Solved

Ending balance changed after last reconciliation resulting in an incorrect beginning balance for April 2015

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
December 11, 2018
5 replies
0 views

To say that at this point I am frustrated with QB 2015 for Mac is an understatement. When I reconciled my checking at the end of March 2015 I was in balance. This was because the same thing happened with my March reconciliation and I corrected it by manually re-entering ~240 transactions by hand into a new/duplicate account, deleting the original account and then re-reconciling. I have been using Quicken since 1991 and this is my second time using QuickBooks. One thing that I have noticed with QB 2015 for Mac is that after reconciling the checkmarks do not change the way they do in Quicken 2015 for Mac. This is EXTREMELY frustrating. I have also printed my bank statement and verified that all transactions during the month of April that are entered into QB 2015 exactly match those on my bank statement. I really don't want to enter an adjusting entry in the amount of the difference of $166.86 because in reality I balance and I don't like having in effect a bit of a lie in my books. QB seems to have an issue. The March Reconciliation Summary balances perfectly with my bank statement. I have screen shots of each. That is usually caused by a cleared transaction being changed or deleted. This may have happened but may have been more than one transaction. I checked and could not find out how to run the reconciliation discrepancy report (in the bank rec screen) to find out what changed and put it back. I am guessing this is a feature that only Windows users have right now and someday Mac users may have.

QuickBooks Desktop

Best answer by SkinnyRaven

As long as the transactions were not deleted they will show in the next reconcile.

S

SkinnyRavenAnswer

As long as the transactions were not deleted they will show in the next reconcile.

A

arkvalleyinfoAuthor

Nice to know someone else is having a similar problem!!

L

Lisa8

I *think* I may have an answer. If you, as I do, import transactions, they can be automatically marked as cleared or even reconciled, depending on the download source. Make sure they are all uncleared before reconciling. This is a pain, as it has to be done one at a time, but my starting balance then reverted back to the correct number (the previous month's ending balance).

I

IntuitBrooks

Transactions imported from online banking are automatically marked as "cleared". Cleared means that the transaction shows up on the bank statement. If you brought them in from online banking then they are on the bank statement - that's the justification for marking them cleared. If you use online banking then during reconcile check the "don't show transactions after the closing date" box. When you do this if you've downloaded all the transactions often you don't have to do anything as the balances will match up without any manually reconciling (if it is off generally it means that some transactions are slightly off on the date they hit the bank - usually near the end of the period).

A

arkvalleyinfoAuthor

I have run into the same issue! I have had to un-do previously reconciled months and re-do. When this didn't work (the first time) I unchecked all transactions after the date that I was reconciling (ex: I was trying to reconcile 3/31/15 so anything from 4/1/15 till present day that had a check mark, I unchecked) This took care of the problem the 1st time. Now I have the same issue when trying to reconcile April, but the fix didn't work....

I don't understand why QB automatically check marks it when you download it from your bank. I can't find a way to tell QB not to add check marks (checked all through preferences with no luck

)

S

SkinnyRaven

There are 2 types of check marks in the register. The lighter check mark is a matched transaction through online banking, the darker check mark is a reconciled transaction.

qbteachmt

"If you, as I do, import transactions, they can be automatically marked as cleared or even reconciled, depending on the download source."

Most typically, for using QB, you see them marked as "verified" which in QB PC is a lightning bolt and I believe QB MAC is a C (cleared) and not R (reconciled). Or, as noted above:

"There are 2 types of check marks in the register. The lighter check mark is a matched transaction through online banking, the darker check mark is a reconciled transaction."

So, all of these products use different Indicators for the 2 stages of status. Verified Vs Reconciled (processed through the reconciliation tool).

"Make sure they are all uncleared before reconciling. This is a pain, as it has to be done one at a time, but my starting balance then reverted back to the correct number (the previous month's ending balance)."

In PC, the reconciliation screen has a Matched button, and you click it, and the lightning bolt transactions are changed to Cleared, and Finish the reconcile is how you end.

So, the downloaded data carries a status (no matter what the terminology is) but that is not a Reconciliation.

"No, the beginning balance is NOT the number I ended with the last time. That's the problem"

I pointed out this Value, from how you ended last time, is the Net of the DATA in your file that is marked Cleared as Reconciled. If it no longer matches, then you can run a bank report to see if there are old transactions no longer Reconciled, or newer transactions already Cleared. I was describing the Source of that value.

L

Lisa8

I'm a relative newbie to QuickBooks, so I have no doubt that all your comments are true, especially for the PC version. But as a newish user, I also get frustrated by the seemingly NOT intuitive steps I have to take to make to get things to work in the Mac version. My imports are marked with the "darker check mark" when they come in, and the Mac version just doesn't have the reports that you mention. Under Reports>Banking, all QuickBooks 2014 for Mac provides are Deposit Detail, Check Detail, Missing Checks, and Previous Reconciliation.

Trying to proceed through the reconciliation without a correct beginning balance showing left me without the option to "Finish", so I had to find a way to "make it work." Since no older transactions had been changed, and there was a correct ending balance and the end of the previous month's reconciliation, I felt the issue had to be with the current month's transactions, and when I changed the status of all the downloaded transactions, it fixed the problem.

For what it's worth, this particular issue with this particular import service doesn't happen in the PC version, which all my friends that use Quickbooks love. I'm the odd man out with the Mac version.

qbteachmt

" I go to the balance at the beginning, when we started the business, which is .00 in my bank ledger, but when I run a report it says I have $28,121.86 as a beginning balance. This all started when I went to reconcile my April bank statement. The beginning balance is off. "

These are different uses of the phrase "beginning balance."

For banking, we all start at 0. But we don't start at 0 again, unless we run out of money.

"I go to the balance at the beginning, when we started the business, which is .00 in my bank ledger, but when I run a report it says I have $28,121.86 as a beginning balance"

For reconciliation, the beginning balance is how you ended last time. This is the math of all previously cleared transactions.

"That is usually caused by a cleared transaction being changed or deleted. This may have happened but may have been more than one transaction. I checked and could not find out how to run the reconciliation discrepancy report (in the bank rec screen) to find out what changed and put it back."

Changing the Status of a transaction, causing it to be no longer cleared, is a discrepancy but not an error. as long as everything has the same value, even if you changed or had to delete and recreate historic transactions, you ignore the beginning balance as reconciliations truly are to the known Ending Balance. You just checkmark anything that was cleared in the past, if it is showing as not cleared now, but you know it is has been processed.

For online Banking tool (your light gray, and a lightning bolt in PC), if you affect that Pending status, then you still can reconcile. You can always reconcile manually; you don't need that preliminary verification.

"Where do I go to ask a question or do I have to buy the service?"

You are in the right place, unless you want to pay for Support.

"The beginning balance is off. This is definitely a QB problem. But I don't know what to do about it. Very frustrating. Can anyone help me?"

Perhaps you just didn't understand that info that is being displayed to you.

A reconciliation process, whether manually, in QB Mac, QB PC, etc, really is only getting to the Same Ending balance, clearing or confirming that your data and the bank are the Same.

L

Lisa8

<<For reconciliation, the beginning balance is how you ended last time. This is the math of all previously cleared transactions.>> No, the beginning balance is NOT the number I ended with the last time. That's the problem.

Sign up

Login with SSO

Login to the community

Login with SSO