared.

But I do wish they would change this behavior. It would allow for more flexible reconciling.

Imagine that you have reconciled the current month but have decided to put in new transactions for a prior month or for whatever reason you would like to re-reconcile a past period of time. If Quicken wouldn't include the "future reconciled transactions" past the ending date entered, then this would be possible, but as it sits now you have to change the status of all the transactions past that end date to cleared/uncleared before you can reconcile that past month.

BTW, Quicken Mac has a much better reconcile system than Quicken Windows does. Not only does it allow for things like this, but it also has an actual reconcile history that can be used to see how things got reconciled in the past.

albesure

I would have thought the "Cancel" button would have cleared all reconcile actions, but it didn't, particularly for the "lost" deposit and the last statement date. That's what I get for thinking. Don't I wish that the Windows version was similar to the Mac version.

Anyway, I gave up and restarted from a backup. Only wasted another full day.

Thanks for all the help folks.
Allan

Chris_QPW

I would have thought the "Cancel" button would have cleared all reconcile actions

Since the marking of reconcile only happens when you select done, I will take this to mean marking the transaction cleared or marking it uncleared.

I tested with an uncleared transaction and marked it cleared in the reconcile window and then selected cancel, and it did put it back to the original uncleared state. And then I tried where I started it with it cleared and made it uncleared in the reconcile window, and again it did put it back.

So that is how it "should work", but I do know that people have reported it not working for them.

Note that you select "Finish Later" that will result in your changes being saved to the register.