I recently entered all my checkbook register information from the beginning of 2002. I have a few questions though.

How do I categorize both an expense that I temporarily paid and then the reimbursement when I was paid back? I don't want to show the reimbursement as income, because it seems to me that would mess me up on my taxes. It seems to me this should have been obvious to the software developers. I'm hoping there is a way and I am just not aware of it.

The same applies to my beginning balance in my checkbook. It looks like that gets categorized as income, which doesn't make sense to me.

I understood the instructions to say that you should start your register with the date of your bank statement. However, my bank statement comes out about the 20th of the month and I started my Quicken register for 2002 with January 1st of 2002. Will this cause any problem? I haven't yet tried to reconcile using Quicken, but I have balanced all my statements with my paper register and the amounts match in Quicken.

Also, Control + V is supposed to enter a VOID amount and when I press Control + V it pastes whatever is on the clipboard instead of entering a VOID. I would like to be able to have both capabilities.

Thanks for your help!

I haven't used Quicken for some years, so I don't really remember the software, but I might be able to help you if you answer some questions. Here's what I remember about it:

1) Checks are always subtracted out of the bank account and applied to an expense account that you've set up.

2) Deposits are always counted as personal income and added to the bank accont.

3) You can't get away with not entering either because then the bank statement wouldn't reconcile easily.

Does Quicken allow for general adjustments? (In a business, this would be a general ledger entry.) If so, you could enter the check as an expense and the reimbursement as income when you get it, and then make a reversing entry with a debit to income and credit to the expense (because both will be overstated). This will have the result of zeroing out all entries while leaving the bank account with correct entries.

Does Quicken use debits and credits? If not, this would be an adjusting entry with a minus to income and a minus to the expense.

If all else fails, expirament. Try a few different entries, and if you mess it up, reinstall the software and start over. Even if you got Quicken preloaded onto your computer, you may be able to restore just that portion from your restore discs. (Just be careful not to restore the whole computer. That's the fastest, most efficient way to loose EVERYTHING!)

As for entering your bank info from Jan 1, if somehow it doesn't work, there's a way to cheat the system.

The first time you try to reconcile your statement, treat the entire year as one month and ignore the dates. It's all math, the numbers all add up the same. Treat all the checks as if they were written and cleared in one month, and the deposits the same way. Treat your Jan 1 balance as your "beginning balance" and the last date of your first statement as the "ending balance". Treat all the statements you've received this year as a single statement to check off everything that cleared, but only the ending balance of the last statement will need to be reconciled.

Regardless of how many months or years you reconcile the first time, the ending formula is always exactly the same:

Bank statement's ending balance
minus outstanding checks
minus monthly service charge (if any)
plus deposits in transit
plus interest earned (if any)
Equals reconciled balance

If this number doesn't match what you have in your register (without adding in the interest and svc charge), there's a mistake somewhere.

Thanks for your answers. I read over them and am going to experiment with the suggestions as soon as I have a chance.

I'll let you know what happens