In microsoft.public.money, Gwen wrote:

- quote -

If you wish to start fresh and declare an account balanced, you can
mark all entries balanced. Select to show only unreconciled
transactions. Sort by date, and go to the oldest transaction.
Hold down Cntl+Shift+M and let auto-repeat work thru the
transactions until none are left showing. Then balance making the
starting and ending balance match the known balance. Choose the
balance date to be the day after your last transaction. This is
not the normal procedure. It starts you with an amnesty for former
balancing.

Thereafter, follow the normal procedure.

What incredibly quick, informative responses. Thanks, all. Still confused,
though. LOL.

Dick asked:
<<How far different are the Money register balance--the ending balance shown
at the bottom of the register--and the balance on the online site?> Actually, the difference, there, is nothing that concerns me. It's
currently less than $80 - and, considering that it's highly possible that my
husband hasn't given me all of his Check Card receipts, and, we just went
through C'mas, it's probably totally accurate. That's why I don't get that
'huge' three thousand dollar adjustment.

<<Do you download transaction data to Money?> Yes! I use the download option from my bank's website. Will that make a
difference?

<<Do you epay?> I don't do 'true' epay, but, I do transfer money between accounts on a
fairly regular basis. When I say that I don't do 'true' epay, I simply mean
that I don't use that program. I oftentimes go to a creditor's website and
pay them, there, but, I have a feeling that's not quite what you meant.

Jim asked:
<<What I have to say may not help, but you say you don't get paper
statements. Does this mean they do not produce an end of month
statement which you can view, and use as the balancing date? If
that's the case, then I have nothing to add to Dick Watson's response.>
I no longer receive a paper statement in the US Mail from my credit union.
I do get an email when my statement is 'ready,' but, it's sort of irrelevant
because I am frequently go in every few days to see what's there and what's
not.

<<But, my experience (in case it has any similarities to yours): I do
get end of month paper statements, and after using those balances to
reconcile to for years with no problems, I suddenly decided to
reconcile to my current on line balance. Suddenly I started getting
these adjustment messages. It took me several months to get back to
where it would balance to the end of month statement without
adjustments. I knew the adjustments were bogus and all cancelled out
eventually. I could probably go back now and delete them and
everything would be o.k. because they should have all cancelled out.>
It sounds as though my situation *is* very similar to yours. I am just in
the phase of having to deal with the adjustments, I guess? I just have such
heartburn over such a large 'adjustment'.

<<If you are downloading data, everything up until the date of the last
download should be reconciled, and everything after should not.>
I don't think that'll work for me - as soon as I 'accept' a downloaded
transaction from the bank, the transaction is noted as 'Reconciled,' so, I've
got lots of them since my last balancing effort.

Let me ask one [hopefully] final question. If I should decide to merely
accept that wretched adjustment, just for the sake of 'getting on with it'
(::grin:, what do I have to do when I receive that warning message about
entering income as an expense or an expense as income? I'm guessing that
that's the crux that's causing the adjustment amount to be added onto my
balance and throwing it into the stratosphere? I get the option to correct
it - but, I simply don't know how. I did find something about going to Tools
--> Options --> Categories, but, wasn't 100% certain that this would be the
correct thing to do. Should I follow that path and uncheck the 'Require the
correct category for each transaction' button?

Thanks, again, and, I'm off to look into that 'reader' that Dick mentioned.


~Gwen




"Dick Watson" wrote:

- quote -

You can also find out the last statement date you balanced by going to the
balancing routine and the last date you balanced will be displayed on the
balancing page.

"Jim" <kaplanjim[at]attbi.com> wrote in message
news:4qq3u09pcqrbms2brhocpln9lodavkf7hl[at]4ax.com...
- quote -

The previous responder had lots of good info.

What I have to say may not help, but you say you don't get paper
statements. Does this mean they do not produce an end of month
statement which you can view, and use as the balancing date? If
that's the case, then I have nothing to add to Dick Watson's response.

But, my experience (in case it has any similarities to yours): I do
get end of month paper statements, and after using those balances to
reconcile to for years with no problems, I suddenly decided to
reconcile to my current on line balance. Suddenly I started getting
these adjustment messages. It took me several months to get back to
where it would balance to the end of month statement without
adjustments. I knew the adjustments were bogus and all cancelled out
eventually. I could probably go back now and delete them and
everything would be o.k. because they should have all cancelled out.

If you are downloading data, everything up until the date of the last
download should be reconciled, and everything after should not.

Jim


On Sun, 9 Jan 2005 14:43:03 -0800, "Gwen"
<Gwen[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

- quote -

To find out what the most recent balance was, look for the date on the most
recent transaction marked as reconciled.

You say it wants to insert a huge adjustment. How far different are the
Money register balance--the ending balance shown at the bottom of the
register--and the balance on the online site? Unless you have lots of
transactions in Money that you have, say, printed and not mailed, these a)
shouldn't be much different, and b) the difference should be readily
explainable based on a handful of the most recent transactions in Money.

You could have other issues going on.

Do you epay?

Do you download transaction data to Money?

The basic drill is no different than balancing a paper checkbook--you are
trying to make sure that you have all of the same transactions they do and
in the same amount. The account adjustment entry reporting as Income instead
of Expense or similar is not a problem, per se, just the way it works. And a
$3k difference between the bank web site balance and the Money register
balance is also not a problem, per se. It's only a problem if there aren't
$2k worth of transactions in Money that the bank does not yet know about.

The reason the web appearance of the newsgroups is suddenly different is
that, apparently, Microsoft has radically revamped the interface recently.
Wow have they. There's an enter in the uFAQ to fix, that's for sure. In
order to control the interface locally, as well as get better usability, you
might consider using a newsreader:
news:msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.money.

"Gwen" <Gwen[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:13584900-463F-4089-ACEB-2B555DC7FF3B[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Good Evening, All.

I am not quite a newbie, but, still not terribly proficient in All Things
Money. I have a problem. It seems that it's not too uncommon, based on my
reading, here, but, I cannot get my Money '04 to balance. Money is trying to
insert a HUGE adjustment, saying that my balancing is off. Evidently, I had
previously started to balance my account and stopped. Now, I have no idea
what date I would have used - I don't receive paper statements, so, I just
use whatever date I happen be on from my bank's online statement. Is there
anyway that I can find out what date it was that I stopped balancing?

Conversely, when I finally allowed myself to enter the adjustment that Money
recommended, it added that amount of money into my account, instead of
deleting it - causing my balance to be incorrect by over $3K. I did receive
an error message that told me that I was trying to enter an income as an
expense, or, vice versa. (sorry - don't have the message written down, here).

Feel free to speak to me like I'm stupid. Unfortunately, I feel that way,
when it comes to this. If there's further information that you need,
feel free to let me know.

As an aside - why do these boards look so different than they did several
months ago? I can't even figure out how to go to the next page of posts,
like we used to be able to do?

Thank in advance.
Gwen