Splasm Software Discussions

Please Please Add an Option to warn on or auto lock reconciled Transactions. It is TOO Easy when whipping around in Checkbook Pro to Un Check a past reconciled transaction throwing of ones balance. I am forced to whip through the whole register looking for older then today transactions that have been unchecked. It makes me crazy virtually every time I do my books. Even just a warning an option to warn on any un-checking a resolved transaction even if it not part of a reconciled set would be fine.

This one deficit in my opinion mars what is the best Checkbook app bar none.

One tip to help in this situation would be to turn the visibility of the resolved column off for the entry tab. This will prevent from an accidental checking of a box while in the entry tab. When you switch to the reconcile tab, you can use the column there to do your normal reconcile tasks.

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Randy Knoble
Splasm Software
www.Splasm.com

I agree. When you hide the Resolved column, you just can't work with CB at all. And I'd still like to see the option of locking entire smart checkbooks in the Accounts drawer. My own CB goes back to 2005, and I KNOW how hard it is to find something unchecked by accident.

Randy thank you. Hiding reconcile in Entry would help some but does nothing for making the same mistake in the reconcile window. CB really needs warn on uncheck or lock reconciled transaction option.

In my case the accident happens just as frequently in the reconcile mode.

It is on our list for requested features for consideration when we build a feature list for the next version. We do appreciate the detailed feedback.

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Randy Knoble
Splasm Software
www.Splasm.com

I would like to put in my two cents about the warn or autolock Resolved/reconciled Transactions. If and when Splasm puts the warning, etc in a new version, upon unchecking accidentally or otherwise a message should come up saying "It appears that you want to unresolve this item...yes? no?"

I want to tell you why I feel that the wording of this message is critical. In some apps like Quicken, the program has "modules" or statements which are dated when actual reconciliations were done to the bank and then stored as successfully completed reconciliations. CheckBook Pro has no such stored records. I can think of times when I might feel the need to uncheck the resolved checkmark on purpose to solve a confusion in my mind. For instance, not to get too complicated but this did happen to me: Every month my gym automatically drafts my account at the bank for $16,96. Usually, I enter a future amount of the $16.06 in the CheckBook and leave it unresolved so I am sure there is enough money so I don't forget that the autodraft is going to occur and then my account would bounce. Now last month, suddenly, the gym drafted my account for $33.92. I did not catch on immediately until I used Quick Filter and all my brainpower to figure out that November's autodraft had not occurred and that the gym was getting last month's payment as well all in this lump sum. In the mean time, I started experimenting with checking and unchecking past $16.96's in a binge of illogic and even thought that the gym had increased their fee as of December. The point is that I didn't know and CheckBook couldn't know that certain $16.96 amounts were part of previously successfully reconciled statement periods because CheckBook has no mechanism for having stored successes of reconcile sessions with the bank. CheckBook doesn't know whether when you checked an entry, you succeeded or not or if you were just goofing around like me. Therefore, a statement upon accidentally unchecking a resolved transaction should not say "you are about to uncheck a resolved transaction!" because this may not be true. All CheckBook should say is that "This entry appears to be resolved. Do you want to unresolve it? Yes-No?" or You are about to unresolve an entry. Do you really want to do this?"

Another time, I accidentally unchecked a lot of money for an entry. Luckily, it wasn't 2 items or 3 that I unchecked! When I looked through the register and even when I used Quick Finder to filter and search on a certain set of deposits (since the some that the balanced was off in reconcile seemed familiar to me), I still couldn't find any unchecked amount. Soon I discovered that actually I had unchecked an item just before specifying a date range in Quick Finder and forgot to put the Quick Finder back to All Dates. When I did put the Quick Finder back to All Dates, there suddenly appeared the unchecked deposit that threw things off which lay outside the specified date range of the filter.

However, once I thought that I had unchecked an amount of deposit, but no unchecked items could be found. What had happened is that by default when one changes an entry, the amount field of a transaction is automatically highlighted and while changing the Type, I accidentally hit zero and replaced a the sum of money for that entry from what it was to zero. The reconciled balance of course went crazy and I thought it was due to checkmarks. Perplexity set in because the balance when not in reconcile mode was also crazy. I used Quick Finder and saw a deposit for zero which could be so, did some arithmetic and guesstimated to amount I goofed on. If this didn't work I would have had to resort to going to my backups and restoring before the goof off event. To solve this problem I went into preferences and to ENTRY and made the Date instead of the amount be highlighted by default upon changing an entry.

Sorry to be so longwinded in these examples, but I am not an accountant as you can see. There should be a carefully, logically worded statement telling you that you are about to uncheck an entry but maybe there should be an ever present statement next to the QuickFinder window saying "Filter on" or "Unfiltered" so that you don't trick yourself into a problem while massaging the data in your checkbook. Also, maybe the factory default for highlighted field during a change should not be the amount of the entry because you can go into edit an entry to do some pretty clever stuff and accidentally throw the amount off by accidentally hitting the delete key thinking you are deleting a Description or something and lose your amount. The balance will be crazy when you finish the editing or change. Apparently I have covered three separate suggestions in this one post in response to the checkmark issue.

As a Money user, I'm used to cleared vs. reconciled. Cleared was much easier to toggle, while reconciled required confirmation. I would really like to see the confirmation added as well since that was a valuable feature to me.
Someone else mentioned the default setting for amount, but I believe this can be changed in checkbook>preferences>entry, possibly to date?

Un-Resolve Warning or Lock with pass, either would would go a long way toward getting rid of accidental un-resolving throwing of ones balance.

Note to the long poster. Best I can tell from your post. It would not matter why you were making the change. Checkbook is very flexible. Whether you have a valid reason or not it is merely an alert that your action was done purposely not a stray click. Resolving or Un-Resolving itself if it were correct thing to do far a particular entry will not mess up your checkbook whether it was from a 6 months ago or 6 days ago and already been reconciled. As long as all the items are correctly resolved/happened your good.

I agree that accidently leaving on filtering for a Resolved or Date range can lead to mistakes, though less then not using the feature. There are settings for clearing a filter automatically under certain conditions.

To me the warning or lock is the single most important missing feature.

I don't know if the programming for a nag on the resolved column in Entry is too difficult to tackle in the near future, but what I do is to have the Reconcile area only show unresolved items. When I reconcile, I make damn sure that the reconciled balance is zero before I leave. If I ever accidentally uncheck an item which has been resolved in the past, when I go into reconcile, the balance will not be zero! This is a great heads up that something is wrong. Usually, you accidentally uncheck one item, the balance in reconcile specifies that amount instead of zero and of course the item is right there in the list of unresolved items. The date will be odd if you accidentally uncheck an item a year ago and you can quickly look at a present statement or last one to see if that item really did come in. If you accidentally check an unresolved item, it is a little more sticky, but the balance not being zero is the tip off and its not the end of the world. The sooner the nag is put in the better, but Splasm, I understand needs to move on right now to the iPhone version as a priority.

What you say about the resolved being zero only works if you are not in the middle of reconciling. Only showing unresolved or filtering by a date range are band aids. They help. But if you check something on purpose and then your trying to go through your transactions again to find a discrepancy you will not find the item because it of course has been reconciled, and then you might enter it again as others have mentioned. Filtering by + -7 days of months transactions is also helpful. Then you only recreate the work if you were off by more then that with entry. Say a check that someone took a look time to cash etc.

The value of the Iphone version really is in the eye of the beholder. I had mobile Palm Quicken and really found little value added and stopped using it. If someone did a lit of mobile check writing, debit card using etc. etc. Maybe someone who does a lot of business trips I could see it being valuable. For me not so much.