Account Reconcilliation

Ira Zweifler's Avatar

Ira Zweifler

27 Nov, 2010 05:27 PM

I just returned from a 61 day cruise, updated my accounts and I am having a big time problem reconciling both my checking and my credit card accounts. I have tried manually checking entries I know are correct, but when I use the reconcile, it still doesn't work. Is is possible that some entries got lost? HELP

Thanks

  1. 1 Posted by -Kevin N. on 27 Nov, 2010 05:53 PM

    -Kevin N.'s Avatar

    Hi Ira,
    It's possible that some of the earlier txns were not downloaded into MD. Financial Institutions limit the data available for download.
    I would look to the paper or downloadable versions of your statements from two months ago for the earlier txns.
    HTH -Kevin N.

  2. 2 Posted by Ben Spencer on 27 Nov, 2010 06:06 PM

    Ben Spencer's Avatar

    Hi Ira

    I concur with Kevin, look over your paper statements and compare them to the MD register to see if there is anything missing.

    has the cleared balance changed since you last did a reconciliation? If it has then it is likely that you have inadvertently delted or modified a transaction that was already marked as cleared. If that is the case you would need to track down where the change has occured.

    Ben Spencer
    Moneydance Support

  3. 3 Posted by irazisme on 27 Nov, 2010 07:13 PM

    irazisme's Avatar

    I didn't think anyone would be working today - I'm delighted to hear from you!

    I can't tell if anything has cleared. It is happening with multiple accounts -
    so if we solve one, I should be able to fix the others.

    We left home on Sept 16. As of that date, all accounts were reconciled, and
    everything was OK. We came back on Nov 23, and I downloaded all new
    transactions. I accumulated multiple (2 or 3 months) statements, and started to
    try reconciling from the oldest statement. It would not work. I manually changed
    the dates for the transactions so they would agree with the statement and
    checked the balance. I then manually green checked each entry - hoping the next
    month would work. It didn't. The balance is correct, but the program says it
    isn't. Is there any way I can reset the internal flags so that I can try to redo
    the reconciliation again?

    HELP!!

  4. 4 Posted by -Kevin N. on 27 Nov, 2010 09:11 PM

    -Kevin N.'s Avatar

    Hi Ira,
    It sounds like you may want to start over, you could open one of your back up files and then re-try the downoad.
    Moneydance by default keeps it's backup data files in the same folder as the main data file. The backup files will have their creation date appended to them (e.g. Moneydance.md-2010-06-09) Make a copy of the backup file, remove the appended date and double click it to open it. You may need to rename your original data file so that you don't have two data files with the same name in one folder
    If your financial institution allows it, rather than downloading the past two months txns at once, see if you can download a few weeks at a time in order to make it a little easier to catch the problem txn(s)
    HTH -Kevin N.

    Edit: Make sure you don't have any txns marked as cleared (green check) in your register that are not yet on your statements. The 'Begnning Statement Balance in the Reconcile Account window is calculated from the 'Cleared' txns.

  5. 5 Posted by Angie Rauscher on 28 Nov, 2010 11:59 AM

    Angie Rauscher's Avatar

    Ira,

    Kevin's advice is sound, it is possible this would be the simplest solution. You could also try selecting the "Uncleared" filter in your account register to make sure an old transaction or transfer to be sure something hasn't become "Uncleared" and mess up your current balances.

    I have a tool I personally use (because I can be both neurotic and careless in equal measure with my reconciling) to help me easily track reconciliation issues. Every time I reconcile an account I record a transaction like the one below (see screenshot). If I ever have balance/reconciliation issues I can easily glance back at these transactions to determine if the issue is related to an old or new transaction- such as if I accidentally deleted an old transfer when cleaning up a closed account, or just incorrectly entered a new transaction.

    Good luck tracking down the issue, and please do let me know if I can be of further assistance.

    Angie Rauscher
    Moneydance Support

  6. 6 Posted by irazisme on 28 Nov, 2010 03:38 PM

    irazisme's Avatar

    Angie: What you do is 'brilliant'. I've been using a computer to manage my finances for over 20 years and never thought or heard of this before. I does make tracking problems much easier.

    I have spent a lot of time catagorizing the downloaded entries. Is there an 'easy' way to reset the status of the data from a given point - if I manually erase the green check, will the program treat the item as 'new'?

    Thanks

  7. 7 Posted by irazisme on 28 Nov, 2010 04:58 PM

    irazisme's Avatar

    I have taken one of the accounts with a small number of transactions to test -
    and it seems to work.

    I have selected a closing date in the past, where the running balance in
    Moneydance and my paper statement agree. I manually cleared all of the green
    checks from that date on - and made a memo entry of the correct balance, as you
    suggested. I then started to reconcile over again. It now seems to work.

    What a pain.

    Thanks for your help - especially over a Holiday weekend.

    As long as we are talking, is there any thought at Moneydance of improving the
    report generation. For example, I would like to be able to track payments to
    specific individuals over a specific period of time; to compare expenses withing
    categories between different dates. Any hope??

    Ira

  8. 8 Posted by -Kevin N. on 28 Nov, 2010 05:59 PM

    -Kevin N.'s Avatar

    Hi Ira,

    I would like to be able to track payments to specific individuals over a specific period of time

    The Search Report works for this type of tracking. Access the Search Report from the Side Bar, click the 'Edit' button. Type in the Date rage, type the individual's name into the 'Description' field.

    to compare expenses withing categories between different dates.

    The Income & Expense Report works for this. Access the Income & Expenses Report from the Side Bar, click the 'Edit' button. Set the 'Date' to 'Custom dates', fill in the desired date range. Choose a desired 'Group By:' setting. Just above the large box at the bottom, click the blue 'None' text then the blue 'By Individual' text next to 'Show' and select the desired expense(s)

    HTH -Kevin N.

  9. 9 Posted by Angie Rauscher on 28 Nov, 2010 06:22 PM

    Angie Rauscher's Avatar

    Ira,

    Kevin's explanation is even better than mine would have been! I'm glad to hear you're solving the reconcile problem, even if it's a bit of a pain. FYI, if you want to mark multiple transactions as "Uncleared" (remove the green check) you can select multiple transactions then right-click and select "Mark as Uncleared".

    Do let me know if there are report need you aren't finding are met but Kevin's suggestions, it's very helpful for us to understand what our users are trying to get out of graphs and reports.

    I'm glad we could help- we're surprisingly busy on holiday weekends with even more inquiries than normal. It seems people use the time off to clean up their finances before starting their Christmas shopping!

    Please let me know if I can be of further assistance,

    Angie Rauscher
    Moneydance Support

  10. 10 Posted by irazisme on 28 Nov, 2010 08:17 PM

    irazisme's Avatar

    It seems that this fixes the problem. I still don't know why it happened, but it
    looks like some records were lost - I don't know if it is my computer or your
    file system. In any event, your idea of adding a memo entry with the date and
    the reconciled value makes fixing it much easier. You should let all of your
    users know about this procedure.

    Ira

  11. 11 Posted by xxtemp on 29 Nov, 2010 03:31 PM

    xxtemp's Avatar

    Thanks for the BALANCE transaction idea, Angie. Quicken had a Reconciliation Report that I used for that purpose, but your idea is better. Perhaps that can be mentioned in some future documentation (or even formalized with a "Add Reconciliation Transaction" option.


    I know that with my bank, if I didn't download transactions every month, I could lose some.

    • Al
  12. Angie Rauscher closed this discussion on 17 Dec, 2012 08:02 PM.

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