In microsoft.public.money, Gwen C wrote:

- quote -

That seems odd. I would do File-> RepairMoneyFile-> QuickFileRepair
and progress to the Standard if need be. Perhaps there is something
I am missing as to what would cause the space bar to not make a
transaction indicate it has been cleared during the balancing
process.

- quote -

You could try that forced balancing method again.

I'm back on this thread, again (just trying to balance the rest of June,
now) with a new issue.

I am using the space bar/mouse to mark the transactions that appear on my
bank statement as 'E,' however, some transactions simply will not take. I
hit the space bar (or try to click with the mouse) and absolutely nothing
happens. I can progress to the next transaction without problem.

WHAT am I doing wrong? I'm beginning to feel like quite the dunce, here. I
will be out of town as of just a few hours from now till 7/10, so, if I don't
reply quickly, it's not because I don't appreciate it.

Sadly, it seems that my accoount is not reconciling, *again*, yet, all
transactions seem to be correct and none are missing. I'm about to give up.

"Cal Learner-- MVP" wrote:

- quote -

This thread reminded me of several past discussions on here about the
pros and cons (mostly cons) of allowing money to auto balance an
account. Unfortunately I couldn't find the message via a google search
(groups-beta.google.com isn't as good as it used to be), but I can find
it in my newsreader, so I'll paste one insightful message here, since I
can't find it to link to it:

================================================== ==

Retired Coal Miner <...[at]...> wrote:

- quote -


From someone who is definitely a "Regular" ("knowledgable" is a
judgement call)

1. No, absolutely not. Tried it for a while, and it seemed to work OK,
but I just don't get a warm and fuzzy feeling from it So I switched
back to using paper statements to balance against when I get them.

Equally important - because this is where I ran into trouble with
auto-balancing turned on - is to not allow "automatically accept
downloaded transactions". It's just too easy for Money to mismatch the
transactions.

I like downloading the transactions, so that I can tell which things
have cleared my bank (if auto-balancing is turned off, Money will mark
the transactions that are downloaded and accepted with a "E". This also
makes balancing to the paper statement a matter of a minute or 2,
because they "E" transactions get auto-checked when you balance. Most of
the time, I'm balanced to $0 difference as soon as I start the balancing
process.

Cheers,
Steve
================================================== ==

The full thread is here, but a few of the messages seem (including the
above) to be gone:

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...b74b0deb805c69



Cal Learner-- MVP wrote:

- quote -

In microsoft.public.money, Gwen C wrote:

- quote -

Here is my attempt at a simple description of balancing to a web
statement.

===============================================
In the account register, click "Balance this account"

For Statement Date, press Ctrl+D to insert today's date if your
balance data is fresh and if the date is not already what you want.

Do not change "Total amount you owed last month" Into "Total amount
you owe this month", enter balance from web statement.

Leave "Service Charge" and Interest Charge blank, unless they are
not reflected in "Total amount you owe this month"

Next

You can change View to match your preference. The unreconciled
transactions will show blank or C in C column. Click space bar or
use the mouse for those transactions that are reflected on the web
statement.

A checkmark in the C column indicates that this transaction is OK
and will be marked Reconciled at the completion of balance.

The left-hand column tell you "The difference between your
statement and the register". As you check more and more items, the
number should end up at zero. When it says zero, or you want to
move on anyway, click Next. If Money offers to do auto-reconcile,
it may find a transaction that explains the discrepancy. You can
also let Money add an adjustment, tho that is undesirable.

Click Next and make your choices.

In microsoft.public.money, Gwen C wrote:

- quote -


I think that can work, but it is hard to describe the method. I
think going into the balancing just far enough to see the "starting
balance" to see the sum of the R entries could be useful for that
process.
- quote -

First, I am not good at balancing. When it comes to the bank
statement, I always figured the bank did that for me, and I just
made sure the checks and deposits seemed right. However I know that
is not a good method.

I usually do a process that I can't describe in a clear way,
balancing against the FI websites. I don't know of a clear write-up
on how to use the downloaded statements for downloading.
http://www.microsoft.com/money/suppo...ey04/ch8p4.asp is
"basic" but it does not tell you how to handle the case where things
don't balance.

I do turn on auto balancing for credit cards, and have not had a
problem with that. That process is not compatible with balancing to
a monthly paper statement. If things did not balance, I have been
able to figure out why. Sometimes it is because the downloaded
credit card balance was not in phase with the individual items yet.
Other times it had to do with transfers to and from the checking
account being duplicated or not done properly.

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;895865
touches on autobalancing-- as much on how to turn it off as anything
else. Some have had problems turning it off.

You might consider making a copy of your Money file under a
different name without a Passport or with a different Passport. Keep
both up. I do that, but it was not for purposes of balancing. I was
just using more than one version of Money concurrently. It just
turned out to be useful in tracking down discrepancies. I find I am
unlikely to make the same mistake with both files. It seem like more
work, but it does not nearly double the time involved. I found that
printing the register of one version to a PDF file let me easily
look for divergence with the other file.

You probably won't want to keep two parallel Money files. Do review
your backup strategy. It could be very useful to have more than one
backup. You can restore to a different filename with a backup and
thereby have Money files from two different points in time with
different names.

Perhaps somebody will know of a good write-up on balancing to a web
statement. It might be to use the BalanceThisAccount method, but
just be careful to only change the EndingBalance in the "Enter the
following information from your bank statement" window.

Thanks for the information, Cal. I believe that you inadvertently helped me
discover a more 'core' problem that I've created for myself. You wrote:

<< would identify the latest date that I could identify where the
running balance in the right column agrees with my statements.
Supposedly at a spot where the C column has R's (previously
Reconciled) your paper statements and Money should agree.

If there are many R's below that spot, look thru to see if there are
some non-R's in there. Those might indicate some kind of bad entry
that would explain some problems. >
My problem being that, when I download statements from my bank, I manually
change the E's (or, would they be C's) to R's. I'm not sure where I learned
that little 'trick,' but, I'm guessing it's what's been throwing the monkey
wrench into things.

Based on the above, I went for the Grand Adjustment - and, boy, does it look
ROTTEN. However, I plan to learn from my mistakes. I would like to pose
another question, if I could........

Can you point me in the direction of some very BASIC information about 'How
To Utilize Downloaded Statements From Your Bank'? I prefer to stay on top of
my account and will often download statements daily. Of course, in my
erroneous method, I also marked them as 'R'. What is the proper way to
handle the bank statements so that I may properly balance when it's time?
I'm guessing it should be as simple as not manually changing anything - but,
I'd like to be certain.

Thanks so much for the efforts that you (and your peers) offer here. It is
greatly appreciated by many, I'm sure.

Gwen C



"Cal Learner-- MVP" wrote:

- quote -

In microsoft.public.money, Gwen C <Gwen C[at]discussions.microsoft.comwrote:

- quote -

The starting balance in Money balancing is the sum of the Reconciled
transactions.


- quote -

I don't have what you want there, but I will point out some things I
would do, some of which may be of use to you. However my way is not
often the easiest. And certainly it is *not* a cohesive procedure.

I would make a copy of the file in case you don't like the result.
This item is one that everybody would agree on. Thereafter what I
write may not be useful to you.

I would set up the checking account register to show all
transactions, and to sort by date (increasing). (Click View at the
top of the register to control these choices if a change is called
for)

I would identify the latest date that I could identify where the
running balance in the right column agrees with my statements.
Supposedly at a spot where the C column has R's (previously
Reconciled) your paper statements and Money should agree.

If there are many R's below that spot, look thru to see if there are
some non-R's in there. Those might indicate some kind of bad entry
that would explain some problems.

I would Void any adjustments below this area. Void lets you look at
the transactions but they will no longer count.

Now think you what you could do that would be methodical but
tedious, is to un-Reconcile items below the spot you will pick up
with month-by-month balancing, and to Reconcile those above that
spot. That would require you select a Reconciled transaction and
enter <Ctrl> +<Shift> +M keys, or right-click and choose MarkAs and
select Reconciled to toggle the Reconciled state. The keys are
easier.

I would take a less methodical method that I cannot describe and
just figure out the anomalies and Reconcile down to where I find the
register to be in agreement with my statement.

If I were to get things correct, or if I were to settle for one
grand single adjustment, I would use the manual method of marking an
account balanced/reconciled:

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. Look at the balancing
movie clip from your Money disk.

I am pretty ashamed to admit how botched I've gotten my M2004 records. The
bottom line is that I cannot get my balancing to happen seamlessly - ever, it
seems.

This is my mode of operation:

I manually enter transactions and also download from my credit union.
Sometimes, my credit union has a transaction posted which I have not yet
entered into my register. I will download it, tweak it (ie: Correcting payee
name, etc), and accept it. My biggest problem is that I do not balance
nearly often enough. Oftentimes, when I do start to balance the account, one
of my three children comes in and I get distracted and have to abandon the
process. Later, when I attempt to balance, again, I find that Money has
retained the 'starting balance' that I used when I had the aborted balancing
procedure. Is there a way to find what that number was, if you didn't write
anything down?

Also, my credit union keeps a 'Balance' and an 'Available Balance.' I
*think* I have previously incorrectly used the 'Available Balance' in my
balancing processes, causing adjustments that were likely unnecessary.

Today, I attempt to balance my account and find that I am ($758.18) off!!
Am I going to have to eat that horrible difference to get my account back on
track? Is there a Microsoft for TOTAL Dummies website out there that will
explain this all to me in very small words, how to fix this?

Any sites, suggestions, appreciated. Please don't call names. I've done
enough of that, myself, already. ::sigh::

~Don't Want To Use My Real Name - Call Me BLONDIE.