Yes, I was referring to the balance process. Anyway, I tried reconciling
those old entries and it left my account total untouched; so far, so good. I
guess I'll wait until I get my next bank statement next month to see if
anything is changed in a wrong way.

Thanks for your help!

"Cal Learner-- MVP" wrote:

- quote -

In microsoft.public.money, dragonwing wrote:

- quote -

I think we are referring to different things. I was referring to the
register column called Balance. I suspect you are referring to the
Balance process.

But your idea of experimenting with a copy is very good.

I guess the old "backup-and-experiment" method ought to work just fine! I'll
see what happens...

"kaplan3jiim[at]comcast.net" wrote:

- quote -

At the risk of providing a "non-expert's" thoughts:

If they never were cashed, they probably are nor marked at all in the
column for cleared/ reconciled/ etc. Unless you manually marked them.
In my experience, this does not cause any problems in balancing
against bank statements. Unless you have made some compensating
transactions (and why would you if everything is a copacetic with each
monthly reconcile), deleting them should not affect your balance. I've
done this myself on occasion.

Jim

On Wed, 1 Nov 2006 17:51:02 -0800, dragonwing
<dragonwing[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

- quote -

That doesn't make sense, because if I clear a check, it is then officially
subtracted from the balance, and then nothing matches.

"Cal Learner-- MVP" wrote:

- quote -

In microsoft.public.money, dragonwing wrote:

- quote -

If the account balance in Money matches the balance that the bank
shows when those old check transactions are in place, then I would
infer that the checks did actually clear the bank.

- quote -

I didn't make any compensating transactions, as the account balances without
reference to these old entries. I'll try clearing/reconciling them and see
what happens.

Thanks!

"Cal Learner-- MVP" wrote:

- quote -

In microsoft.public.money, dragonwing wrote:

- quote -

Well, deleting or voiding would change the balance. So if the
balance is correct with them, I would tend to mark them
cleared/reconciled. If the balance is only correct now because you
made compensating transactions, my preference would be to Void them.
That way there is some record, but it does not affect balances. Then
adjust any compensating entry. Ideally you could get rid of all of
your compensating entries.

When I balance my account, I notice that there are a number of outstanding
transactions from a couple of years ago: Checks that must have gotten lost or
in any event never cleared the bank. I'd just as soon get rid of them at
this point, but I'm not sure how to do that without messing up my account
balance. Should I delete them? Mark them as cleared/reconciled? Mark them
as void? Or will all those options screw up my balance?

Thank you!