I've been away from my club for about 2 years and come back
to a etrade account that is about 1300.00 more than the
bivio account. I've spent hours cleaning thing up and for
the life of me I cannot reconcile the difference. What must
I do to get things back in order? short of starting over :-(
:-(. I have taken the past treasure to task but that did not
solve the problem. Thanks in advance for any help you can
provide.

My advice is to go back to a point (two years ago, if necessary) where you
can reconcile the bivio records with the brokerage statement. Then work
forward one monthly statement at a time, reconciling each statement with the
bivio records as you go.

If you were off by only a few dollars, you might consider simply making a
current adjustment. But when you're off by well over a thousand dollars I
think you need to track down the source of the problem. Hopefully most of
the discrepancy is the result of a single mistake. Once you know the
cause(s) you can consider options for fixing it.

-Jim Thomas

> I've been away from my club for about 2 years and come back
> to a etrade account that is about 1300.00 more than the
> bivio account.

In a similar situation, I exported data from both sources to
Excel, one in each column, then sorted each by date, then
looked for the transactions which were in only one column.
I'd start by first sorting by type of transaction if
possible, since perhaps one type (e.g., transfers from bank
to broker or vice versa, or sales or buys) is at fault, and
much fewer in number than dividends.
iras1 wrote:
> The easiest (but not easy) thing to do is go back to a time when everything was in order. Then take each month's statement from Etrade and compare it to your bivio account. Note the discrepancies and then decide how to adjust your records so they're in balance. Part of the decision making process will involve deciding how to handle any errors which would cause your club to have to file an amended return.
>  
> Ira Smilovitz
>  
>  
>  
> In a message dated 12/29/08 20:33:29 Eastern Standard Time, williamsbj@bivio.com writes:
>
> I've been away from my club for about 2 years and come back
> to a etrade account that is about 1300.00 more than the
> bivio account. I've spent hours cleaning thing up and for
> the life of me I cannot reconcile the difference. What must
> I do to get things back in order? short of starting over :-(
> :-(. I have taken the past treasure to task but that did not
> solve the problem. Thanks in advance for any help you can
> provide.
>
>  
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Jim,

Thanks for the suggestion and it seems I have my work cut
out for me but it needs to be done. I think I will do the
spread sheet dump as suggested by Thomas. I am hoping the
problem is in this year as to avoid any tax issues with 2007
as mentioned by Ira

Jim, uou mentioned making a current adjust if the problem
were a minor mistake. Can you share more on "current
adjustments" and where I might read up making current
adjustments.

I am now down to a $500.00 difference as most of them have
been where etraded posted a deposit and an the treasure also
posted on in bivio for the same deposit. In some cases the
person deleted the etrade posting without adding a posting
which would cause more money in etrade than bivio.

THanks again for the help and direction.

Byron

Jim Thomas wrote:
> My advice is to go back to a point (two years ago, if necessary) where you
> can reconcile the bivio records with the brokerage statement. Then work
> forward one monthly statement at a time, reconciling each statement with the
> bivio records as you go.
>
> If you were off by only a few dollars, you might consider simply making a
> current adjustment. But when you're off by well over a thousand dollars I
> think you need to track down the source of the problem. Hopefully most of
> the discrepancy is the result of a single mistake. Once you know the
> cause(s) you can consider options for fixing it.
>
> -Jim Thomas
>

> Jim, uou mentioned making a current adjust if the problem
> were a minor mistake. Can you share more on "current
> adjustments" and where I might read up making current
> adjustments.

One way to make an *small* adjustment to bring an account into balance is to
record a non-deductible expense for the necessary amount (either positive or
nagative). Generally you'd use this to adjust for an error of a few
dollars.

-Jim Thomas