Thanks for your response, Kevin. I do have a starting balance, so I thought it would be best to start at the beginning and see what went wrong. I printed out my account sheets from my online bank. This, as you may know, is different from a statement in that a statement does not have a running balance.
With my account sheets in hand, I went through my MoneyWell and indeed found a couple of errors (user input errors!). It was a little time consuming but well worth it for two reasons: 1. My checking account in MoneyWell now matches what my what my bank says 2. I can now go to a date in the transaction window (the last date in a series if there is more than one transaction on any given day) and see what the running balance is. Of course, this function always existed, but for me it was off because of my input errors, so I'm pretty excited about that. My problem now is that my buckets have more money in them then my accounts! This is not so good. Any idea how I can rectify this? Should I empty my buckets, fill my salary bucket with the sum of my accounts, and distribute to my other buckets from my salary bucket? Also, while going through the process of getting the running balance to match, I began to wonder about the dates. As I understand it, in MoneyWell there are two dates: the transaction date and the status date. The transaction window shows the transaction date, which makes sense. Yet, what happens when I write a check to someone. Let's say I write the check on March 24, 2009 but it doesn't get cashed until April 3, 2009. In my transaction window, that transaction has a date of 3/24/2009 but the bank will mark that transaction as 4/3/2009. So, when I select that transaction in MoneyWell, my running balance will not match the running balance as kept by the bank. To match the balance, I will have to change the transaction date to 4/3/2009. At least, this is how I understand it. I use the status date to mark the date that it is cleared by the bank (i.e. what the bank marks as the transaction date), though it occurs to me that this date could be used to mark the date that I reconciled that transaction (so, if I reconcile three months of transactions in one sitting, all three months of transactions will have the same status date). Any thoughts or clarifications on these two dates? Do I understand them correctly? Also, any suggestion you can provide for getting my accounts and buckets to match up is greatly appreciated. Thanks. daniel On Mar 23, 2:41 pm, Kevin Hoctor <[email protected]> wrote: > On Mar 23, 2009, at 4:12 PM, Daniel wrote: > > > > > I have three accounts: 1. Personal Checking 2. Personal Savings and 3. > > Business Checking. I'm a sole proprietor, so I keep track of all of > > my income through MoneyWell. I always reconcile my statements and I'm > > up to date on that. However, I recently noticed that balance on my > > checking account is off (actually, it shows a negative balance). > > > When I view my account online, I can see a running balance of my > > account. That is, if I have $500 and I spend $25 dollars, there is a > > column that displays "$500" and then "$475", etc. showing the running > > total after each deposit/withdrawal. > > > I looked for the same information in MoneyWell, thinking that I could > > see where my checking balance went astray. So, I went through each > > line item in the checking account one at a time to view the > > transactions, balance, reconciled balance, and bucket balance at the > > bottom of the screen. However, I couldn't really see a running > > balance like I can on my online bank account. > > > I'm really perplexed why my checking account would be so off when I am > > reconciled. > > > Anyone have any suggestions or thought? > > Hi Daniel, > > Chances are you don't have the correct starting balance transaction in > MoneyWell. You can look at your end of day balance in MoneyWell by > clicking a transaction and glancing at the total at the bottom of the > window. Look at your bank account for that same date and compare that > amount to the running balance next to the last transaction of that > same date. > > If you don't have a starting balance transaction, follow these steps: > > 1. Click on your account and then click the Transactions title to > select all the transactions > 2. Write down the sum shown at the bottom of the window > 3. Find out your end of day balance from your bank as of the date of > your last transaction > 4. Subtract the total in step 2 from the balance in step 3 > 5. Add a new transaction and date it the day prior to your first > transaction > 6. Set the payee name to "Starting Balance" > 7. Set the amount to the value from step 5 > 8. Right-click the transaction and set the Bucket Optional flag > > Now you should be able to select a current transaction, look at the > end of day balance at the bottom of the window and it should match > your banks balance for that date. > > Peace, > > Kevin Hoctor > [email protected] > No Thirst Software LLChttp://nothirst.comhttp://kevinhoctor.blogspot.com --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "No Thirst Software User Forum" group. 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