I am a treasurer of a church, not an accountant, and have just upgraded from Quickbooks Pro 2007 to QB Premiere.  I started using the new system January 1, but apparently I handled uncleared checks incorrectly during the setup.  I had my checking balance from the prior year, but still had 5 checks that had not cleared the bank, so the way I handled this was on 12/31 to enter my opening balance  adjusted up enough to cover those 5 checks, and then re-entered the checks normally so my bank balance would be  correct going into the new year but could still clear them out when I reconcile at the end of the month.  Of course it didn't dawn on me that this would hit the retained earnings (which it did not need to do), but I now understand why it did this.

I am still early enough in the year to start over and would like to know the correct way to set up the system with the correct opening checking balance and still be able to reconcile those 5 checks when I reconcile and it not affect the retained earnings.  Any suggestions?