How do I reconcile a spending account?
Reconciling your spending accounts helps you synchronize your bank records with your Quicken register so you can be certain that neither you nor the bank has recorded any transactions incorrectly.
- For spending accounts that you track manually, the process of reconciling is simply to compare the transactions in Quicken to your paper bank statement.
- For online-enabled spending accounts you have a choice: you can compare the transactions in Quicken to your paper bank statement, or you can compare them to your latest online balance.
- For cash accounts, all you need to do is update the account balance to the cash on hand.
Can you explain the different types of balances in Quicken?
You can get more information about balances at About your three register balance amounts.
To reconcile a spending account with the paper statement
- Open the account you want to reconcile.
- Click (the Account Actions icon), and then choose Reconcile.
- If you are presented a choice, select Paper Statement.
- Using your paper statement, verify the opening balance and enter the ending balance.
- Enter the amount, date, and category information, if there is a service charge or interest earned. (Optional)
- Click OK.
- Check off the transactions in the window that also appear on your statement. If necessary, you can click the column headings to sort the transactions.
- Click Done if the difference in the lower-right corner is zero.
To reconcile a spending account with the online balance
When you use this method Quicken reconciles your Quicken account to the latest downloaded data, so make sure you download your latest transactions and accept the transactions into your register.
- Open the account you want to reconcile.
- Click (the Account Actions icon), and then choose Reconcile.
- In the Reconcile Online Account window, select Online Balance.
- Click OK.
- Click Done, if the difference in the lower-right corner is zero.
Notes
If you've reconciled this Quicken account to a paper statement before using transaction download, you may wish to continue with this method. You can switch at any time to reconciling to your online balance, which means that your Quicken register will be reconciled to information that is more current than that contained in a paper statement. However, you should not switch back to the paper statement method after reconciling to your online balance.
To update a cash account's balance to match the cash on hand
- Open the account you want to use.
- Select Account Actions (gear icon) → Update Balance.
- For New Balance, enter the amount of cash you have on hand as the cash balance.
- Enter the Adjustment Date.
- Enter a Category for the adjustment transaction.
- Select OK.
Notes
You can create a reconciliation report at the time you finish reconciling an account, when Quicken prompts you, or at a later date.