QMac: stupid new reconcile method
In quicken 2.9, they have decided to "help" me. They want to reconcile using my quicken balance instead of my statement balance. This does not help me. I use several "fake" accounts to hide money from myself. Those transactions to and from those fake accounts do not reconcile. Therefore my quicken balance is very different from my bank balance. If I cannot use bank balances, I cannot check the accuracy of my bank statement. Can someone tell me of a way to change a setting in quicken to get rid of this?
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Comments
The reconcile feature in the new release of Quicken for Mac 2.9 has been updated to match changes in the later products. You can read more about how to use reconcile here: https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/quicken-mac-v3-5-reconcile-troubleshooting
Hope this helps,
Quicken Kathryn
Community Administrator
Now, if you type in a different starting balance (such as from a statement), the program will accept this, but then an adjustment is already created to overcome this discrepancy. See below in a copy of 2015 recently updated to the new reconcile format. Notice the Adjustment from my wildly entered starting balance:
David, you might not want to hear this, but I highly suspect your prior transactions (and cleared/reconciled status) are the source of your problems. The sum of cleared reconciled transactions should be the starting balance on your statement. If the sum of reconciled transactions does not equal your starting balance, you have prior problems you must resolve. Or, you take the adjustment.
This is not a download/manual entry issue
As John explained, the sum of all your debits and credits in your Quicken data file, from the beginning to today, do not add up to the starting balance on your bank statement. That could be due to lots of different things we could explore -- but you can decide you don't care why and just want to make an adjustment so you can move forward. (Just make sure you take into any uncleared transactions, since those transactions are in Quicken but not not the bank statement; if you don't account for them, you'll face the need for another adjustment next month.) You DO have complete control over the situation.
Yes, the previous versions of Quicken 2015 allowed users to overlook data that was incorrect in the data file, and this version now forces users to deal with past errors one way or the other. And once you do, life continues on happily.
Please understand I'm not trying to argue with you; I'm only trying to help you get past the mental block I think you're having over this issue.
I don't work for Quicken, but I feel confident in saying that Quicken is not going to go back in time -- to an old reconcile method which was flawed and which has been fixed -- because you choose not to follow any of the options.
If you'd rather move to some different software because you don't care to understand how to fix your reconcile issue with Quicken, then good luck and best wishes.
You may want to add your VOTE to Track/store Prior Reconciled Statements/periods.
First, click on the underlined link above to go there, then click VOTE at the top of THAT page, so your will vote count for THIS feature and increase its visibility to the developers by seeking to have the features you need or desire end up in the latest version.
While you are at it, you may want to add your VOTE to related IDEAS found on the List of Requests for Reconciliation Process. Click on the underlined link, then follow the instructions to add your vote to more related ideas. Your VOTES matter!
(If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)
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Quicken should eliminate the LARGE Ad space when a subscription expires
(Canadian Q user since '92, STILL using QM2007)
Quicken used to let you ignore this by entering your own starting balance, but this proved problematic for many people because it was masking the underlying problem with their data, so they "fixed" it. The problem is that for some people, like you, this requires either hunting down the discrepancy(ies) in the past (which for some is very simple and for some is time-consuming), or making a one-time adjustment to get your Quicken transactions back in line with your bank statement.
Essentially, Quicken used to let you add 1 + 1 and set the total to 3. They stopped allowing that because users eventually had some other problem due to the underlying wrong total, and then blamed Quicken because it had let you cheat.
You say "Quicken has a problem with the way I want to work." In reality, you have a problem with the way Quicken works, which is now mathematically consistent.
So, as you keep saying, your option is to go find different software. I believe you would spend far more time researching, learning, and migrating your data to another program that you would to simply fix the underlying problem with your data -- but the choice is obviously yours. I'd just suggest that you don't keep spending time complaining about your perceived problem with Quicken. All Quicken 2016 and Quicken 2017 users went through this change in the reconciliation process a year ago -- some with a lot of grumbling -- but because it's now correct, I think you're wasting your breath complaining here (to fellow users, not management) that they should go back to letting you set 1+1=3.
I know exactly where every penny of my money is.
I told my financial software exactly where every penny of my money is.
You seem to feel the first is only true if the second one is true. I do not. The new reconciliation method requires the second one to be true. I am not interested in that. I am not interested in the software introducing fake transactions to make the second one true. The first one is true for me.
That said, there have been times in the past where I have needed to reconcile statements out of order (when I fell behind several yrs, I started with the most recent yr to get up to speed; QM2007 allows you to continue, though it warns that there is a discrepancy with the past, that is the starting balance does not agree with past reconciliations).
Now, what Quicken has currently implemented fills a gap whereby the old method in QEM (circa 2010) onwards failed to identify discrepancies when previous reconciliation may not be correct. So you could continue with new reconciliations but there could be errors in the past.
Note however that these discrepancies may not be as a result of user errors in past reconciliations but can also occur due to bugs in the software causing a past transaction(s) to be deleted, or the reconciled flag to be altered. Any of these could be the problem.
So just like QM2007 and QWin, now QM2015+ identifies that there IS a problem in past data, again, not necessarily because of anything you did wrong. BUT to resolve this you will have to track it down OR accept the suggested adjustment (which I too would not feel comfortable accepting).
Of course, QM2007 has a feature that helps to quickly identify where such a problem may exist, which would be a great help to have added back into QMac (see post above if you want to add your vote for it).
HTH.
- Where to find a Help Guide for Quicken for Mac?
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- Quicken Windows FAQ list
- Help Guide and FAQs for Quicken Mobile
COMPLETE list of Product Ideas - Quicken for Mac to VOTE onObject to Quicken's business model, using up 25% of your screen? Add your vote here:
Quicken should eliminate the LARGE Ad space when a subscription expires
(Canadian Q user since '92, STILL using QM2007)
https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/stupd-new-reconcile-method?topic-reply-list%5Bse...
(If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)
- Where to find a Help Guide for Quicken for Mac?
- Quicken Mac FAQ list
- Quicken Windows FAQ list
- Help Guide and FAQs for Quicken Mobile
COMPLETE list of Product Ideas - Quicken for Mac to VOTE onObject to Quicken's business model, using up 25% of your screen? Add your vote here:
Quicken should eliminate the LARGE Ad space when a subscription expires
(Canadian Q user since '92, STILL using QM2007)
(If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)
- Where to find a Help Guide for Quicken for Mac?
- Quicken Mac FAQ list
- Quicken Windows FAQ list
- Help Guide and FAQs for Quicken Mobile
COMPLETE list of Product Ideas - Quicken for Mac to VOTE onObject to Quicken's business model, using up 25% of your screen? Add your vote here:
Quicken should eliminate the LARGE Ad space when a subscription expires
(Canadian Q user since '92, STILL using QM2007)