Go to accounts details, do the math and setup an specify and Opening
balance, so that at the end of the month you have a true balance.

Just like Money does it when you archive.

Hope this helps.



"kc" <kcvale[at]yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:4509de4f.0405142253.498b8a42[at]posting.google.com...
- quote -

The one thing I think you are trying to do is the least sensible. The goal
is not to get the Money register to match the paper register. The goal is to
get the Money register to match the bank and, if you must, to get the paper
register to match the bank.

If your goal is to get the paper register reconciled, you have only two
choices, neither of which has anything to do with what you've done in Money.
1) do the hard work to get every month to match the statements along the
way, 2) take the bank's word for it and enter an adjustment entry.

If your goal is to get Money to match the bank, that should be easier. You
say you set up a Money account starting with the February statement balance.
You need to get every transaction ***past those on the February statement***
into Money.

Downloading transaction data is probably not helping you at all. Until you
get this sorted out in your own mind, all of the strange things that can
happen with downloaded data will be very hard for you to recognize. For
instance, you may well have downloaded transactions that are in the February
statement balance that you began the Money account with. If so, they are now
doubled-up.

"kc" <kcvale[at]yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:4509de4f.0405142253.498b8a42[at]posting.google.com...
- quote -

This is one case where I would force the balance by allowing money to
add the fiticious entry to bring it into balance.

kc wrote:

- quote -

Hi,
I'm trying to get organized so I bought MS Money 2003 to get me
started. I'm ashamed to say that I haven't balanced my own personal
checking account since we moved 2 years ago. At that time I was
dutifully entering my info into Quicken. Since the move, I've just
been manually keeping a running tab in my check register (being real
careful to check my math).
I thought I'd just start fresh with MS Money so I didn't import my
quicken files. I just downloaded the statements from Feb-April
2004(all that's available)from my bank and filled in the descriptions
from my register.
You might guess the problem is that the balance from my register and
from MS Money are vastly different. MS Money says I have way more
money than I should. Which would make me happy if I thought it was
correct. It's not.
Can someone help me get on track without the need to input info for
the past 2 yrs from when I last reconciled this account.
BTW: For the opening balance I used the beginning balance from my Feb.
statement.
Your help would be greatly appreciated.
kc