For Credit Card accounts, where does the "Online Balance" field get populated from?

Question

I Bank with the Royal Bank in Canada.  Since a software update on their end many months ago, I have had a problem with balances that now prevent me from reconciling my credit card accounts with them.  Just a note, all of my other credit cards work perfectly.

The issue I am having is there are multiple balances.  The register balance, and Ending Balance, and the Online Balance.  My register balance and Ending Balance are great.  However, the Online Balance has its sign reversed.  So if the register balance is -100.00, the Online Balance field is +100.00

Only credit cards, personal bank accounts are fine.

So, where does that balance come from?  Calculated in Quicken, the bank on downloads, or from some other source.

Appreciate the help of others on this one!

splasher · Answer

Online balances come from the financial institution in the information downloaded using One Step Update.  Quicken just displays whatever is furnished.

You would need to complain to the FI for them to get the +/- correct in the download, which means they will have to get with the aggregator (Intuit) to get the feed corrected.

In the meantime, turn off auto reconcile and do a manual reconcile so that the balance can be entered with the proper +/-.

NotACPA · Answer

Both the "Online Balance" at the bottom of the account register, and the "Online Balance" on the reconciliation dialog are figures that are downloaded from  your bank.

A credit card is almost always a negative (red) number … meaning you owe money to  the bank.

But I'm baffled how it can show as a negative number in one place and positive in another, since I'm not aware of there being more than  1.

It would help if you could provide a graphic (JPG or GIF formats, please) of what you're seeing.