Any tips on picking a date that has a clear balance? With delayed posting of transactions I can’t just use the statement date or the date the payment clears because it won’t be at zero.
If you don’t have a banking app that lets you see things in real time, just use the last statement and then add any transactions that have posted since then, regardless of when they were made. The first months may take a little extra effort to catch up, but from then on it will be smooth sailing.
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Thanks for your response, TIffany.
I’m finding it difficult to follow your tips. The transactions are posting out of order and on different dates. So, when I try to reconcile from the date of the end of the last statement that date brings up different transactions goodbudget. So then I try to do it from the date of the last payment to the credit card, but transactions are there that take place after the end of the previous statement.
The only thing I can think of to do is to go line by line with a calculator. Is that what I’ll have to do?
First let me ask—are you using the new auto-import feature that links your bank directly to Goodbudget? If so, do those transactions import as cleared or reconciled already? I’m not as familiar with that process as it’s only recently been added, and I never converted because there were so many bugs and complaints about the auto-linking process. But if they don’t come in as reconciled then the process should be the same.
Let’s say you have several transactions around the closing date of your statement (which is always when the overlaps occur). Some of them will have cleared on that statement, while others won’t come through until the next. As long as you’ve only cleared the transactions that appear on the statement, and the dates in Goodbudget are correct as to the transaction date, you should be able to align the balances. You do need to go through your statement line by line to confirm that all the transactions are present and cleared, (maybe just the first couple of times if you’re auto-importing), but Goodbudget does all the math for you.
The whole process revolves around what’s cleared and reconciled vs. the difference between current balance and previous balance (which you shouldn’t have to change ever), so making sure those are accurate is the highest priority.
I hope I’m not misunderstanding what you’re seeing
Thanks for getting back to me, Tiffany. I am using the auto import feature.
I agree with you that around the statement date is when the transactions overlap and mixed. I noticed in your message that you said “As long as… the dates in Goodbudget are correct as to the transaction date”.
My point is that they are not correct nor in the correct order. Nor are they predictably incorrect. Some post a day late, A few post even more than that. Some that happened later post earlier.
So! it seems like there is no clear date to reconcile with. So! It seems like I have two options. 1. don’t use my card for about a week so all the dust can settle. 2. do all the math myself.
What do you think, Karissa?
Okay. So now I’m having a little bit of a different problem. I noticed today that my credit card account and my goodbudget ledger are the same balance. However, when I went to reconcile and selected all the transactions the numbers didn’t match as if there were some transactions missing. I’m not sure how could this happen since the total matched.
Thoughts?
Okay. So my solution was I just checked the credit card every day a couple times a day. When the numbers lined up I reconciled it.
I guess reconciling credit card has to be more of a go with the flow endeavor. It’s no big deal
I don’t auto import, so I don’t know if that’s the issue, but my card card statement reconciliation is easy and straightforward.
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