Community Discussion: Bank of America Checking Account Not Reconciling (Again!)
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It boggles the mind that so many users can get these problems so terribly wrong.
Background: a.) It's clear there is a problem: the downloaded "online balance" (that is: the online "cleared" balance) for some financial institutions is wrong, because it includes transactions that are in a "pending" state at the financial institution. b.) It's clear that Quicken is well aware of the problem (see:
What is mind boggling is that so many users assume that: a) the problem is caused by (or at least can be fixed by) Quicken, without a shred of evidence to support that assumption, and b) that Quicken should have fixed the problem by now but has irresponsibly not done so, and that Quicken is just awaiting sufficient complaints from users before they will fix the problem (again, without a shred of evidence).
No user has any idea who is responsible for this problem (or most problems experienced by Quicken users). And even if a user knew who was responsible for the problem, it is a certainty that no Quicken user has a clue how long it "should" take to solve any problem observed in Quicken.
An overwhelming percentage of users experiencing this problem (incorrect "online balance"), make the false statement that because the online balance is incorrect, they "cannot reconcile". That claim is false: regardless of the accuracy of the online balance, a Quicken account can always be reconciled to a "paper statement" (which does not really need a paper statement, just a known correct balance).
While it is true that not being able to reconcile to the online balance will be an inconvenience for some users, it is not the end of the world, and it does not place an inordinate burden on users. I have never reconciled to an online balance, and I have no intention of ever doing so. I currently download to 26 accounts from 10 different financial institutions and I have no problem keeping my Quicken data complete and accurate, while reconciling to printed statements. Until the problem is fixed: the user who feels they must reconcile to an online balance, can often wait until there are no "pending transactions" at the financial institution, then reconcile to an online balance at that time (if it doesn't work after one download, try again after another download).
For some specifics: a.) Contrary to many false user claims, Quicken does NOT "download" anything. Quicken issues "requests" to financial institutions (and to other third parties, such as the Quicken investment quote provider) to send data. In all cases (except for some Express Web Connect downloads, where Intuit creates the downloaded data), it is the financial institution (the third party) that selects, formats and sends the data to Quicken. [In some cases, that data flows thru Intuit on its way to Quicken, but in no case does Quicken EVER have direct access to financial institution data.] b.) When the problem is caused by the financial institution, there is NO WAY that Quicken itself can fix the problem. The most that Quicken can do is to work with the financial institution (or any involved party) to help identify the problem and to "suggest" approaches to repair the problem. I am certain that Quicken already does that, and that no amount of additional encouragement or bitching can make that process proceed any better or faster. What seems so often ignored is that Quicken has a major stake in having downloads work correctly; once Quicken knows of a problem, I will wager Quicken does everything they are capable of doing, as quickly as they can, to get the problem fixed. I'm unaware of any user who has verifiably demonstrated otherwise. c.) The answer to one user's question ("Can't support change the program to point to the 'normalizedBalance' instead of 'onlineBalance'?"), the answer is NO. In the first place, it is virtually never a legitimate practice to modify software to work around a bug. You fix the bug (or in this case, get the financial institution to send the correct data). In the second place, it is not clear that Quicken has any way to know what the "correct online balance" should be. Quicken turned off the ability to receive pending transactions, and if those transactions are not being downloaded, Quicken has no idea whether there are any pending transactions at the financial institutions, much less what the net amount of those pending transactions is. [Generally, Quicken properly does not try to "correct" data that is downloaded - users should not expect that to happen.] e.) Another user, imagining Quicken capabilities that are not known to exist, insists, " ...Quicken has the option to download or only show cleared transactions ....". There is no evidence that Quicken has such a capability (again: Quicken has no direct access to the financial institutions); and no reason to believe they should do as the user asks, even if they could. The right way to deal with this problem is to get the correct online balance downloaded - which only the financial institutions can do.
Finally, some conjecture. Many users appear to believe that the incorrect online balances are "caused" by a Quicken patch some time ago. Given the fact that the online balance is 100% out of Quicken's control, it is unlikely in the extreme that any Quicken patch is responsible for this problem.
But I suspect that when Quicken decided they would process "pending transactions" (and included that capability in a patch, some time ago); if the financial institution sent pending transactions (something I personally consider a mistake), Quicken did not fully appreciate all the potential problems with processing pending transactions. Which, I believe, is why they turned off the ability to get those pending transactions.
One of the issues Quicken (and the financial institutions) may not have fully grasped is how to handle reconciling when pending transactions are involved. Logically, pending transactions cannot be reconciled: logically the reconcile process is designed to determine that the user has ALL, and ONLY, those transactions that have "cleared" the bank. Pending transactions have, by definition, not "cleared" the bank ... and in some cases, they will not clear the bank. So pending transactions can't logically be reconciled; thus they can not be included in the "online balance" which is used for reconciling. I think it's possible that the financial institutions did not consider the purpose of the online balance, and assumed it should include all transactions that were being downloaded. I think that would never have been correct, and it's even less correct now that pending transactions are not being downloaded.
Perhaps when Quicken is finally ready to process pending transactions, Quicken, and the financial institutions, will either agree to have two "online balances" sent ("online cleared balance", and "online available balance - which together could be a useful addition to Quicken, even if pending transactions are not downloaded). Or perhaps they will decide to have pending transactions downloaded to a "separate" account, so their information will be available, but they will not interfere with other activity (and be easily excluded from reports, etc.)
[Last Community post: 06-17-23 @ 5:27 AM]