Incorrect Credit Card Account Balance - Positive Balance when it should be negative

Question

Hi there,

I have a VISA account with Simplii Financial. Recently when I download transactions to update the account, the balance that shows up in Quicken registers as a positive value. If there is a balance on the card, it should show as a negative value. I've asked Quicken support and we've reset the account a few times, but it hasn't resolved the issue. Has anyone else run into this and has guidance on how to fix?

Thanks,

MaxIAm · Answer

I have a similar problem but not quite certain from the above description. This credit card account is updated by qfx file.

Edit to add:

I just now also found a old post (2021?) and one of the replies seemed to know this issue as mentioned an FI such as CITI or such. I'd reply to that one to update as that reply was direct to my issue. I can't as that post is closed so updating this so that others searching might see this as a known issue from some CC companies.

My solution was to update then use "paper statement" and not online to reconcile. Mean every time I have to go through more steps filling in the form, and being as my banks all have different methods for importing from auto, to qfx, to csv conveniently from last download to csv from the range is displayed on screen and can then duplicate entries (so messy) it is already a lot of fiddling.

Using paper statement I simply "marked all", was a little out and unchecked the most recent two transaction downloaded that were not on the statement and $0 difference. This was was data going back unreconciled and fiddled with in the olden days to 2017. So I was happy it worked

Not upset with Quicken, just my reality if I want to track from too many accounts in detail.

Here are my details in case this applies to you:

The balance column in Quicken register is red as I owe this money. But the online balance reported by Quicken, at the bottom of the register and in the reconcile window, are the same figures but black indicating a positive balance.

I assume that the problem lies in how the CC company is putting that balance in the qfx file, or it perhaps is correct in the qfx file but something in Quicken is interpreting it backwards

There is no adjustments for me to make within the Quicken register because in the register the amounts are in red and the correct amount. It is the online balance that is backwards.

NotACPA · Answer

You're right, the balance in a card account is normally negative and in Red.

If it's showing as positive/black, one or more of several things has happened.

* The Opening Balance in the Account got changed
* One or more charge transactions got duplicated, or the amounts changed.  This could happen if the transaction was a transfer and the 'other side" got changed or deleted.
* One or more payment transactions got deleted, or the amounts changed. This could also be a result of a change to a transfer.

Can you restore from a backup, TO A DIFFERENT FILE NAME TO NOT OVERWRITE THE CURRENT ACCOUNT, and determine what the Opening Balance in the account should be?  If not what's shown in the current account, change it to what's shown in the restored file, and store the correct OB in the Memo field so that you can easily determine in the future if the OB changed.

Then, pull out your old statements, go back to the point where the statement ending balance and Q agree, then re-reconcile forward, month-by-month, until the error is identified and correct it.  There may be more than one error, so re-reconcile all the way thru the most recent statement.