Reconciliation report

Peter Poulin's Avatar

Peter Poulin

30 Sep, 2023 08:29 PM

My Cash reconciliation always balances to zero but my reconciliation report always shows a difference because it reflects the current balance as the beginning balance which throws off the target balance, and hence the difference. Is there anyway to reset the beginning balance on the reconciliation report?

  1. 1 Posted by dwg on 30 Sep, 2023 10:31 PM

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    I'm a fellow user

    The beginning balance on the reconciliation report is a calculated number, the calculation that Moneydance performs is:

    Initial Balance of the Account + Cleared Deposits - Cleared Payments

    So if the beginning balance is not what you expect then it is a problem involving one of these three.

    There are a small number of possibilities here, these are:

    - Modified the amount of a transaction that was already marked as cleared.
    - Deleted a transaction that was already marked as cleared.
    - Manually cleared a transaction in the intervening time.
    - Deleted a category that contained cleared transactions.
    - Deleted an account that had transfers to or from the account you are reconciling.
    - Changed the "Initial balance" on the account (via Account > Edit Account).
    - Manually marked a cleared transaction as uncleared.
    
  2. 2 Posted by Peter Poulin on 30 Sep, 2023 11:08 PM

    Peter Poulin's Avatar

    The beginning balance is correct when I do the reconciliation so I don't
    want to mess with that. It is incorrect only on the reconciliation report.

    On Sat, Sep 30, 2023 at 6:31 PM dwg <[email blocked]> wrote:

  3. 3 Posted by dwg on 30 Sep, 2023 11:34 PM

    dwg's Avatar

    What reconciliation report are you referring to?

    There is one that is part of the reconciliation process which you use when marking off entries and there is a standalone reconciliation report.

  4. 4 Posted by Peter Poulin on 30 Sep, 2023 11:54 PM

    Peter Poulin's Avatar

    I'm using the standalone report and it is always showing the
    beginning balance being the same as the ending balance. What it is doing
    is assuming that I'm printing a report for the subsequent month when I
    haven't even started another reconciliation. Beginning balance and Current
    Balance are always the same with an incorrect target balance and a
    difference which is a computed amount based on the above. This is the case
    using the current cutoff date of the previous reconciliation. So,
    essentially, this report appears useless.

    How can I reprint the reconciliation report that comes with the
    reconciliation process?

    On Sat, Sep 30, 2023 at 7:34 PM dwg <[email blocked]> wrote:

  5. 5 Posted by dwg on 01 Oct, 2023 12:12 AM

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    The only way to get a copy of the report that is part of the reconciliation process is to take a screen shot of it when you are performing the reconciliation of the account and save the resultant image.

    The standalone reconciliation report will never be able to create a useful report after the reconciliation has been done. The problem there is that the transactions have no record in them of when they were marked cleared so it is impossible for it to show a true report even if you set the as of date. For this report to work you would have to generate it before the reconciliation and then it should give data approximating the starting position of the reconciliation process.

    Another approach you can take to see if it provides a better report for you is to generate a Transaction Report using specific parameters.

    Within parameters set:
    i. Set the date to range to match the period reconciled. ii. Tick box for using the Cleared field and then select the boxes for "Cleared" and "Uncleared" transactions. iii. Then generate the report.

  6. 6 Posted by Peter Poulin on 01 Oct, 2023 12:19 AM

    Peter Poulin's Avatar

    Hmmm.... seems like there should be a way to reprint a reconciliation after
    the fact when specifying a cutoff date. I was a Quickbooks advisor and
    even in the pro version you could print the prior month's reconciliation.
    In the premier version, I could reprint any month. Something to consider
    at least for the prior month reconciliation.

    Thanks for your help.

    On Sat, Sep 30, 2023, 8:12 PM dwg <[email blocked]> wrote:

  7. 7 Posted by dwg on 01 Oct, 2023 12:37 AM

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    That would be something for the developers to consider.

  8. 8 Posted by Andrew Hemphill on 28 Oct, 2023 05:53 PM

    Andrew Hemphill 's Avatar

    We are also having this same problem. Please fix.

  9. 9 Posted by Peter Poulin on 11 Nov, 2023 01:17 PM

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    Continuing on this thread.

    First, you don't have any cash reconciliation report that is right. Now
    that I have a follow up month, I can say that confidently.

    Second, This is simply a report formatting error on the part of the report
    writer simply not picking up the correct Beginning Balance. This is an
    easy fix.

    Third, apparently, we can't communicate to the developers. Can you please
    present this to them to fix!

    Peter Poulin

    On Sat, Sep 30, 2023 at 8:37 PM dwg <[email blocked]> wrote:

  10. 10 Posted by sth on 11 Nov, 2023 10:06 PM

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    Ok, this is running the report on the left hand menu under "Reports", right?

    You can edit this report to have the correct "ending balance", I think it defaults to zero. But that should be the bank statement "cleared balance". I agree that calculation of the target balance seems to be off from what I would expect. But maybe I am reading it wrong.

    Anyway the developers get notified about potential bugs that are mentioned in the forum.

  11. 11 Posted by Peter Poulin on 11 Nov, 2023 10:37 PM

    Peter Poulin's Avatar

    It's very simple. Whoever wrote the report used the bank statement "ending
    balance" as the "beginning balance" in error on the report. As a result,
    the math on the report is wrong, the "Difference" will never be zero or be
    reconciled even though the on screen reconciliation shows zero
    "difference". Change to field for the beginning balance to the actual
    beginning balance and all would be fine. It's not complicated.

    On Sat, Nov 11, 2023 at 5:06 PM sth <[email blocked]> wrote:

  12. 12 Posted by Bryan on 22 Jan, 2024 07:27 PM

    Bryan's Avatar

    New User here..

    I just ran into the same 'problem'. It's not logical to run a reconciliation report before reconciling the account in my opinion. But that's apparently how it's done in MD.

    My question is would it screw up the beginning balance of the reconciliation process or stand along reconciliation report if I just mark all the transactions I just reconciled as uncleared and then did it all over, albeit with the reverse logic of running the stand alone report first? Just so I can get a reconciliation report for the past month?

    Thanks

  13. 13 Posted by dwg on 22 Jan, 2024 08:23 PM

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    The beginning balance is a calculated value it is:

    opening balance + cleared deposits - cleared payments

    So marking cleared transactions as uncleared will change this, what this will do is take you back in time, this does not present any great problem, it really just means that you would need to go through a reconciliation process again to bring everything up-to-date.

  14. 14 Posted by Bryan Ballard on 22 Jan, 2024 09:13 PM

    Bryan Ballard's Avatar

    Thank you..

    That's what I meant by doing it all over.. In my case and this particular account it's under 10 transactions so it's not a monumental task to do it over again. I just wanted to make sure doing this wouldn't permanently screw up the calculated balances somewhere.

    It seems to me that running the reconciliation report before doing reconciliation is backwards.. Afterall in most instances I've encountered the reconciliation report is a report on what has just been reconciled, or it should be.

    Thank you for your help!
    Bryan

  15. 15 Posted by dwg on 22 Jan, 2024 10:54 PM

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    Realistically the only way it could be done is if there was a the ability to generate a report before you exit the reconciliation window. This is because once you exit the window, i.e click on "Done" the status of the transactions change and there is no history of when the status of transactions change so such a report cannot be generated after the event.

    Hence perhaps Clicking on Done should ask if you want to generate a report before it goes further.

  16. 16 Posted by Peter Poulin on 22 Jan, 2024 11:02 PM

    Peter Poulin's Avatar

    That would be helpful.

    On Mon, Jan 22, 2024, 5:54 PM dwg <[email blocked]> wrote:

  17. 17 Posted by Stuart Beesley ... on 23 Jan, 2024 07:50 AM

    Stuart Beesley (Mr Toolbox)'s Avatar

    Might be possible. There are time stamps and a reconciled flag. I agree best to do in the window, but might be poss as a report post window…

  18. 18 Posted by dwg on 23 Jan, 2024 08:26 AM

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    A problem I can see with doing that Stuart if that people can fiddle with the reconciled status, which while it should be unlikely it is not impossible. That is part of the reason I suggested it be part of the reconciliation process so the software can trigger it before it acts on the "done" button.

  19. 19 Posted by Stuart Beesley ... on 23 Jan, 2024 09:43 AM

    Stuart Beesley (Mr Toolbox)'s Avatar

    I agree with you 100%.. I simply meant that if there was an 'instant' post reconciliation report that run, it would probably work too... Anytime after, then no.....

    I suggest an Enhancement Request is formally made (via a new post)...

  20. 20 Posted by dwg on 23 Jan, 2024 09:59 AM

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    Certain if it was run straight afterwards, a situation like damn I forgot to do that let me do it now, that would certainly work, that could be some sort of option in the existing Reconciliation report I would think.

    Certainly if the OP wanted those sort of options for reconciliation than an enhancement request is in order.

  21. 21 Posted by Jim on 09 Feb, 2024 05:28 PM

    Jim's Avatar

    I agree with the OP, and dwg. However, I would suggest the following:

    1. Add a "print" function to the reconciliation window alongside the "Done" button. That's a visual reminder to PRINT the reconciliation and would be very easy to implement, IMO. It's silly to recommend a screenshot (an external software solution) to address such an easy implementation of solution. But in the event the user somehow STILL forgets to PRINT the reconciliation screen....
    2. Save the reconciliation to the reconciliation report for later printing....at least until the next reconciliation overwrites it. But ideally, with date ranges to be selected.

    IMO...recommendation #1 is SO simple and SO easy to implement that it would solve about 80%-90% of the user cases that are asking for #2.

  22. System closed this discussion on 10 May, 2024 05:30 PM.

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