Mandi
04-17-2003, 11:47 AM
Financial whiz, I am not. We will just state that as a given here at the outset.
I use Quicken for bookeeping functions related to our personal banking. Every month when the checking account statement comes, I use the Reconcile function built into Quicken. It's worked JUST FINE for several years now.
This morning, I got to the end and noticed I didn't come out to a nice and tidy "0.00" balance difference at the end of the process - we were -39.80. Usually that means I didn't click hard enough to effectively clear one or two items, so I scanned through for items that weren't reconciled. I noticed that three or four items remained unreconciled from the past 2 statement periods, which seemed odd. (I mean, we've had a few transactions that NEVER cleared, but this was stuff like an ATM withdrawl, a Wal-Mart purchase - things that hit the bank without fail.)
I pulled those statements, and in fact - they WERE included in last month (and the previous month's) statements. I MUST have properly marked them the past two times I reconcilled because I came up with the proper "0.00" balance difference, and got that nice little "Congrats, your account balanced" splash screen :D LOL both times. (Nothing like a little immediate reinforcement for those of us with mediocre skills.)
The only explanation is that A) either my husband or myself "unreconciled" the item in the register (but it gives a warning not to do that, and we'd both understand that would be a bad thing to do) or B) the software messed it up.
So, upon realizing the problem, I just backed out of the new reconcilation this morning - just cancelled it altogether - and went and reconciled those old items by hand. Then I started the reconcile process again, from the begining. However, it took my "starting balance" (last month's statement balance) and altered it by the amounts I'd hand reconciled. I understand why it thinks it had to do this, but I don't know how else to fix the error %) !
If you hung in here this long, congratulations! So, here's my actual questions:
1) Would deleting the problematic transactions (the ones I know cleared one of the previous statement periods, but then got "unreconciled") altogether - since I know my balance reflects them and I can't reconcile them TWICE - fix the problem?
2) Any thoughts on why Quicken would do this after years of flawless operation?
******
PS, I read "PEBKAC" here years ago as way to describe user error: Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair . . .
I use Quicken for bookeeping functions related to our personal banking. Every month when the checking account statement comes, I use the Reconcile function built into Quicken. It's worked JUST FINE for several years now.
This morning, I got to the end and noticed I didn't come out to a nice and tidy "0.00" balance difference at the end of the process - we were -39.80. Usually that means I didn't click hard enough to effectively clear one or two items, so I scanned through for items that weren't reconciled. I noticed that three or four items remained unreconciled from the past 2 statement periods, which seemed odd. (I mean, we've had a few transactions that NEVER cleared, but this was stuff like an ATM withdrawl, a Wal-Mart purchase - things that hit the bank without fail.)
I pulled those statements, and in fact - they WERE included in last month (and the previous month's) statements. I MUST have properly marked them the past two times I reconcilled because I came up with the proper "0.00" balance difference, and got that nice little "Congrats, your account balanced" splash screen :D LOL both times. (Nothing like a little immediate reinforcement for those of us with mediocre skills.)
The only explanation is that A) either my husband or myself "unreconciled" the item in the register (but it gives a warning not to do that, and we'd both understand that would be a bad thing to do) or B) the software messed it up.
So, upon realizing the problem, I just backed out of the new reconcilation this morning - just cancelled it altogether - and went and reconciled those old items by hand. Then I started the reconcile process again, from the begining. However, it took my "starting balance" (last month's statement balance) and altered it by the amounts I'd hand reconciled. I understand why it thinks it had to do this, but I don't know how else to fix the error %) !
If you hung in here this long, congratulations! So, here's my actual questions:
1) Would deleting the problematic transactions (the ones I know cleared one of the previous statement periods, but then got "unreconciled") altogether - since I know my balance reflects them and I can't reconcile them TWICE - fix the problem?
2) Any thoughts on why Quicken would do this after years of flawless operation?
******
PS, I read "PEBKAC" here years ago as way to describe user error: Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair . . .