Reconciliation and Cleared Transactions

[Mailing Lists]

I've run into a little annoyance with the way Monedance handles
reconciliation and cleared transactions. Here's my problem: when I go to
reconcile a bank statement, there will be some trasactions that have
cleared since the closing date on the statement. Those transactions will
be marked as cleared in my Moneydance register. When I reconcile the
bank statement, I have to "unclear" those transactions in the reconcile
window to make the reconciliation work out right. The problem is that
doing so also "unclears" the transactions in my register, which I don't
want to happen. Does anyone know of a way to work around this problem?
Thanks!

Ken

[Barbara Needham]

Mailing Lists on 5/21/05 said

Post by Mailing Lists
I've run into a little annoyance with the way Monedance handles
reconciliation and cleared transactions. Here's my problem: when I go to
reconcile a bank statement, there will be some trasactions that have
cleared since the closing date on the statement. Those transactions will
be marked as cleared in my Moneydance register. When I reconcile the
bank statement, I have to "unclear" those transactions in the reconcile
window to make the reconciliation work out right. The problem is that
doing so also "unclears" the transactions in my register, which I don't
want to happen. Does anyone know of a way to work around this problem?

I thought that is what the diamond was for, to show checks that have
cleared the bank but that you haven't given a green check in the
reconciliation widow yet.

[Mailing Lists]

Post by Barbara Needham
I thought that is what the diamond was for, to show checks that have
cleared the bank but that you haven't given a green check in the
reconciliation widow yet.

The problem is that those diamonds are _also_ how you mark cleared items
that show up on your statement. So I have to remove the diamonds from
the transactions that have cleared the bank, but are not on the
statement that I'm trying to reconcile.

Ken

[Jon Walthour]

So I have to remove the diamonds from the transactions that
have cleared the bank, but are not on the
statement that I'm trying to reconcile.

Ken:

This is expected behavior and not a problem with Moneydance per se.
It comes from you downloading transactional data from your bank
between statements. These downloads will mark cleared transactions
and provide your financial software with the current cleared balance
as of that date. Therefore, it has been my experience if one is going
to use online banking, it is best to balance the account after each
download--or something to that effect. In that case, paper statements
become superfluous. To use paper statements as the primary
reconciliation reference, it seems to me one should probably not
download online transaction bank data.

Regards,

Jon Walthour 
Indianapolis, Indiana

[Fuzzy Fox]

To use paper statements as the primary reconciliation reference, it
seems to me one should probably not download online transaction bank
data.

This is a "feature" that made me leave Quicken. Is it now in
Moneydance?

I prefer to use paper statements for reconciliation, but I also prefer
to download transactions as a crutch against my forgetting to enter one
every once in a while. I normally enter all my transactions manually,
but sometimes a receipt gets misplaced before I can enter it. In those
cases, an occasional download will remind me, but I certainly would not
want Moneydance to mark the transactions half-reconciled in that case.
I hated that forced behavior in Quicken, and I will hate it in
Moneydance, too.

[Jon Walthour]

Post by Fuzzy Fox
but I certainly would not
want Moneydance to mark the transactions half-reconciled in that case.
I hated that forced behavior in Quicken, and I will hate it in
Moneydance, too.

The "diamond" is not marking the transaction as "half-reconciled",
but as "cleared"--as in it is in your check register and has now
"cleared" or been posted to your bank account. It seems to me one
cannot have it both ways--downloading transactional data AND using a
paper statement to reconcile. If you are downloading transactional
data, you are, by definition, wanting transactions to be marked as
"cleared" when the bank has posted them to your account. Why else
would you download that data if not to have it matched up and
compared with what you have in your check register. If you want to
use paper statements and are concerned about the occasionally
forgotten transaction, then do what we all used to do in the days
before electronic banking--notice it existing on your paper statement
but not in your check register and add it in during the
reconciliation to make things balance. You cannot have your cake and
eat it, too.

Regards,

Jon Walthour 
Indianapolis, Indiana

[Fuzzy Fox]

The "diamond" is not marking the transaction as "half-reconciled", but
as "cleared"--as in it is in your check register and has now "cleared"
or been posted to your bank account.

The checkmark is for "cleared" transactions. The semantics for the
diamond symbol are up for debate. But they are just that, semantics.

If you are downloading transactional data, you are, by definition,
wanting transactions to be marked as "cleared" when the bank has
posted them to your account.

I disagree. That is not at all the reason that I am downloading
transactions.

Why else would you download that data if not to have it matched up and
compared with what you have in your check register.

I choose to separate these activities. During the month, data is simply
entered, without anything being compared to anything. When the paper
statement arrives, the comparing begins, and only at that point.

This is a perfectly fine, valid method of doing things. It's not the
way you do it, but that doesn't mean it's "wrong."

I don't see why I should give up a method that is useful for simple data
entry, and add a bunch of extra meaning to it about "clearing"
transactions, that I don't want or need.

When I first began using Moneydance, it was for this reason: That it
works the way I want to work. Don't change it to work some other way
just because you don't understand why someone would want to do their
accounting in this fashion.

[Jon Walthour]

Post by Fuzzy Fox

The "diamond" is not marking the transaction as "half-reconciled", but
as "cleared"--as in it is in your check register and has now
"cleared"
or been posted to your bank account.

The checkmark is for "cleared" transactions. The semantics for the
diamond symbol are up for debate. But they are just that, semantics.

Nope. The checkmark indicates that the transaction has been reconciled.

[Steve Crane]

Post by Jon Walthour
Nope. The checkmark indicates that the transaction has been reconciled.

And the diamond means the transaction has been flagged to be cleared
when the next reconciliation is completed. So if you want a
reconcialiation to balance to a statement balance at a given point in
time then you can not have a transaction from a later date marked to be
cleared in this reconciliation.

I have been using some form of computerised banking software since the
1980s. Firstly HBMS (under DOS), then Quicken, then Microsoft Money and
finally Moneydance since 1999, and they have all worked like this.

[Fuzzy Fox]

Post by Fuzzy Fox
The checkmark is for "cleared" transactions. The semantics for the
diamond symbol are up for debate. But they are just that,
semantics.

Nope. The checkmark indicates that the transaction has been
reconciled.

I don't know why I typed "checkmark" when I meant "diamond," but of
course you are correct.

However, at this point I am not sure of any point of contention might
be. I just tried downloading some transactions, and most of them were
already entered by me, but there was one extra transaction that I had
missed entering. The transaction, once entered, did not have any sort
of "cleared" or "diamond" status added to it.

So... Moneydance is working exactly the way I want it to. Good.

[Michael Casteel]

Post by Fuzzy Fox
So... Moneydance is working exactly the way I want it to. Good.

Darn! That means I have to click on every item to clear them. I'm lazy
enough to enjoy having the computer do it for me, like Quicken does on
my online-enabled accounts.

[Mailing Lists]

Post by Jon Walthour

So I have to remove the diamonds from the transactions that
have cleared the bank, but are not on the
statement that I'm trying to reconcile.

This is expected behavior and not a problem with Moneydance per se.

Having come from Quicken on the Macintosh, it was not expected behavior
for me. :-)

In the reconcile window in Quicken, Quicken distinguishes between a
transaction being "cleared" and being "reconciled" when calculating the
reconciliation balance. In Quicken, a transaction marked as cleared did
_not_ count toward the reconciliation balance. It only counted when you
marked a transaction as reconciled. So I could leave the cleared
transactions marked as cleared even if they didn't appear on the
statement I was trying to reconcile.

Moneydance does things differently. In the reconcile window, all cleared
transactions count toward the reconciliation balance. So if there is a
transaction that is cleared but is not on the statement, I have to
de-clear it so that I can reconcile the account.

I love Moneydance, and I can't forsee myself ever going back to Quicken,
but the way Quicken handled the distinction between cleared and
reconciled transactions in the reconciliation window makes more sense. A
transaction can be cleared without being reconciled, but the
reconciliation window in Moneydance doesn't make that distinction.

Ken

[Jon Walthour]

Post by Mailing Lists
In the reconcile window in Quicken, Quicken distinguishes between a
transaction being "cleared" and being "reconciled" when calculating the
reconciliation balance. In Quicken, a transaction marked as cleared did
_not_ count toward the reconciliation balance. It only counted when you
marked a transaction as reconciled. So I could leave the cleared
transactions marked as cleared even if they didn't appear on the
statement I was trying to reconcile.

Ken:

No offense intended, but I used Quicken (both Mac and Windows) since
1996 and only gave it up in favor of Moneydance about a month ago. I
don't know which version of Quicken you've been using, but I was
using Quicken 2005 made by Intuit. Check it out at www.intuit.com. In
*that* version of Quicken, and for as long as I can remember (and I
just checked it out again tonight to double-check my memory),
transactions downloaded and matched in the "Download Transactions"
window are marked as "cleared" in the account register. Once again,
this means these transactions have been posted to your bank account
and matched to a corresponding transaction entry in your Quicken
account register. When you reconcile that account, these "cleared"
transactions do indeed appear in the "Payments and Checks" or
"Deposits" lists with a "checkmark" under the "Clr" column. And they
do indeed contribute to the "Cleared Balance" amount at the bottom of
the window (I'm assuming that's what you mean by the "reconciliation
balance"). Transactions marked as "reconciled" don't even show up in
this window. They're reconciled so they are in the past. So, I'm not
sure what you mean by them only counting "when you marked a
transaction as reconciled." In Quicken, as in Moneydance, if you
trying to reconcile to a paper statement and you have downloaded
transaction that have been matched that fall after the statement
closing date, these transaction *will* be marked as "cleared", *will*
show up in the "Reconcile" window, and **will** calculated in the
"Cleared Balance." If you do not believe me, please let me know and I
will be happy to provide screenshots.

Regards,

Jon Walthour 
Indianapolis, Indiana

[Mailing Lists]

Post by Jon Walthour
No offense intended, but I used Quicken (both Mac and Windows) since
1996 and only gave it up in favor of Moneydance about a month ago. I
don't know which version of Quicken you've been using, but I was
using Quicken 2005 made by Intuit.

I've been using Quicken since 1989. The last version I used was Quicken
2004 for Mac.

Post by Jon Walthour
Check it out at www.intuit.com. In
*that* version of Quicken, and for as long as I can remember (and I
just checked it out again tonight to double-check my memory),
transactions downloaded and matched in the "Download Transactions"
window are marked as "cleared" in the account register.
Once again,
this means these transactions have been posted to your bank account
and matched to a corresponding transaction entry in your Quicken
account register. When you reconcile that account, these "cleared"
transactions do indeed appear in the "Payments and Checks" or
"Deposits" lists with a "checkmark" under the "Clr" column. And they
do indeed contribute to the "Cleared Balance" amount at the bottom of
the window (I'm assuming that's what you mean by the "reconciliation
balance").

In every version of Quicken I've used, that has NOT been the case.
Cleared transactions show up in the reconciliation window in the clr
column with the c for cleared, but those transactions do not count
toward the amount cleared balance. Every transaction in the list can
have a "c" the clr column in the reconciliation window, but the Amount
cleared balance will be zero. It's only when I put a check mark in the
clr column that the transaction is considered in the Amount cleared
balance.

There are apparently four possible states for a transaction, but
Moneydance takes into account only three. Here's a comparison with Quicken:

Moneydance Quicken
"c" column "clr" column

Not Cleared empty empty

Cleared diamond c

Cleared, On Statement <none> checkmark

Reconciled green check bold "R"



The problem is with the third state, which Moneydance doesn't recognize.
In Moneydance, if a transaction is marked cleared (with a diamond),
that transaction counts toward the cleared balance in the reconcile
window. In Quicken, if a transaction is marked as cleared (with a "c" in
the clr column) that transaction does NOT count toward the cleared
balance. Moneydance will only move from state 2 to state 4. Therein lies
the problem.

Ken

[Mailing Lists]

Post by Jon Walthour
No offense intended, but I used Quicken (both Mac and Windows) since
1996 and only gave it up in favor of Moneydance about a month ago. I
don't know which version of Quicken you've been using, but I was
using Quicken 2005 made by Intuit. Check it out at www.intuit.com. In
*that* version of Quicken, and for as long as I can remember (and I
just checked it out again tonight to double-check my memory),
transactions downloaded and matched in the "Download Transactions"
window are marked as "cleared" in the account register.

Ignore my last post on the subject. I just went back and checked in
Quicken, and you're absolutely right. Sorry for the confusion. I guess
it's just the cognitive impairment that comes from getting older. :-)

Ken

[Ken Ganshirt]

Post by Jon Walthour

So I have to remove the diamonds from the transactions that
have cleared the bank, but are not on the
statement that I'm trying to reconcile.

This is expected behavior and not a problem with Moneydance per se.
It comes from you downloading transactional data from your bank
between statements. These downloads will mark cleared transactions
and provide your financial software with the current cleared balance
as of that date. Therefore, it has been my experience if one is going
to use online banking, it is best to balance the account after each
download--or something to that effect. In that case, paper statements
become superfluous. To use paper statements as the primary
reconciliation reference, it seems to me one should probably not
download online transaction bank data.
Regards,
Jon Walthour �
Indianapolis, Indiana

I agree with Jon. That is why Quicken makes a strong distinction between
whether you are doing paper-based reconciliation or reconciliation of the
online downloads. Indeed, once you do a reconciliation with downloaded
data, Quicken makes it very difficult for you to go back to reconciling
from paper statements, for the very good reason that you have just
encountered.

...ken...

______________________________________________________________________
Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca

[Ken Ganshirt]

Post by Fuzzy Fox

To use paper statements as the primary reconciliation reference, it
seems to me one should probably not download online transaction bank
data.

This is a "feature" that made me leave Quicken. Is it now in
Moneydance?
I prefer to use paper statements for reconciliation, but I also prefer
to download transactions as a crutch against my forgetting to enter one
every once in a while. I normally enter all my transactions manually,
but sometimes a receipt gets misplaced before I can enter it. In those
cases, an occasional download will remind me, but I certainly would not
want Moneydance to mark the transactions half-reconciled in that case.
I hated that forced behavior in Quicken, and I will hate it in
Moneydance, too.
--
David DeSimone

That's unfair, David. You do not have to have automatic reconciliation
turned on for any given account in Quicken. Quicken only forces that
behaviour if you tell it to. Two examples to illustrate:

I have automatic reconciliation turned on for my main checking account so
that reconciliation happens every time I download transactions. In this
case, Quicken intentionally makes it very difficult for me to revert to
paper-based reconciliation. It's possible (I've done it on other
accounts), but not easy, for the very reasons that started this thread.

On the other hand, I do paper-based reconciliation for my credit card
account, but I still regularly download the transactions so I don't have
to manually enter them.

...ken...

______________________________________________________________________
Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca

[Fuzzy Fox]

You do not have to have automatic reconciliation turned on for any
given account in Quicken. Quicken only forces that behaviour if you
tell it to.

This does not sound like a feature I've ever found in Quicken. The last
version I used was... 2000? Perhaps it has been added since that
version.

I've been using Moneydance fairly happily for about four years now, so
perhaps my experience only reflects what Quicken's behavior was at the
time. :)

[Dave Wilson]

Hello All,

Mac user that made the jump from Quicken back in December and loving
it. But (you knew there was going to be one) I've found a hitch that
I can't figure out.

Typically, I like to run a report against my checking account and
show all the income/expense for the time period. The problem I'm
running into is that aside from an education loan and my mortgage
(which are set up as loans/liabilities) my other loans and credit
cards (which are set up as bank accounts and credit cards for on line
purposes) don't show up in the list, and in turn payments to/from
these accounts don't show up in the report.

Any way to enable this behavior that I've missed?

Thanks,
Dave

[Ken Ganshirt]

Post by Jon Walthour

Post by Fuzzy Fox
but I certainly would not
want Moneydance to mark the transactions half-reconciled in that case.
I hated that forced behavior in Quicken, and I will hate it in
Moneydance, too.

The "diamond" is not marking the transaction as "half-reconciled",
but as "cleared"--as in it is in your check register and has now
"cleared" or been posted to your bank account.

Exactly right. Cleared at the financial institution but not yet reconciled
by you and your financial software. Thus the diamond in Moneydance and the
lower case "c" in Quicken.

Post by Jon Walthour
.... It seems to me one
cannot have it both ways--downloading transactional data AND using a
paper statement to reconcile.

Sure you can. That's the way I've been using Quicken on my credit card
account for years.

Post by Jon Walthour
... If you are downloading transactional
data, you are, by definition, wanting transactions to be marked as
"cleared" when the bank has posted them to your account.

Yes.

Post by Jon Walthour
.... Why else
would you download that data if not to have it matched up and
compared with what you have in your check register.

Ummm... simply because I'm a lazy sod? My wife and I use the credit card
a lot. Downloading the transactions saves me a bunch of data entry effort.
I prefer to do it whenever the spirit moves, rather than only once a
month.

However, I want the discipline of paper-based reconciliation to force me
to review everything once a month.

Post by Jon Walthour
.... You cannot have your cake and eat it, too.

Why not? I can't speak for MS Money, but Quicken has allowed this
particular cake and its consumption for years.

The distinction between "cleared" and "reconciled" is hardly a new
concept. It existed with paper-only accounting, long before computers.

And keeping the reconciliation process in sync with downloaded data is a
pretty old issue, too. It reared it's ugly head the instant the first
accounting program was able to import computerized transactions.

...ken...


______________________________________________________________________
Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca

[Ron]

Post by Ken Ganshirt
Why not? I can't speak for MS Money, but Quicken has allowed this
particular cake and its consumption for years.

MS Money has always allowed this, too. I agree with Ken, and I find
this capability quite useful, for many of the same reasons he mentions.
I'm disappointed to hear that MoneyDance does not have this capability.

(I've been lurking here to help in deciding about switching from MS Money.)

-- Ron Rosenfeld

[Jon Walthour]

Post by Ken Ganshirt

Post by Jon Walthour
.... It seems to me one
cannot have it both ways--downloading transactional data AND using a
paper statement to reconcile.

Sure you can. That's the way I've been using Quicken on my credit card
account for years.

I apologize for my lack of clarity. I was referring to the original
comments in this thread that expressed an aggravation with these
"cleared" marks being present when doing a paper-based
reconciliation. I was saying that one can't have transactions
downloaded and matched up so that forgotten transactions can be
recovered and then be upset that these matching marks are present
during the reconciliation. One could argue that there should be an
option to state whether or not a reconciliation is based on online
data or a paper statement. But, IMHO, Moneydance would be approaching
the complexity of some parts of Quicken and that's part of the reason
I left it in the first place.

Regards,

Jon Walthour 
Indianapolis, Indiana

[Michael Casteel]

So I have to remove the diamonds from the transactions that have
cleared the bank, but are not on the statement that I'm trying to
reconcile.

This is expected behavior and not a problem with Moneydance per se. It
comes from you downloading transactional data from your bank between
statements.

But it certainly is not user-friendly behavior on MD's part, and I would
also consider it a 'problem' with MD. Sure it isn't fatal, but why
should the computer get away with dictating WHEN a person has to stop
downloading from the bank and wait for the statement to arrive? Or
punish a user who wishes to download from the bank AND reconcile to a
paper statement? From my Quicken experience, this combination can work
very well if the software 'does the right thing', i.e.:

(1) let you enter the 'statement date' (read right off the statement, no
need to memorize it!) and use that as a cutoff for considering 'cleared'
items as 'reconciled'. This is what Quicken does, and it makes things
'just work' most of the time. For the rest of the time, if only the
software would do what the original poster asked:

(2) let you remove 'cleared' items from the reconciliation that are
within the date range but do not appear on the statement, so as to
balance with the statement. But DON'T forget that the item has
'cleared', so those items would helpfully be included in the next
reconciliation without a human having to remember to re-check them.
Quicken bugs me with its shortcoming here every now and then.

That would be a more helpful program. Wouldn't that be more friendly
for everyone?

Just because there is a rationale to how computers work ('expected
behavior') doesn't make it right. Nor is it necessarily right just
because it works the way YOU want to work.

[b***@public.gmane.org]

A botched-up installation of Windows wiped out the eCS 1.2 on my ThinkPad.
After reinstalling eCS I cannot get Moneydance running. (I have a
reasonably good backup of Moneydance subdirectory.) I have the latest
"Webpack plus for OS/2" installed from Innotek. Somehow I either cannot get
the Java 1.42 installed correctly or my CONFIG.SYS is not right. I modified
Moneydance.cmd file but it is not right either. I got Moneydance running
under OS/2 v4, eCS 1.1 & 1.2 before, but I guess my brain is frozen
momentarily. Could someone give me some pointers and perhaps a
moneydance.cmd file?

Thanks,
Zoltan

--
Zoltan Bokeny
bokeny at earthlink dot net
OS/2 Warp 4 / eCS 1.2 - MR/2 ICE V2.67 #20296
FAPCUG - POSSI - SCOUG - TOUG - VOICE
Fayetteville, North Carolina

[b***@public.gmane.org]

I took a totally new approach and do not need to use the moneydance.cmd.
This might be a good tip for other Moneydance users under OS/2 and
eComStation. In the property box under "Path and file name" I pointed to
the Java executable (in my case)

G:\PROGRAMS\JAVA142\BIN\JAVA.EXE

In the "Parameters" box I placed the following

-jar moneydance.jar

And in the "Working directory" box the location of Moneydance

I:\MONEYDANCE

The G: and the I: are the drive letters I use.

I cannot believe this can be so simple! :-)

--
Zoltan Bokeny
bokeny at earthlink dot net
OS/2 Warp 4 / eCS 1.2 - MR/2 ICE V2.67 #20296
FAPCUG - POSSI - SCOUG - TOUG - VOICE
Fayetteville, North Carolina

[Dave Saville]

Post by b***@public.gmane.org
A botched-up installation of Windows wiped out the eCS 1.2 on my ThinkPad.
After reinstalling eCS I cannot get Moneydance running. (I have a
reasonably good backup of Moneydance subdirectory.) I have the latest
"Webpack plus for OS/2" installed from Innotek. Somehow I either cannot get
the Java 1.42 installed correctly or my CONFIG.SYS is not right. I modified
Moneydance.cmd file but it is not right either. I got Moneydance running
under OS/2 v4, eCS 1.1 & 1.2 before, but I guess my brain is frozen
momentarily. Could someone give me some pointers and perhaps a
moneydance.cmd file?

/* */
Call Directory 'd:\apps\moneydance'

'set JAVA_COMPILER=NONE'
'set MONEYDANCE_LOCATION=d:\apps\moneydance'
'set JAVA_EXE=d:\apps\goldencode\java141\jre\bin\java.exe'
'set CLASSPATH='
'set CLSSP=%MONEYDANCE_LOCATION%\moneydance.jar'
'set CLSSP=%MONEYDANCE_LOCATION%\license.jar;%CLSSP%'
'set CLSSP=%MONEYDANCE_LOCATION%\appsrc.jar;%CLSSP%'
'set CLSSP=%MONEYDANCE_LOCATION%\jce1_2_2.jar;%CLSSP%'
'set CLSSP=%MONEYDANCE_LOCATION%\jnet.jar;%CLSSP%'
'set CLSSP=%MONEYDANCE_LOCATION%\jsse.jar;%CLSSP%'
'set CLSSP=%MONEYDANCE_LOCATION%\jcert.jar;%CLSSP%'
'set CLSSP=%MONEYDANCE_LOCATION%\sunjce_provider.jar;%CLSSP%'
'set CLSSP=%MONEYDANCE_LOCATION%\US_export_policy.jar;%CLSSP%'
'set CLSSP=%MONEYDANCE_LOCATION%\local_policy.jar;%CLSSP%'

'%JAVA_EXE% -Duser.home='home' -cp %CLSSP% Moneydance'

[b***@public.gmane.org]

Post by Dave Saville
/* */
Call Directory 'd:\apps\moneydance'

<SNIP>

Post by Dave Saville
'%JAVA_EXE% -Duser.home='home' -cp %CLSSP% Moneydance'

Thank you for your reply David.

I tested your method, and it worked perfectly!

Regards,
Zoltan


--
Zoltan Bokeny
bokeny at earthlink dot net
OS/2 Warp 4 / eCS 1.2 - MR/2 ICE V2.67 #20296
FAPCUG - POSSI - SCOUG - TOUG - VOICE
Fayetteville, North Carolina

[Ken Ganshirt]

...snip...
(2) let you remove 'cleared' items from the reconciliation that are
within the date range but do not appear on the statement, so as to
balance with the statement. But DON'T forget that the item has
'cleared', so those items would helpfully be included in the next
reconciliation without a human having to remember to re-check them.
Quicken bugs me with its shortcoming here every now and then.

I don't understand, Mike. Quicken allows this. At least my copy of 2003XG
(Canadian) does. When I do a paper reconciliation, Quicken presents me
with a Reconcile screen containing a list of all the outstanding
transactions with the cleared ones already checked. If the reconciled
balance is $0.00, I can simply click Finish and I'm done.

But you already knew that. The thing is, ...

If there is a non-zero reconciliation balance, and if it's due to a
cleared item that doesn't show on the statement, I can just uncheck that
transaction in the Reconcile screen to get the reconciled balance to
$0.00. Whenever I do that, when I go back to the register, the item I
unchecked on the Reconcile screen is still showing as cleared (lower case
"c") but not reconciled.

...ken...

______________________________________________________________________
Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca

[Ken Ganshirt]

Post by Jon Walthour

Post by Jon Walthour
Nope. The checkmark indicates that the transaction has been

reconciled.
And the diamond means the transaction has been flagged to be cleared
when the next reconciliation is completed. So if you want a
reconcialiation to balance to a statement balance at a given point in
time then you can not have a transaction from a later date marked to be
cleared in this reconciliation.
I have been using some form of computerised banking software since the
1980s. Firstly HBMS (under DOS), then Quicken, then Microsoft Money and
finally Moneydance since 1999, and they have all worked like this.

Not Quicken. The lower case "c" means it has been cleared. This, in
combination with the statement date, is what Quicken uses to determine
which cleared transactions qualify for reconciliation. Reconciliation and
"clearing" of a transaction are not related in any other way.

That is, you can only reconcile cleared transactions, but all cleared
transactions are *not* fair game for reconciliation. That can only be
determined by the date you are reconciling to.

This shows up in a couple of ways in Quicken.

If you have an account that you reconcile to paper statements, Quicken
asks you for the statement date each time you reconcile and uses that to
determine which cleared transactions qualify.

If you have been downloading transactions for this account and your last
download was prior to the paper statement date, Quicken will tell you that
your transactions might not be up to date and ask if you want to do a
download.

...ken...

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[Ken Ganshirt]

Post by Fuzzy Fox

Post by Fuzzy Fox
The checkmark is for "cleared" transactions. The semantics for the
diamond symbol are up for debate. But they are just that,
semantics.

Nope. The checkmark indicates that the transaction has been
reconciled.

I don't know why I typed "checkmark" when I meant "diamond," but of
course you are correct.
However, at this point I am not sure of any point of contention might
be. I just tried downloading some transactions, and most of them were
already entered by me, but there was one extra transaction that I had
missed entering. The transaction, once entered, did not have any sort
of "cleared" or "diamond" status added to it.
So... Moneydance is working exactly the way I want it to. Good.

David, was the "extra transaction" in the download? Or did you simply
notice that you hadn't entered it yet and enter it manually?

If the latter - it wasn't in the download and you entered it manually - I
agree that's what you want. It has not cleared yet and should not be
marked as such.

If the former, and the "extra transaction" was in the download from your
financial institution and accepted by you, then Moneydance is wrong. That
transaction should show as cleared. Anything that comes in a download from
your financial institution, and you accept, should always be marked as
cleared. Because it has, in fact, cleared your financial institution.

...ken...

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[Fuzzy Fox]

Post by Ken Ganshirt
David, was the "extra transaction" in the download? Or did you simply
notice that you hadn't entered it yet and enter it manually?

The transaction was in the download, and I clicked "Accept" to have
Moneydance enter it for me.

Post by Ken Ganshirt
If the former, and the "extra transaction" was in the download from
your financial institution and accepted by you, then Moneydance is
wrong.

That's a pretty strong word to use. People has different accounting
methods. The fact that Moneydance is following the methods I choose to
conform to, does not mean it is "wrong."

[Ken Ganshirt]

Post by Fuzzy Fox

You do not have to have automatic reconciliation turned on for any
given account in Quicken. Quicken only forces that behaviour if you
tell it to.

This does not sound like a feature I've ever found in Quicken. The last
version I used was... 2000? Perhaps it has been added since that
version.
I've been using Moneydance fairly happily for about four years now, so
perhaps my experience only reflects what Quicken's behavior was at the
time. :)

It was there in my Q2000. I can't remember how long before that.

It's not as obvious as it should be. The first time you do a download in
an account, after that first download is complete and you have accepted
the transactions and click Done, Quicken will ask if you want to
automatically reconcile the account. If you answer Yes, Quicken will
reconcile to the current date. Then it will automatically reconcile after
each download from that point on. If you subsequently try to reconcile
that account to a paper statement, Quicken will give you a hard time.

As I mentioned, you can switch an account back to doing paper
reconciliations but it's neither obvious nor easy to do.

...ken...

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[Paul Williamson]

I really don't want to get into the cat fight that seems to have erupted
over this issue but I would like to throw in my two cents worth.

I do have to say that the way Moneydance handles downloaded transactions and
reconciliation really frustrates me (as opposed to just being different from
the way Quicken or Money does it -- and I've used both, Money most
recently).

I find two shortcomings:

1. When I "accept" downloaded transactions, Moneydance makes me go through
another manual step for each one of actually clicking on the box to make the
diamond appear. I wish it would make some mark automatically -- I don't much
care what the mark is -- to indicate that the transaction has gone through
the bank.

2. When I "reconcile" my account, Moneydance does not provide for an "as of"
cut-off date. This makes reconciling difficult I don't necessarily do the
reconciliation on the exact date the statement closes) and there are often
transactions that have "cleared" the bank after the statement that I am
reconciling to closed. If there were an "as of" date, it wouldn't matter
that transactions have cleared since the statement date. Which would, I
think, resolve the usability problem some of us have with not having
diffferent marks to mean "cleared the bank" and "appears on my statement."

________________________________________________
Paul Williamson

[Phil Kane]

Post by Paul Williamson
I really don't want to get into the cat fight that seems to have erupted
over this issue but I would like to throw in my two cents worth.

I can certainly understand and agree with that.

Many of the "problems" batted about here don't affect me because I
do not download any account transactions from my bank. I enter my
checks, withdrawals, and deposits in MD as I make them, and I prefer
to write a paper check rather than have automated bill payments for
anything with the exception of our home loans (the bank gave us a
better loan rate because we agreed to automatic transfers).

Once a month I get a three-account paper statement from the bank
(with cancelled checks), at which time I grab my checkbook, fire up
MD, and spend no more than 20 minutes updating MD and reconciling
the accounts.

Going through the above procedure keeps me in initmate touch with
recurring deposits (annuity pension and Social Security) and what I
am spending it on.

Others may have different views and needs and I can respect that.

--
Phil Kane

[Ken Ganshirt]

Post by Fuzzy Fox

Post by Ken Ganshirt
David, was the "extra transaction" in the download? Or did you simply
notice that you hadn't entered it yet and enter it manually?

The transaction was in the download, and I clicked "Accept" to have
Moneydance enter it for me.

Post by Ken Ganshirt
If the former, and the "extra transaction" was in the download from
your financial institution and accepted by you, then Moneydance is
wrong.

That's a pretty strong word to use. People has different accounting
methods. The fact that Moneydance is following the methods I choose to
conform to, does not mean it is "wrong."

I'm sorry you feel that way, David. I'm not talking about personal
preferences, and nothing personal was intended. I'm talking about a
technical definition and the technical implementation, in software,
resulting from that definition. And whether that technical implementation
is technically correct or not.

There is only one definition of a "cleared" transaction. It is a
transaction that has been "cleared" -- received and processed and all
necessary actions taken -- by the financial institution.

I thought we (collectively) had agreed that the diamond in Moneydance was
the indicator that the transaction had been cleared by the financial
institution. Eg. that the Moneydance diamond has the same technical
meaning as the lower case "c" in Quicken. Was I wrong?

If the diamond is the Moneydance indicator that a transaction has cleared
the financial institution, then it seems to me if it's not set when a
download is received and accepted, it's in error. That is, you have a
transaction that has actually cleared the financial institution (else it
would not have been in the download) but is not so indicated in
Moneydance.

What am I missing?

...ken...

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[Ken Ganshirt]

Post by Paul Williamson
I really don't want to get into the cat fight that seems to have erupted
over this issue but I would like to throw in my two cents worth.
I do have to say that the way Moneydance handles downloaded transactions
and reconciliation really frustrates me (as opposed to just being
different from the way Quicken or Money does it -- and I've used both,
Money most recently).
1. When I "accept" downloaded transactions, Moneydance makes me go
through another manual step for each one of actually clicking on the
box to make the diamond appear. I wish it would make some mark
automatically -- I don't much care what the mark is -- to indicate
that the transaction has gone through the bank.
2. When I "reconcile" my account, Moneydance does not provide for an "as
of" cut-off date. This makes reconciling difficult I don't necessarily
do the reconciliation on the exact date the statement closes) and there
are often transactions that have "cleared" the bank after the statement
that I am reconciling to closed. If there were an "as of" date, it
wouldn't matter that transactions have cleared since the statement
date. Which would, I think, resolve the usability problem some of us
have with not having diffferent marks to mean "cleared the bank"
and "appears on my statement."

Thanks for a much more coherent and concise explanation than mine, Paul.

...ken...

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[Marcelo LaFleur]

I agree completely with this. I might be fuzzy on who
agrees with whom here, so bear with me as I offer my
$0.02 (US).

The reconciliation process, if it exists, has to be
very comprehensive. There is a lot to learn from
Quicken here, where the user can enter the statement's
start/end dates, the beginning/ending balance, and
"clear/unclear" transactions as they are found to be
posted or not on the current statement. In addition,
the ability to enter and "adjustment entry" if the
balances don't match is also useful, given that user
error in entering information will always occur
(especially if we are talking about importing data and
if the user inadvertently deletes/changes a
transaction).

I agree with Michael here, and I think his description
of what is needed is a good one. I also appreciate
those who are putting aside how they personally use
MD, and are rather engaged on the best, most clear way
to accomplish the task. Reconciling accounts isn't a
difficult concept, so it shouldn't be a difficult
implementation.

On the issue of the "diamond=clear" issue, I agree
that there should be separate indicators for "cleared"
and for "reconciled". If "diamond"=clear, then
downloaded transactions should all have the diamond,
and when reconciled, these should be "checked" by
default (though the user should have the option of
"unchecking" them). When reconciling, the user would
have the option of either importing new data or
manually checking (AND ADDING TRANSACTIONS ON THE
FLY)tansactions until the reconciled difference is
$0.00.

Again, this would help bring MD into the mainstream as
a replacement for households' financial management.

Marcelo

Post by Mailing Lists

Post by Jon Walthour

So I have to remove the diamonds from the

transactions that have

Post by Jon Walthour

cleared the bank, but are not on the statement

that I'm trying to

Post by Jon Walthour

reconcile.

This is expected behavior and not a problem with

Moneydance per se. It

Post by Jon Walthour
comes from you downloading transactional data from

your bank between

Post by Jon Walthour
statements.

But it certainly is not user-friendly behavior on
MD's part, and I would
also consider it a 'problem' with MD. Sure it isn't
fatal, but why
should the computer get away with dictating WHEN a
person has to stop
downloading from the bank and wait for the statement
to arrive? Or
punish a user who wishes to download from the bank
AND reconcile to a
paper statement? From my Quicken experience, this
combination can work
very well if the software 'does the right thing',
(1) let you enter the 'statement date' (read right
off the statement, no
need to memorize it!) and use that as a cutoff for
considering 'cleared'
items as 'reconciled'. This is what Quicken does,
and it makes things
'just work' most of the time. For the rest of the
time, if only the
(2) let you remove 'cleared' items from the
reconciliation that are
within the date range but do not appear on the
statement, so as to
balance with the statement. But DON'T forget that
the item has
'cleared', so those items would helpfully be
included in the next
reconciliation without a human having to remember to
re-check them.
Quicken bugs me with its shortcoming here every now
and then.
That would be a more helpful program. Wouldn't that
be more friendly
for everyone?
Just because there is a rationale to how computers
work ('expected
behavior') doesn't make it right. Nor is it
necessarily right just
because it works the way YOU want to work.
--
Mike Casteel
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[Anthony Bayer]

I would endorse this idea.

All finance programs I have used so far provide for a reconciliation
period, with the opening of the period being the date on which the
last reconciliation was done, and the closing date being the date of
the current statement. Also allowed for are an opening and a closing
balance with the former being the last closing balance, and the
latter being taken from the current statement.

With these limits placed on the period being considered, there should
be few problems for anyone, whether they manually enter their
transactions, download them from their bank's website or do a
combination of both. There would be few problems with the diamond and
the tick in the cleared column. The diamond would indicate that the
transaction has gone through the account at the bank (cleared) and it
would change to a tick after successful reconciliation.

Those doing downloads may have to unclear some transactions that do
not show on the current statement, and next month they may have to
"reclear" them when the next statement arrives, but that can't be too
much trouble. On the other hand, people who rely on manual input
would have to add bank charges, interest and other unrecorded items.
MD allows for this at the moment, as it does also for editing entries.

The only other feature MD could do with in all accounts as part of
this package is a "Balance Adjustment" function. In theory one should
not have to use it on bank and credit card accounts, but it would be
handy on the cash account where you may have mislaid a receipt.
Admittedly MD does make it easy to do the calculation in the
register, but having the feature would make it a tad easier.

My 5c worth - we do not have 1c or 2c here.

Anthony

Post by Marcelo LaFleur
The reconciliation process, if it exists, has to be
very comprehensive. There is a lot to learn from
Quicken here, where the user can enter the statement's
start/end dates, the beginning/ending balance, and
"clear/unclear" transactions as they are found to be
posted or not on the current statement. In addition,
the ability to enter and "adjustment entry" if the
balances don't match is also useful, given that user
error in entering information will always occur
(especially if we are talking about importing data and
if the user inadvertently deletes/changes a
transaction).

[Ken Ganshirt]

...snip...
My 5c worth - we do not have 1c or 2c here.
Anthony

Now that is downright enlightened!! Where is "here"?

...ken... (wishing pennies and nickels would disappear in Canada)

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[Anthony Bayer]

New Zealand

5c has been condemned to die next year

a

Post by Ken Ganshirt

...snip...
My 5c worth - we do not have 1c or 2c here.
Anthony

Now that is downright enlightened!! Where is "here"?
...ken... (wishing pennies and nickels would disappear in Canada)
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[Steve Crane]

Post by Anthony Bayer
New Zealand

Here in South Africa, we also did away with 1c and 2c pieces a few years
ago. We have coins in 5c, 10c, 20c, 50c, R1, R2 and R5 denominations
and notes in R10, R20, R50, R100 and R200 denominations.