Problem Reconciling with bank statement
Reconciling process generally good, but made lengthier than should be because appears to use MD ledger date rather than date transaction hit bank account (which is always later for cheques, but can also be later for debit card transactions).
Real example...
I download an ofx file from my bank weekly, so most recent file contained transactions up to Friday 2nd July. I wrote a cheque on 28th June (transaction register date) which reached the bank on 2nd July and was therefore included in weekly download. My bank statement arrived shortly afterwards - this is for calendar months so covered transactions up to 30th June, which therefore didn't include the cheque.
So, when I entered the reconcile process, it offered me a date of 2nd July (as date of last downloaded data from bank) which I changed, together with value, to 30th June to match my bank statement. However, when the screen was displayed it showed a mismatch as it was including the cheque even though i had changed the date to 30th June - so I assume it is using the MD transaction date rather than the date it reached the account (which I am sure is available in the download).
In this case it was a single recent value, so fairly quickly spotted. The previous month however I had to go through my bank statement a line at a time to find the multiple occurrences of the same issue - an issue that wouldn't have arisen if the bank transaction date had been used in the reconcile.
Am I missing something?
(I switched from MS Money earlier this year, and in general I am really happy with MD. This is one of the very few places I think MS Money got it better.)
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1 Posted by Ray J on 14 Jul, 2010 07:19 PM
I haven't been able to work out how to use the wiki (logged in as guest), so I'll try and restate my problem and a suggestion more simply here....
Problem - reconcile appears to either include all downloaded transactions to date or all downloaded transactions with a MD transaction date up to the specified date (not sure which) as 'reconciling'.
Suggestion - it should only mark as reconciling those transactions where the date on the bank download record is less than or equal to the specified date.
This would avoid the situation where a cheque written before the bank statement date, but reaching the account after the bank statement date, and included in a download before the bank statement is available to reconcile, is incorrectly marked as reconciling.
Does that make sense?
2 Posted by Angie Rauscher on 16 Jul, 2010 07:27 PM
Ray J,
That makes total sense, and I've added this suggestion to our tracking system. Thank you for this detailed and clear suggestion.
Please let me know if I can be of further assistance,
Angie Rauscher
Moneydance Support
3 Posted by Ray J on 17 Jul, 2010 01:31 PM
Thanks Angie - it is good to know MD takes notice of its users ;-)
4 Posted by -Kevin N. on 12 Sep, 2010 02:26 PM
This sounds like a good suggestion. Put me down for 1 vote for this issue.
5 Posted by Dan Kilpatrick on 16 Jan, 2011 11:47 PM
Here, Here! Checks, Debit, & Credit Card should all have the option of using Register Date or Bank Date.
6 Posted by Lee Matchett on 08 Feb, 2011 08:07 PM
This is a very important issue. Is there any news of when this will be addressed?
7 Posted by rc.m on 09 Feb, 2011 03:02 AM
Add my vote for this feature.
r miller
8 Posted by TJ Finlinson on 08 Aug, 2011 02:46 AM
This is a problem for sure with reconciling to your bank statements. It makes it more time consuming than it needs to be to find the problems. I would prefer to use the bank date on my transactions, especially when I am manually approving the merge for an existing transaction.
Another issue that has effected me with reconciling is that the balance does not change on the cleared/uncleared transactions on either expense or deposit sides of the reconciling window. Those totals at the bottom of the window would be a quick way to narrow down which area you might be missing a transaction if you are using the start by this date box.
Thanks,
TJ
9 Posted by lmatch on 08 Aug, 2011 06:12 PM
I don't understand.. it seems everyone agrees that the bank date needs to be used for downloaded merged transactions, yet a year later and no explanation as to to why this isn't addressed, or why the ledger date should be used instead. It adds a lot of time and excess energy to the reconciliation process and results in many errors by insisting that the ledger date "wins" in a merge.
Please address this.
10 Posted by Ray J on 08 Aug, 2011 07:48 PM
Actually as the OP, I don't quite agree with that. I feel the ledger date should win in the merge as that reflects the true entered date of the transaction - rather than when it hits the bank. However, what I do feel, as obviously both dates are available, is that the bank date should 'win' during the reconciliation process as here we are comparing with the bank statement and this would avoid 'delayed' transactions being falsely provisionally cleared and confusing the process.
11 Posted by lmatch on 08 Aug, 2011 09:38 PM
Ray, the date entered on a check may be important PRIOR to it clearing the bank (so you can see what is was originally written for), but once it clears the bank, I fail to see much value in the ledger date-- certainly not as compared to the date it clears the bank, which is financially the ONLY important date. Even before your actual monthly reconciliation, you want to know how much money you had in the account at what date, and using the ledger date is useless and inaccurate for that.
12 Posted by Angie Rauscher on 12 Aug, 2011 02:59 PM
TJ- this is a know bug with the current build, and will be corrected.
The date issue is a more contentious and complex one, and we're working on finding a solution which will work for the largest number of users without going down the feature bloat road. Hearing from our users is very important in this decision, and I do appreciate the time you are all taking to make your opinions known. We'll post on this thread if/when there is more information available.
Angie Rauscher
Moneydance Support
13 Posted by TJ Finlinson on 12 Aug, 2011 03:45 PM
Thanks for the reply Angie. Is it possible, to put a preference option to allow you to choose which date (your entered date or banks cleared date) you would like to keep for merged/downloaded transaction? The default could be the manually entered date, but you could switch that to be bank date according to your preference.
14 Posted by Ray J on 12 Aug, 2011 04:50 PM
I think there are two separate issues.
(1) reconciliation with bank statement. In this case the bank statement will never include an item whose bank date is after the statement date (even if the physical transaction was earlier), so provisionally clearing such an item is actually misleading in all circumstances. Its inclusion should always be based on the bank date. (2) merging with ledger transaction. I accept that this is more arguable. I would personally prefer the ledger date to win, and for the bank date to remain available in the Alt-hover view. Why? Well, the original transaction date may, for example, be relevant in case of dispute or warranty expiry - and besides, that is when it really happened, it is the date on the debit slip, or the date on the cheque stub.
15 Posted by TJ Finlinson on 13 Aug, 2011 07:29 PM
I can certainly see that the issue is split. If there was a way to include that as a preference option I think that would be great. It would be good though like Ray says to have the transaction keep both dates. So which ever date you want to be your default date for transactions/merges the other date will show in a alt-hover view.
System closed this discussion on 31 Mar, 2015 03:32 PM.