We started using QB in 2004.  We do not use QB for invoicing and the way we were entering our daily sales work at the time prohibited us from using the reconcile feature in QB.  The bank account was reconciled monthly outside of QB.  Times have changed and we now want to use that feature starting with the December 2019 statement.  Late yesterday,  I copied the company file as not to disturb the original file to "test" reconcile.   I followed the instructions in the article "Fix beginning balance issues in Quickbooks Desktop"  I made a journal entry dated December 1, 2019 in the amount of the ending balance on the November statement as a debit to the bank and credit to Opening Balance Equity.  Then I did a mini reconciliation dated December 1, 2019 and "cleared" the journal entry, the amount shown for the difference was zero and I  "reconciled" in QB.  Then I proceeded to actually reconcile December.  The correct beginning balance was there and I entered the ending balance.  I hid the transactions after the statement date. Selected "mark all" this was taking quite a bit of time because of the volume of data in the file so I left it for the night,  This morning every transaction was checked and and then unchecked all of the uncleared checks, debits, deposits and credits.  I anticipated that there would be a "difference" that I would adjust with a journal entry.  To my shock the difference is HUGE almost equivalent to the actual bank balance!  Have I followed the process correctly???