Scary QD2010 error
in [Quicken]
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From: TomYoung on 28 Jun 2010 23:34 Hi all: Today I was idly doing some maintenance on my Quicken Deluxe 2010 file when I noticed that a credit card account that I very rarely use though Id made a small charge with the card a couple of weeks ago was showing a debit balance (a receivable situation) instead of the small credit balance (liability) it should have shown. As I hadnt used the card for at least a year prior to my recent small charge it was easy to deduce the amount of the error was $187.00, exactly. Scrolling backwards through the credit card register it was clear that the error that had occurred was affecting the Quicken file well into the past: long periods of time where the balance should have been $0 were showing up as a debit of $187.00. Since I print regular monthly P&L and Balance Sheet reports and reconcile the change in the Balance Sheet to the P&L it was easy for me to look back through prior months reports and see that this wasnt an error I had somehow overlooked. It was clear that this error had somehow *physically* occurred in the file this month, even though it was affecting the reported balance in this account for many years in the past. I also maintain credit card monthly statements for a considerable period of time so I kept working backwards until I came to the culprit: an Opening Balance entry in the Quicken file marked as Reconciled dated 4/15/2003 for exactly $187.00! My old statements confirmed that the actual credit card balance at that date was $0. Unless I had somehow entered a fugue state and made that 4/15/2003 entry I dont think so that Opening Balance entry was somehow generated by Quicken. Two lessons: 1) You dont use Quicken in situations where the data file absolutely, positively has to be bullet-proof. 2) The maintenance outside of Quicken - of reconciliations of changes in net worth to the Overall Total of periodic Spending Reports will save your bacon, and your sanity. Tom Young
From: TomYoung on 28 Jul 2010 10:23 On Jun 28, 8:34 pm, TomYoung <sombo...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Hi all: > > Today I was idly doing some maintenance on my Quicken Deluxe 2010 file > when I noticed that a credit card account that I very rarely use > though Id made a small charge with the card a couple of weeks ago > was showing a debit balance (a receivable situation) instead of the > small credit balance (liability) it should have shown. As I hadnt > used the card for at least a year prior to my recent small charge it > was easy to deduce the amount of the error was $187.00, exactly. > > Scrolling backwards through the credit card register it was clear that > the error that had occurred was affecting the Quicken file well into > the past: long periods of time where the balance should have been $0 > were showing up as a debit of $187.00. > > Since I print regular monthly P&L and Balance Sheet reports and > reconcile the change in the Balance Sheet to the P&L it was easy for > me to look back through prior months reports and see that this wasnt > an error I had somehow overlooked. It was clear that this error had > somehow *physically* occurred in the file this month, even though it > was affecting the reported balance in this account for many years in > the past. > > I also maintain credit card monthly statements for a considerable > period of time so I kept working backwards until I came to the > culprit: an Opening Balance entry in the Quicken file marked as > Reconciled dated 4/15/2003 for exactly $187.00! My old statements > confirmed that the actual credit card balance at that date was $0. > > Unless I had somehow entered a fugue state and made that 4/15/2003 > entry I dont think so that Opening Balance entry was somehow > generated by Quicken. > > Two lessons: > > 1) You dont use Quicken in situations where the data file absolutely, > positively has to be bullet-proof. > > 2) The maintenance outside of Quicken - of reconciliations of > changes in net worth to the Overall Total of periodic Spending > Reports will save your bacon, and your sanity. > > Tom Young Well now, something if definitely screwed up in Quicken as almost the exact same error has occurred in another seldom-used credit card. Once again, I had recently used the card for a small charge after a long period of inactivity. Once again, the accounting entry that threw the account into error had to have physically occurred sometime in July, but affected periods well into the past. Once again I determined that the entry that was in error was the "Opening Balance" entry, marked as reconciled, The only difference between this recent event and the one I described above is that this time the "Opening Balance" entry was recorded as a "Charge" (liability) of $121.34 instead of the "Payment" I found in the above-described event. I have a feeling that this error is being introduced by Quicken via the OSU process. Going back to the 1st instance of this error and looking more closely at the register, I found a payment - a real, actual payment - dated 8/27/2008 for $187.00, the exact amount of the erroneous "Opening Balance" entry that threw the account out of whack. The entry was not marked as "Cleared" or "Reconciled". Between that date and June 15, 2010 I used that credit card once in July 2009 and then paid the balance due in August. These two entries show up in the register as "Cleared" and I'm reasonably certain that I did not have this account setup for OSU until some time in 2010 so entries (or lack thereof) in the "Clr" column are manual entries I made. Since I don't remember when I set up this account for OSU I'm *speculating* that 1) I started OSU in June 2010 (anyway of determining that?) 2) The downloaded history of the account went back 2 years, including that 8/27/2008 payment 3) The payment got placed into the "Opening Balance" entry of 4/15/2003, somehow. The facts are somewhat clearer to me in the more recent event. The $121.34 "Charge" shown in the 8/27/2007 "Opening Balance" entry is the exact amount of a June, 2010 charge for $117.81 plus a foreign exchange fee of $3.53. I remember "accepting" each of these transactions downloaded via OSU. Again, somehow, these two entries were combined into an adjustment of an 8/27/2007 Opening Balance entry that originally had a balance of $0. What's unclear to me is the date of these two transactions as shown in the "Accept transactions" window when I accepted them. I'm fairly certain that the dates shown were June, 2010 dates, but I wouldn't swear to it. It does seem to me that the "Match/New" algorithm in Quicken needs some tightening up, as has been mentioned here before. Tom Young
From: TomYoung on 28 Jul 2010 18:51 OK, this is getting old. This error just happened again today, this afternoon. Immediately after a OSU I noticed that yet another seldom-used credit card had what looked to be an incorrect balance. Since I'm getting to be an old hand with this problem I just scrolled up to the top of the register and, once again, the "Opening Balance" entry - an entry that I've *always* established as a $0 entry, had a charge of $40.08 that wasn't there this morning. (I confirmed this by opening the last Quicken regular backup, which just happened to be this morning, and verifying that the "Opening Balance" entry was $0.) This error was introduced silently via this afternoon's OSU. When I did the OSU there was one transaction downloaded, a payment on the account in the amount of $22.66, which was correct and I accepted it. Unlike the two previous errors documented above, I couldn't see any entry in the register that OSU might have "keyed" on to come up with the $40.08. All entries in the register had either a 'c' or 'R' in the Clr column, there were no single entries of $40.08 anywhere in the register and the "recent activity" in the account (previous activity was back in Feb, 2010) were 2 transactions amounting to $22.66 and the payment. I guess at the point I get to talk to India. Tom Young
From: Richard on 29 Jul 2010 01:10 Tom, Just a thought. It appears that the entry involved is always the Opening Balance entry which is $0.00. Why not delete it and see if that solves the problem. As a general practice, I always delete the $0.00 Opening Balance entries that are automatically generated when setting up a new account. I see no reason to have a $0.00 balance entry in the register. Of course, I don't delete them if they have an actual balance. -- Richard "TomYoung" <sombodee(a)gmail.com> wrote in message news:fd217d29-c11f-4f49-a2b5-af53659e5736(a)n19g2000prf.googlegroups.com... > OK, this is getting old. This error just happened again today, this > afternoon. > > Immediately after a OSU I noticed that yet another seldom-used credit > card had what looked to be an incorrect balance. Since I'm getting to > be an old hand with this problem I just scrolled up to the top of the > register and, once again, the "Opening Balance" entry - an entry that > I've *always* established as a $0 entry, had a charge of $40.08 that > wasn't there this morning. (I confirmed this by opening the last > Quicken regular backup, which just happened to be this morning, and > verifying that the "Opening Balance" entry was $0.) > > This error was introduced silently via this afternoon's OSU. When I > did the OSU there was one transaction downloaded, a payment on the > account in the amount of $22.66, which was correct and I accepted it. > Unlike the two previous errors documented above, I couldn't see any > entry in the register that OSU might have "keyed" on to come up with > the $40.08. All entries in the register had either a 'c' or 'R' in > the Clr column, there were no single entries of $40.08 anywhere in the > register and the "recent activity" in the account (previous activity > was back in Feb, 2010) were 2 transactions amounting to $22.66 and the > payment. > > I guess at the point I get to talk to India. > > Tom Young
From: TomYoung on 29 Jul 2010 15:15 Richard: You may be right, but I'm running out of "seldom-used" credit card accounts to test it on! The fact that this has happened with 3 different FI's (Citibank, Chase and BofA) suggests the problem resides in Quicken, though it would seem like other people would be running into this issue and I haven't seen similar reports. I've alerted Quicken to the problem (perhaps a Complete and Utter Waste of Time) and I'm now looking more closely at credit card balances immediately before and after OSU. Tom Young On Jul 28, 10:10 pm, "Richard" <Re...(a)Newsgroup.Thanks> wrote: > Tom, > > Just a thought. > > It appears that the entry involved is always the Opening Balance entry which > is $0.00. Why not delete it and see if that solves the problem. > > As a general practice, I always delete the $0.00 Opening Balance entries > that are automatically generated when setting up a new account. I see no > reason to have a $0.00 balance entry in the register. Of course, I don't > delete them if they have an actual balance. > > -- > Richard > > "TomYoung" <sombo...(a)gmail.com> wrote in message > > news:fd217d29-c11f-4f49-a2b5-af53659e5736(a)n19g2000prf.googlegroups.com... > > > OK, this is getting old. This error just happened again today, this > > afternoon. > > > Immediately after a OSU I noticed that yet another seldom-used credit > > card had what looked to be an incorrect balance. Since I'm getting to > > be an old hand with this problem I just scrolled up to the top of the > > register and, once again, the "Opening Balance" entry - an entry that > > I've *always* established as a $0 entry, had a charge of $40.08 that > > wasn't there this morning. (I confirmed this by opening the last > > Quicken regular backup, which just happened to be this morning, and > > verifying that the "Opening Balance" entry was $0.) > > > This error was introduced silently via this afternoon's OSU. When I > > did the OSU there was one transaction downloaded, a payment on the > > account in the amount of $22.66, which was correct and I accepted it. > > Unlike the two previous errors documented above, I couldn't see any > > entry in the register that OSU might have "keyed" on to come up with > > the $40.08. All entries in the register had either a 'c' or 'R' in > > the Clr column, there were no single entries of $40.08 anywhere in the > > register and the "recent activity" in the account (previous activity > > was back in Feb, 2010) were 2 transactions amounting to $22.66 and the > > payment. > > > I guess at the point I get to talk to India. > > > Tom Young
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