Reconciliation not done properly or not?

ksrothschild
ksrothschild Member ✭✭✭
I do not know if this is a question or discussion, but here it goes...

For the last few months, I have several legitimate credit card charges posted by the financial institution and the account balance is correct at this institution.

Now, in my Quicken account for this credit card account does show the same and correct balance with the financial institution. BUT, the several legitimate credit card charges (as mentioned in the previous paragraph and of various different amounts, even different cents amounts - none are of $xx.00 amounts) are still outstanding as they are not reconciled at all!!! This is an ongoing problem because nothing is being checked off.

How is this possible? Is there something I am missing or whatever to get these charges checked off as reconciled? If I do manually clear these charges, then the balance will not reflect the correct online balance nor match with the balance at the financial institution.

Thank you in advance for reading this and I hope to have some concrete answers.

Best Answer

  • Boatnmaniac
    Boatnmaniac SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 2023 Answer ✓
    @mark1104 and Quicken folks

    Problem solved!!!

    This problem was very annoying, especially when I did everything kosher all along throughout the years...

    I decided to do some sleuthing and found the problem.

    Somehow, the register's BEGINNING BALANCE was not the same (don't ask me how it happened - but that is for the Quicken folks to look into - probably some quirk during the clean out previous year [COPY] process - and I did NOT touch any transactions).

    So, I adjusted the beginning balance to match the same amount as the financial institution at that beginning date - and that adjusted amount is exactly the same as all transactions that were not reconciled!!!

    Now, all is kosher and balanced out!!!

    I hope that the Quicken folks will take heed in this quirky issue.

    Regards...
    The opening balance getting changed was identified as a issue since at least last spring.  It would sometimes (not always) happen when setting up a manual account for online service (for OSU or Update Now), deactivating/reactivating an account or when making some other change to the connection method.  It first happened with me when my PayPal account was converted form EWC to EWC+.  It started getting a lot of people's attention last summer and fall when Chase and BofA converted to EWC+ and when Discover discontinued DC and made EWC their download standard.
    Because of this issue, I have entered the online balance date and dollar amount into the Memo field of the Opening Balance transaction for every connected account that I have.  That has made it really easy to check that the online balance is correct after making a connection change and to easily correct it when it is not.  I still recommend that everyone does this...it's a one time activity, fast to do, easy to do and can save a lot of time and headaches should this ever happen, again.
    R45.11 in November supposedly fixed this issue but accounts which had incorrect Opening Balance transactions because of this issue prior to installing R45.11 (or higher) need to be manually corrected (as you well know).  Since then the "noise" level about this issue in this Community seems to have dropped off considerably.

    (Quicken Classic Premier Subscription: R54.16 on Windows 11)

Answers

  • Mark1104
    Mark1104 Member ✭✭✭✭
    @ksrothschild

    are you manually entering transactions into the ledger? is so, why? 

    not confident I am following your issue, but if you click 'reconcile' and go through the reconcile routine, everything that ties to the credit card account balance will get checked off.  Some of these you may have to do manually to get everything to balance.

    otherwise, can you be more specific? 

    1) what is the credit card online balance RIGHT NOW as reflected on the bottom of the transaction screen in Quicken.  
    2) what is the balance in Quicken at the bottom of the transaction register?
    3) if these two numbers match, then all the items not checked should be as they are reconcile items 1) and 2),
  • ksrothschild
    ksrothschild Member ✭✭✭
    @Mark1104,

    No, I do not manually enter the transactions. All the transactions are downloaded directly from my financial institution as I have been doing this for years and reconciliations have been done seamlessly until now. I do see that items are checked off during the reconciliation process.

    I am very confident of my accounting knowledge (it was my minor in college)

    To answer your questions, I say that it is number 3 with all numbers matching down to the very last cent - and I still have some items which were already accounted for at the financial institution and are still not checked off (or “R” in the register)

    If I try to manually check off the transactions (as they have already been recorded at the financial institution) then my credit card register amount will NOT match with the online balance.

    This is all perplexing to me and this is why I am asking for assistance to rectify this situation. :-(

    Thank you!!!
  • ksrothschild
    ksrothschild Member ✭✭✭
    @mark1104 and Quicken folks

    Problem solved!!!

    This problem was very annoying, especially when I did everything kosher all along throughout the years...

    I decided to do some sleuthing and found the problem.

    Somehow, the register's BEGINNING BALANCE was not the same (don't ask me how it happened - but that is for the Quicken folks to look into - probably some quirk during the clean out previous year [COPY] process - and I did NOT touch any transactions).

    So, I adjusted the beginning balance to match the same amount as the financial institution at that beginning date - and that adjusted amount is exactly the same as all transactions that were not reconciled!!!

    Now, all is kosher and balanced out!!!

    I hope that the Quicken folks will take heed in this quirky issue.

    Regards...
  • Boatnmaniac
    Boatnmaniac SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 2023 Answer ✓
    @mark1104 and Quicken folks

    Problem solved!!!

    This problem was very annoying, especially when I did everything kosher all along throughout the years...

    I decided to do some sleuthing and found the problem.

    Somehow, the register's BEGINNING BALANCE was not the same (don't ask me how it happened - but that is for the Quicken folks to look into - probably some quirk during the clean out previous year [COPY] process - and I did NOT touch any transactions).

    So, I adjusted the beginning balance to match the same amount as the financial institution at that beginning date - and that adjusted amount is exactly the same as all transactions that were not reconciled!!!

    Now, all is kosher and balanced out!!!

    I hope that the Quicken folks will take heed in this quirky issue.

    Regards...
    The opening balance getting changed was identified as a issue since at least last spring.  It would sometimes (not always) happen when setting up a manual account for online service (for OSU or Update Now), deactivating/reactivating an account or when making some other change to the connection method.  It first happened with me when my PayPal account was converted form EWC to EWC+.  It started getting a lot of people's attention last summer and fall when Chase and BofA converted to EWC+ and when Discover discontinued DC and made EWC their download standard.
    Because of this issue, I have entered the online balance date and dollar amount into the Memo field of the Opening Balance transaction for every connected account that I have.  That has made it really easy to check that the online balance is correct after making a connection change and to easily correct it when it is not.  I still recommend that everyone does this...it's a one time activity, fast to do, easy to do and can save a lot of time and headaches should this ever happen, again.
    R45.11 in November supposedly fixed this issue but accounts which had incorrect Opening Balance transactions because of this issue prior to installing R45.11 (or higher) need to be manually corrected (as you well know).  Since then the "noise" level about this issue in this Community seems to have dropped off considerably.

    (Quicken Classic Premier Subscription: R54.16 on Windows 11)

  • ksrothschild
    ksrothschild Member ✭✭✭
    Thank you for chiming in... much appreciated!!! I thought I was going bonkers with my frustration. I'm glad that this problem is not of my doing and I can sleep better... LOL

    Again, many thanks - and I hope these Quicken folks will ensure that there are no more future incidents!!! ;-)
This discussion has been closed.