I was under the impression that quickbooks automatically synced with your accounts - updated them in real time, reflecting real balances. Was I mistaken?

No. You're correct, david-spaldingla.

QuickBooks will automatically sync all your account's transactions, thus reflecting real balances. However, there are times that they will not auto-sync due to the following reasons:

• A connection issue between your bank and QBO.
• The financial institution’s server is offline.
• Error messages or codes that require you to perform a certain task.

As of now, we can manually update your bank connection and bring-in the transactions. You can do that by going to the Transactions tab and then selecting Banking. Then, click the Update button.

If you have more than 90 days of transactions to download, you can use the WebConnect feature. 

Also, can you tell me the name of your bank? So, I can check if there's an ongoing issue with your financial institution.

Feel free to tag my name if there's anything that I can help. Stay safe!

"I was under the impression that quickbooks automatically synced with your accounts - updated them in real time, reflecting real balances. Was I mistaken?"

@david-spaldingla 

Technically, that's what it does in the QuickBooks bank feed. Once it's bank connected, it should automatically download once a day, normally around 2 AM in the morning. There are always exceptions depending upon the financial institutions, of course. You can click "Update" link from the banking tab anytime you want. 

Your QuickBooks Register will not show real balance until you review and categorize the bank downloaded transactions. You can also create for certain items to auto-add directly to the register without your review.  Hope this helps!