Opening Balance Changed

Posted by lanman on October 7, 2009, 7:46 pm

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When I started the reconcilliation process for my checking account
this past month, I noticed that the opening balance had changed. The
opening balance has always equaled the closing balance from the
previous month, but for some unexplained reason, it differed by some
$1,800.00. I reconciled perfectly last month, and have never had to
"force" a balance. Has anyone had this happen? Can I fix it without
forcing a balancing entry? Thanks...

Posted by Andrew on October 7, 2009, 8:17 pm

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lanman wrote:

> When I started the reconcilliation process for my checking account

> this past month, I noticed that the opening balance had changed. The

> opening balance has always equaled the closing balance from the

> previous month, but for some unexplained reason, it differed by some

> $1,800.00. I reconciled perfectly last month, and have never had to

> "force" a balance. Has anyone had this happen? Can I fix it without

> forcing a balancing entry? Thanks...

Before I used electronic downloads (no more 'reconciliation' that I need to
do manually), this happened to me a few times over the 10 or so years I've
been using Quicken for manual reconciliations. In every case I can
remember, it was due to me messing up some previously reconciled
transaction - USUALLY I deleted an entry in the register via a cut/paste
instead of a copy/paste when doing that type of operation.

Quicken doesn't willy-nilly change the balances! I am 99% sure you probably
inadvertently modified a previously reconciled transaction. Just my guess.

--
-------------------------------------------------------------
Regards -

- Andrew

Posted by lanman on October 7, 2009, 9:19 pm

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> lanman wrote:

> > When I started the reconcilliation process for my checking account

> > this past month, I noticed that the opening balance had changed. The

> > opening balance has always equaled the closing balance from the

> > previous month, but for some unexplained reason, it differed by some

> > $1,800.00. I reconciled perfectly last month, and have never had to

> > "force" a balance. Has anyone had this happen? Can I fix it without

> > forcing a balancing entry? Thanks...

> Before I used electronic downloads (no more 'reconciliation' that I need =

> do manually), this happened to me a few times over the 10 or so years I'v=

> been using Quicken for manual reconciliations. =A0In every case I can

> remember, it was due to me messing up some previously reconciled

> transaction - USUALLY I deleted an entry in the register via a cut/paste

> instead of a copy/paste when doing that type of operation.

> Quicken doesn't willy-nilly change the balances! =A0I am 99% sure you pro=

bably

> inadvertently modified a previously reconciled transaction. =A0Just my gu=

ess.

> --

> -------------------------------------------------------------

> Regards -

> - Andrew

If the amount was smaller, I would agree. However, the discrepancy was
for $1,800.00 +,
and I didn't have any register entries near that amount. The last time
my checking account
got this messed up many years ago (due to trying the automatic
download feature), I ended
up closing the account and opening a new one. Thank you for your
input.

Posted by John Pollard on October 7, 2009, 10:17 pm

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lanman wrote:

> When I started the reconcilliation process for my checking account

> this past month, I noticed that the opening balance had changed. The

> opening balance has always equaled the closing balance from the

> previous month, but for some unexplained reason, it differed by some

> $1,800.00. I reconciled perfectly last month, and have never had to

> "force" a balance. Has anyone had this happen? Can I fix it without

> forcing a balancing entry?

Allowing a balancing entry under these conditions would be defeating the
purpose of reconciling.

The opening balance of a reconcile is the net amount of reconciled
transactions in the account. All you have to do is make sure that the net
amount of all transactions with an "R" in their Clr field is the same as
the correct net amount for the reconcile. ;)

There is no way to determine what specific event(s) caused the opening
balance to be different than the previous opening balance; so you must, in
effect, re-reconcile.

In your case - as the simplest example: if you found a single $1800
transaction that had been previously reconciled but was now not
reconciled, you should be able to just toggle its "Clr" field to "R".
That should correct the opening reconcile balance.

But it's rarely that easy.

What you probably need to do is unreconcile transactions* back to a point
where you have a known good opening balance for a printed statement. Then
initiate a reconcile ... you can reconcile all the transactions you
unreconciled right along with the group of transactions you were planning
to reconcile when you discovered the incorrect opening balance.

[*To unreconcile: you can use Find/Replace to replace the "Cleared Status"
of "R" with "c"; or you can select the transactions to be unreconciled in
the register (as you would select multiple files in Windows Explorer),
then click Edit > Transaction > Reconcile > Cleared.]

[You didn't specify what version of Quicken you're using: the above is
based on you not having a version of Quicken that uses "Smart Reconcile"
... which I think disappeared by at least Q2005 and probably earlier.]

--

John Pollard

Posted by R. C. White on October 7, 2009, 11:50 pm

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Hi, lanman.

One of the first words that a junior auditor learns is "transposition". ;^}

That often occurs when the correct digits are entered, but in the wrong
order; they are transposed. Like, "46" instead of "64". And it doesn't
have to be the whole number; any part of the number can produce this result:
$1,234.56 instead of "$1,243.56.

Transposition is the first thing that springs to an auditor's mind when the
error amount is evenly divisible by 9. The answer when you divide the
difference by 9 tells us how far apart the two digits are, and which column
(units, tens, hundreds...) the error is in.

So your $1,800 error is most likely transposition of digits with a
difference of 2 and in the hundreds column. For example:
6498
-4698
=1800

Other examples: 7999-9799 = -1800 (yes, it works in both positive and
negative directions); 2000 - 200 = 1800; 1234.56 - 1243.56 = -9.00, which
indicates a difference of 1 in the units and 10s columns. It even works
when the digits are not in adjacent columns: 1234 - 1432 = -198; that's
still divisible by 9 (=22), but "which column" is not so obvious, except
that there's obviously no point in searching the 10,000 column.

Of course, other errors, or a combination of errors, can also produce an
$1800 difference, so this is not an iron-clad cinch, and it may not work in
your case, but it usually makes a very sensible starting point.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(Retired. No longer licensed to practice public accounting.)
rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Using Quicken Deluxe 2009 and Windows Live Mail in Win7 x64)

> When I started the reconcilliation process for my checking account

> this past month, I noticed that the opening balance had changed. The

> opening balance has always equaled the closing balance from the

> previous month, but for some unexplained reason, it differed by some

> $1,800.00. I reconciled perfectly last month, and have never had to

> "force" a balance. Has anyone had this happen? Can I fix it without

> forcing a balancing entry? Thanks...