Tale of woe... Quicken Mac Classic Deluxe V8.2.1

Question

I'm reengaging with Quicken after a long hiatus, and I wasn't very good at using it in the first place. Yesterday I checked that all my balances were correct (hooray!) and then I did several hours of linking transactions across two accounts.

The program helpfully & regularly said "Hey! We've found a transaction that might be related, would you like to link?" and I said yes. I did some other random things, too, which I couldn't replicate, like changing the names of a lot of categories.

At the end of the day I discovered that one (only one) of my account balances was suddenly way off. I've added a huge adjustment, but I'd dearly love to figure out what I've done wrong. I don't have the foggiest idea where to start.

Any suggestions? Thanks for your time.

[Edited - Readability]

Bob@45 · Answer

If I understand what you did from your description, you linked transactions between accounts A and B, like linking payments from checking account A against payments received in credit card account B.

I'd suggest do a comprehensive Transactions report for all accounts, all dates, and look at the Transfers section. It's possible that when Quicken "helped" it linked things to the wrong account and you didn't notice that it was the wrong account being linked. The transfers section of the report would help you find that.

Also check the Opening Balance of your account that's off. This activity normally would not affect the opening balance, but since you did some other random things that you couldn't replicate, I wouldn't rule it out. For safety, always have an opening balance record in every account that is older than your first non-zero record, and that opening balance record should be zero. (If you have a valid non-zero opening balance record in Quicken, rename it to "starting balance" and make sure there's an Opening Balance record that's older and zero.)

That's because Quicken has a known and so far unfixable problem where it will without warning or notice change the opening balance of an account when you relink it to its financial institution for downloads. If you have an account going back to 2000, and have to restart downloads, and the bank says "here are all the transactions since May 2023, when the starting balance was $666", Quicken will set your opening balance in 2000 to $666 and not tell you.

Quicken Kristina · Answer

Hello @BestedByQkn,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community!  Based on your description of what happened, I suspect that the balance of that one account may have been thrown off by linking transactions.  Linking the transactions causes Quicken to see it as a transfer between the accounts.

To be able to confirm if that is the problem, or if something else happened, we would need more information.  How is the balance off (too high, too low)?  Is there anything obvious throwing it off, such as duplicate transactions?  Are there any missing transactions?

A screenshot of what you're seeing may also be helpful.  Please make sure to redact any personal information and account numbers (even partial account numbers).  If needed, please refer to this Community FAQ for instructions on how to attach a screenshot. Alternatively, you can also drag and drop screenshots to your response if you are not given the option to add attachments.

I look forward to your reply!