Reconcile, start balance is wrong.

When I've had this, it has been because a reconciled transaction was modified or deleted.

Hi, XS11E.

If the ending balance reconciles, then the opening balance is of only academic interest.

If the ending balance does NOT reconcile, then you need to identify the non-reconciling item, even if it occurred in some earlier period.

Quite often, a check or deposit that is outstanding on April 30 will clear in May. Note that a reconciliation is not really for "a month" or other PERIOD of time, but AS OF a particular POINT in time, usually the close business on the last day of a month.

Quicken's reconciliation screens sometimes confuse me. The lists of Payments and Checks and of Deposits are usually all or mostly shown as BOLD. To make it easier on myself, I click Mark All - and then Mark All a second time - to UNbold them all. And then I click each one as I compare the cleared items from my checkbook (yes, I still also keep a manual checkbook) or Quicken check register to the statement. If the "Difference" is not zero when I finish this exercise, then I have more tracking and comparing to do.

If I forgot to reconcile last month, then the screen that opens when I click Reconcile might show an "Opening Balance" that was actually from the last time that I did reconcile - maybe a few months ago. That doesn't matter, so long as all the reconciling items match the statements I've received since then. Only the ENDING balance matters.

If all else fails, go back and reconcile LAST month-end again.

I know all this is too elementary for you, XS11E - but we all have to go through these steps - again - sometimes. ;^}

RC

Absolutely - start looking! This has happened to me multiple times over the past decade of using Q. Obviously, I don't TRY to do this on purpose, so I am not sure how it happens, but I think it is do to sometimes copying and pasting (or cut and pasting!) transactions that have already been marked as reconciled.

(This is not meant to start a 'me too' thread; it's just that this is very very likely the cause of your problem.)

The opening balance is the net amount of all transactions in the account with a cleared status ("Clr") of "R" - at the time you initiate the reconcile. Anything that changes that net amount will change your opening balance.

I often copy-and-paste existing reconciled transactions then clear the R status and set the date to today. Could you possibly have done the same but forgotten to change the date and clear the R? If so, sorting the register by order entered should flush out the culprit(s).

Jerry

It didn't reconcile, it's off by the same amount as the opening balance.

I really didn't write any $4,000 checks last month.

Last month reconciled correctly as stated in my post and I did go back and reconcile again to no avail....

I never copy and paste so I doubt that's it?

That's worth a look, thanks.

Here's a cumbersome method that should work if all else fails. If a very old transaction has been deleted it might be your only hope.

Restore a known-to-be-correct backup copy of your DB on a laptop and compare the current and backup registers to find the line(s) at which the balance differs.

Printing the backup register or flipping between the two DBs will also work if you can't find a 2nd computer.

Jerry

I should NEVER trust my memory, the error is $17,414.86 which is, BTW, more than my total spending OR total deposits in the last two months

EDIT: error, the beginning balance was $17,414.86 too high!

Found it!

Somehow, during May, Quicken downloaded hundreds of duplicate transactions. I had earlier started a thread that I was unable to match transactions and never received a usable answer but the problem seems to date from my change from UBS to RBC for my checking/credit card accounts?

This time I wasn't even given the chance to match, they were just entered into the register somehow???????

I have duplicates of many deposits, checks and credit card transactions going back many months into last year, the number is into the hundreds.

I see no fix other than to load a backup from April and start again???

And that didn't work. I reloaded the current and manually deleted several hundred duplicated items, still need to check to be sure there are no more.....

How can I change the start date on the reconcile screen to go back to a previous month?

Can anyone answer this? I recall doing it once but I can't remember how...

You already got the answer you need (presuming you're using a version of Quicken later than *about* Q2002.

And following the answer you got, will allow you to re-reconcile to your heart's content (the "start date" doesn't matter - though the "ending date" does).

I give up, where? And it's Quicken 2010.

WHAT ANSWER?

I haven't seen an answer, I've reloaded this entire discussion and can't find any answer and I very much NEED to get this fixed, my alternative is going to have to be to discontinue using Quicken if I can't reconcile the account.

and how do you feel this helps my problem?

John Pollard has referred me to some post that I either did not see or did not apply to my problem and your post accomplished what?

You have had several answers suggested to you. When I moved over from MS Money I had several similar unbalanced situations while getting into production. I thought you had resolved the problem when you said you had found it. If you are having difficulties at this point I would

1) drop back to a backup where the problem does not show an error. You said it balanced a month ago (probably now 2 months). Restore that backup and note the account balance at the time it was balanced. Then go to the current file and verify that the account balance on the same day (and transaction) is the same. If it is not then you need to look at what happened previous to that day, otherwise you are limited to items since that day.

I had one case where I simply allowed it to put a transaction so I could balance. I did not want to continue searching for the less than a dollar difference

I feel your frustrati>

In effect, you're asking the wrong question. You don't change the start date to go back to a previous reconcile ... you change the net amount of reconciled transactions.

Which I pointed out on June 11 in this thread. And reminded again June 15 ... which you quoted when you submitted this post I'm replying to.

I've had this happen a few times in the past. Usually it was caused by a duplicate transaction or a mismatching of a downloaded transaction.

I just pull up the bank account online and work my way backwards month by month until I find where the balance in Q no longer matches the balance on the website. Then I narrow it down within that month until I find the transaction(s) causing the problem. In my case, I narrowed it down to my being lazy where I hit the "accept all transaction" blindly. I no longer do that and only occasionally get duplicate transactions.