Please bear with me folks as I'm far from being a financial guru. I have had one iteration or another of Quicken for close to 12 years now and love the program. I use it primarily to track my checkbook, and pay my bills..... Nothing fancy. I notice when I go to balance my checkbook there are many old transactions that have never been reconciled. A lot of these are automatic transactions that have ceased and have continued before correction. I was thinking of taking care of this problem while I have a little spare time. First of all, if I go back and delete all of these dead transactions will that mess up my figures when I go to reconcile? Also the only time I really notice these are when I reconcile my checkbook. Is there a search feature where I can go back and see these in a small space without searching 12 years of transactions? I appreciate the help and apologize for sounding so stupid. TIA
The purpose of a reconciliation is to make YOUR records agree with the BANK's records - and, hopefully, with The Real World.
What kind of "old transactions" are those?
Did they actually impact your account at the bank? If so, then you should make sure they are recorded in Quicken - then mark them "R". If they never did and never will affect your account at the bank, then delete them from your Quicken register.
I'm not sure I've parsed that sentence correctly, but it sounds like these are in my second group above; just delete them from Quicken and forget about them. Apparently you continued to record them (automatically) as deductions from your bank balance even though the transactions never happened. When you delete them, your computed bank balance should start to approach reality, right?
Tell Quicken to Reconcile this bank account. Mark as "R" transactions any that you know have cleared. Any remaining after that - and after all those deletions - should be investigated. The only items remaining outstanding when the reconciliation is done are those that ARE expected to "clear the bank" at some point in the future. If they cleared at ANY time in the past, then the reconciliation need not deal with them. They may be interesting, but if they cleared at the amount you have recorded, then they are not "reconciling items" now.
If there are differences in amounts, they must be investigated. If a check was recorded as $50 but the bank paid it as $500, then that should be explained, of course. But any differences in timing should be self-correcting. Any outstanding item at the end of 2007 should have cleared in 2008; if it didn't, then it should be checked out. And, naturally, any transactions that the bank properly recorded (such as ATM fees or NSF check charges) must be entered in your records - and then marked "R".
A Reconciliation is not intended as a historical document that shows everything that happened during a period (although it usually does). Its true purpose is only to explain the difference between two balances: the one in your checkbook (or Quicken register) versus the one at your bank. And it focuses on ONE point in time: close of business today, or such other time as you choose, such as the end of last month. NOT for a PERIOD of time, but AS OF A POINT in time. It is a snapshot, not a movie.
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