I just reconciled the Month of March, 2019. My original suspicion appears to be correct. That is, the cleared column only works when performing the reconciliation process. Here is what I did.
1. Mark all transactions as cleared that match your institution statement.
2. Reconcile the account. Enter the date and the account closing amount.
3. The next screen a reconcile column. Be aware that the balance on the screen may show an out of balance amount. As you mark the transactions as reconciled the out of balance amount will change.
4. Since I wait to reconcile until all transactions for a calendar month have cleared the institution, I marked all transactions as reconciled. Once this was done the out of balance amount was zero.
All done, cleared, reconciled, and in balance.