Applying filter to checking transactions wildly changes balance (Q Mac)

RaviBank

When reviewing my checking account I always have it set to Show All Dates (Transactions) by default, for no particular reason. I must have accidentally clicked Year To Date, and all of a sudden my balance column was off, increased by around $63,000! After realizing the filter was on I started playing with it: I found the more compressed the time frame, the more the balance was off. Setting it to Last Quarter, or Last Month, would increase the balance by around an additional $110,000. Go back to All Dates would return the balance to the correct (modest) amount.

I checked the filter options on numerous other accounts - savings, credit cards, even from the same institution, and they all seem to work fine - no weird balances.

I'm no power user, but have used Quicken for decades and have not ever run across this issue. What's going on?

RickO

When you have a date filter set to a prior period, the balance column displays a running total of ONLY those transactions that are included in the filter. Therefore, the ending balance will not reflect the current balance in the account. This is normal behavior.

Jon

@RaviBank I can't duplicate that behavior exactly the way you describe. None of my accounts, including a test checking account I made, has any change in the balance column solely from changing the date range to a shorter period than All Transactions.

Now if you change the register so that it's sorted by something other than date then that's a different story. If I sort a register by the Amount column, for example, then the balance column is off - partly because the transactions are being applied out of order and partly because, as @RickO says, only the displayed transactions are included in the balance. If you click on the Date header to resort the register by date then the Balance column should be correct again.

RaviBank

So…if I leave no filter, the balance is displayed correctly. But if I set to filter only this month, any type, the balance appreciates by $110,000? How is this helpful? If it worked, I could easily see what I spent vs what income I received, say this month, or this quarter.

If I apply the same filter criteria to my savings accounts, or any of my credit accounts, the balance remains stable. It is only one checking account that has this behavior.

I could understand if I was selecting a custom date range…it would show a balance within that transaction criteria. But when the end date is always the current date, and the balance varies wildly depending on the range, I don't grasp the logic of that.

RickO

In agreement with @Jon. If the date filter is set to a period that includes today, then the balance should be correct. However, in addition to what Jon points out about not being sorted by date, if you invoke one of the other filters (e.g., Income, Untagged, etc.), then the balance will also be off. In these conditions, you will notice that the balance column has turned to a light gray italic font to indicate that it is not a current balance.

jacobs

Just another affirmation that simply changing from All Dates to This Month should show the correct Balance. Try this: click the green Clear Filters button, note the balance today, then pull down the All Dates filter to select This Month — the Balance should be unchanged.

RaviBank

Let me screenshot my last entry, both with "this month" and no filter applied. @RickO @Jon @jacobs