Re: No September posts

On 10/21/24 5:18 AM, z wrote:

> John Pollard <[email protected]> wrote:

>> On 10/12/24 2:07 PM, z wrote:

>>> When I finish manually balancing my checkbook & credit cards I do a Find &
>>> Replace to change my manually entered Cleared (C) to Reconciled (R).  For
>>> years the F&R function only addressed the account I had open at the time.
>>> At some point quite a while ago one of my retirement accounts would also be
>>> changed from Uncleared to Reconciled. I have looked & looked for a solution
>>> to no avail. The one retirement account is set up exactly the same as my
>>> other ones yet the others are no issue, just the one. Not an earth
>>> shattering issue for me, just a nagging ‘what the…’ brain nag.

Just to attempt to better understand your most recent comment (and the 
lack of some comments):

>> [If you searched for Cleared Status = "c", and you only had transactions
>> with a Cleared Status of "c" in the non-investment account you were
>> reconciling AND one investment account; that would explain why your Find
>> got hits on just those two accounts.]
>>
>> When the Find completes, the dialog it presents shows the Account of
>> each found transaction. You can sort the found transactions by account
>> name (click on the Account heading text), then select all the
>> transactions for your target account (as you would select multiple files
>> in Windows Explorer).
>>
>> When you then fill in the Replace options and click OK, only your
>> selected transactions will be modified.

Did none of the above explain your "nagging" issue ... or help you to 
deal with it?

For example:

1.) Were there ANY unreconciled transactions in the investment account 
that you were NOT trying to reconcile?

2.) Were you able to mass change the "Cleared Status" for only the 
account being reconciled using the approach I suggested?

[If the approach I suggested above is not to your liking; I believe 
there is another way for you to insure a presentation of only eligible 
Quicken transactions (transactions with a Cleared Status of "c") in the 
account being reconciled when you want to mass change the register 
Cleared Status to "R". If you're interested, post back.]

>> But the above begs the question: why do you use Find/Replace to mark
>> your transactions Reconciled?  Why don't you use Quicken's Reconcile
>> feature?

> When I balance my respective accounts I do them manually. It’s a “me” thing
> as it helps me thoroughly understand our spending/earning. So as I mentally
> clear (or correct) an entry I “c” it. When I’ve completed my review of the
> account + statement I “R” it.  Yes, I know it’s more labor intensive but it
> helps me learn & retain the info.

I have no disagreement with expending a bit more manual to get a better, 
more reliable, more informative, result. I do the same in Quicken sometimes.

But I am confused about why using the Quicken Reconcile feature would 
provide less visibility/understanding of the reconcile process.

The Quicken reconcile feature initially presents all transactions in the 
account that are eligible for reconciling. In your case - since you do 
not download - that would be all unreconciled transactions in the account.

[Normally a Quicken Cleared Status means the transaction has "cleared" 
the real-world account. Downloaded transactions are automatically given 
a Cleared Status of "c' since only "cleared" transactions are eligible 
for downloading. (*)]

Once the eligible transactions - and only the eligible transactions - 
are displayed in the Reconcile dialog, it is basically a manual process 
to determine whether a transaction should be treated as "reconciled": I 
do that by comparing totals (net of eligible transactions AND net of 
deposits and net of withdrawals) with my printed account statement 
(whose "Ending Balance" amount I manually enter in the reconcile dialog).

If I am comfortable that the totals presented in the Quicken reconcile 
dialog are correct (Quicken shows a $0.00 "Difference" between the 
printed statement and my Quicken transactions, I will just click the 
"Done" button.

But if I have ANY reason to question whether my Quicken transactions are 
correct and complete for the reconcile, I manually compare every 
eligible Quicken transaction to every transaction on the printed 
statement. That manual process will discover any missing, extra, or 
incorrect Quicken transaction - which I can then fix by adding, 
deleting, or modifying Quicken transactions.  After which the reconcile 
dialog will definitely show a "Difference" of $0.00 and I know for 
certain that the account is "reconciled".

When I know all the transactions in the Quicken reconcile dialog are all 
the transactions that belong in the reconcile and that their amounts are 
correct, I just click the "Mark All" button (which changes the "Cleared 
Status" of every transaction in the reconcile to "R"), the click the 
"Done" button.

[If you used the Quicken Reconcile feature, you would not need the 
separate step of changing the transaction Cleared Status to "c" - though 
you could continue to do that, if you felt it helped.]

[ (*) Just for those reading this who might misunderstand: it is now 
possible to (optionally) download "pending" transactions; but that 
feature is not applicable to your issue.]