Quicken for Mac 2016 Release 3.5.1 Discussion
Comments
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Same problem here. Very frustrating. When will you give us an update that fixes this.Michael Seavello said:This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Reconcile problems Mac 3.5.1.
Problems with latest update 3.5.1. I track 8 accounts (1 checking, 2 credit cards, 1 auto loan & 4 savings accounts). All accounts reconciled in June, but I have major problems in July. Two of the accounts with only a few transactions reconciled, but the credit cards & checking accounts were "off" from $18.84 to over $6,000.00.0 -
Same here. Didn't want to let this sit, so I noted the different between Quicken starting balance and bank statement. After reconciling July, that was the difference between Quicken ending balance & statement, so that was the adjustment Quicken made. Just hope next month has no adjustment!!George Shirk said:I downloaded and installed Quicken for Mac v 3.5.1. Then I began to reconcile my checking account, The process using prior versions was quite straight forward. I have being using Quicken/Intuit for nearly twenty years and have had no difficulty reconciling my accounts. I did so on July 1, 2016. Using the current version on August 3, 2016, Quicken shows a discrepancy of $ 2271.95. It also shows the my Quicken balance is nearly $400 higher than the checking account shows it to be.
If nothing else works, I will go into TimeMachine and reinstall the last version, and pray that I will never need to install any newer version. Obviously I need help. I would like to point out that I am very comfortable with mathematics, having earned three degrees in that field.
Two questions. Did any of the software developers actually use the software? Has anyone there heard of the saying "If it ain't busted, don't fix it"?
George B. Shirk
[Edited Personal Info]0 -
I am having the same as other. I have been reconciling for years (20?) and when I got to do it now, my account Start / Prior Balance is off. Not the same as the statements and when I last reconciled (a month ago). What is the fix?0
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I have the latest version and thankfully have had no issues reconciling to the paper statement. Today I reconciled 3 Wells Fargo accounts, and a Capitol one charge card . First try on one of them was wrong but was my fault. Did 't change the end date.CJB said:Same exact situation here. All transactions on my accounts were completely reconciled prior installing 3.51. I've been reconciling using monthly statement, religiously without any issues for years. Now after attempting to reconcile my accounts (3 so far) using 3.5.1, nothing matches. It required an adjustment to bring thing into balance. 'Ending balances' from all previous reconciliations no longer exist. I generally love Quicken and was really looking forwarding to this update, but this has been a real downer.
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You may have been reconciling for 20 or more years but you failed to complete the last two steps of the import process when you imported your previous financial data base into QM2015 or QM2016. The last two steps are to review the imported transactions for correctness and to reconcile each account to verify the Quicken cash balances are correct.J. Atwood said:I am having the same as other. I have been reconciling for years (20?) and when I got to do it now, my account Start / Prior Balance is off. Not the same as the statements and when I last reconciled (a month ago). What is the fix?
Had you performed the last two import steps, the "Starting/Prior Balance" reported on the QM2016 3.5.1 Reconcile page would have matched your expectations. However, the starting or prior balance is, largely, irrelevant when reconciling an account. The act of reconciling an account is to verify that the balance on ending date is correct and, if you have no uncleared transactions, that it matches the ending balance reported by your financial institution.
I continue to use Quicken Premier 2016 as QM2016 still doesn't provide support for all of the investment transactions that I need. I import my Quicken Premier data four or more times a year to keep my investment accounts reasonably accurate in Quicken for Mac.
The one thing that is great about the new QM2016 3.5.1 Reconcile methodology is that it recognizes the fact that the transactions imported from Quicken Premier had been reconciled. Immediately after importing my Quicken Premier, the "Starting/Prior Balance" reported in the QM2016 3.5.1 Reconcile window matches, exactly, the ending balance the last time that I reconciled the account under Quicken Premier.
I wouldn't plan on Quicken restoring the reconciliation methodology of QM2016 3.4.1. It's not in their best interest to do so as the new method is much more accurate. The "fix" if you will is to complete the reconciliation of those old transactions that have never been reconciled.
Once you do that, your next month's "Starting/Prior Balance" will always equal this month's "Ending Balance".0 -
I did go back & found several unreconciled transactions. After doing this, the checking account did not balance, but the reconciled balance was closer to what I thought it should be.J. Atwood said:I am having the same as other. I have been reconciling for years (20?) and when I got to do it now, my account Start / Prior Balance is off. Not the same as the statements and when I last reconciled (a month ago). What is the fix?
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Interesting guidance. I reviewed all my transactions for the establishment of the account (2012) and found no discrepancies. QM2016 3.5.1 starting balance is not consistent with the reconciled balance from the previous month.J. Atwood said:I am having the same as other. I have been reconciling for years (20?) and when I got to do it now, my account Start / Prior Balance is off. Not the same as the statements and when I last reconciled (a month ago). What is the fix?
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I am having the same issue. I have balanced every single month with 0 difference for years, now there is a difference for July. The starting balance that Quicken calculated was off from the statement value. Adjustment line labeled as "5/18/16-8/14/16 reconcile adjustment". So is that supposed to indicate that is where the problem was? Maddening.George Shirk said:I downloaded and installed Quicken for Mac v 3.5.1. Then I began to reconcile my checking account, The process using prior versions was quite straight forward. I have being using Quicken/Intuit for nearly twenty years and have had no difficulty reconciling my accounts. I did so on July 1, 2016. Using the current version on August 3, 2016, Quicken shows a discrepancy of $ 2271.95. It also shows the my Quicken balance is nearly $400 higher than the checking account shows it to be.
If nothing else works, I will go into TimeMachine and reinstall the last version, and pray that I will never need to install any newer version. Obviously I need help. I would like to point out that I am very comfortable with mathematics, having earned three degrees in that field.
Two questions. Did any of the software developers actually use the software? Has anyone there heard of the saying "If it ain't busted, don't fix it"?
George B. Shirk
[Edited Personal Info]0 -
Why would accounts not reconcile properly only after the 3.5.1 update. Everything was fine with both Q2015 and Q2016 for Mac before the latest update. I think there a bug in the update.J. Atwood said:I am having the same as other. I have been reconciling for years (20?) and when I got to do it now, my account Start / Prior Balance is off. Not the same as the statements and when I last reconciled (a month ago). What is the fix?
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I am also seeing this problem and have found that uploads/downloads work correctly if all accounts are updated.Martin said:I too have found vexing problem with updating my accounts and using bill pay in the latest since I installed the latest version of Quicken Mac 2016. The problem is this: If I enter a few payments in Quicken, they will not transmit to my bank (B of A) when I update the account. And, the Quicken account will not update. However, if I enter a single payment in Quicken and transmit that one payment to my bank, that will work. It seems that this is a new glitch introduced in v 3.5.1. Can t his be fixed? Thanks
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@Michael Seavello: Does the QM2016 3.5.1 "Starting/Prior Balance" match the closing balance of your June statement?J. Atwood said:I am having the same as other. I have been reconciling for years (20?) and when I got to do it now, my account Start / Prior Balance is off. Not the same as the statements and when I last reconciled (a month ago). What is the fix?
If the "Starting/Prior Balance" is less than the closing balance of your June statement, you know that there is an error in your data base that occurred before you started using the old reconciliation process.
If the "Starting/Prior Balance" is greater that the closing balance of your June statement, there are two possibilities. The first being that one or more checks that had not cleared your bank when the June statement was generated are now marked as "Reconciled". The second being that there is an error in your data base that occurred before using the old reconciliation process.
As QM2016 hasn't implemented all of the investment transactions that I require, I continue to use Quicken Premier 2016 and, as a result, need to frequently import my Quicken Premier data to correct the cost basis of my investments due to corporate acquisitions and divestitures. The first update of your online accounts can cause duplicate transactions to be created in your transaction register. Occasionally, I get interrupted or am in too much of a hurry and forget to delete the duplicate transactions. This can result in a painful exercise to find the duplicate transactions that you forgot to delete the first time that you reconcile an account.
These are just some thoughts on how to resolve your reconciliation issues.
For me, the new QM2016 3.5.1 reconciliation process is a great improvement. It is the first version of the software that recognizes that the imported transactions had been reconciled previously in Quicken Premier.0 -
@M C Crockett said, "You may have been reconciling for 20 or more years but [...] Had you performed the last two import steps [...]"J. Atwood said:I am having the same as other. I have been reconciling for years (20?) and when I got to do it now, my account Start / Prior Balance is off. Not the same as the statements and when I last reconciled (a month ago). What is the fix?
The risks of being preachy like this are twofold:
#1 You could be wrong. You're making an assumption about the cause of this symptom, and part of that assumption is that Quicken's software is bug free and that your (single use case) beta testing confirmed that.
#2 You could be right, and the people who have literally been using – and paying to support the development of – this software for decades are (or have been) doing something that now breaks Quicken. This sounds a lot like the arguments I hear between engineers and UX folks where the engineers say, "they're not using it the way I wrote it," and the UX folks say, "then that means you wrote it wrong," and drop the mic as they leave the room.
UX matters, and it's clear there are many, many people suffering from this – suffering from a bad user experience. Among those people are folks that, like you, are certain they have been doing everything right for decades. The proof to them – like it is to you – is that the software has worked perfectly as expected.
Now, suddenly, a new reconciliation feature is rolled out and for some reason you, alone, have decided that the users reporting problems are in the wrong. That doesn't make any sense, and I'm not sure why you're on this crusade.
It likely means Quicken didn't beta test with enough (or the right) people, but that's OK. It happens, and they're doing the right things as this settles out. Quicken Jeff (and others) have been asking questions, digging in, and working to figure this out. My assumption – with years of software development and UX under my belt – is that Quicken will be updated to address this issue, regardless of whether it's a coding error or an error with the data files of many, many users.
Even if my assumption is wrong, I would be shocked if Quicken's solution was to turn 180 degrees and join you in your cry of, "welp, you folks did it wrong for decades, so now you're screwed and have to start over." Please, I beg of you to just stop paving that particular path. It's not productive, and your other posts are really helpful, with some great nuggets of wisdom. I appreciate those, and I'm certain other users do, too.
Or, you know, just ignore me, because now I'm being preachy, too.
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@Dave Hamilton, you have made a number of good points! Overall I have found that QM2016 is a tremendous improvement over previous versions. It is highly encouraging that Quicken has already released a number of upgrades to this product and appears committed to continuing to improve the Mac version.J. Atwood said:I am having the same as other. I have been reconciling for years (20?) and when I got to do it now, my account Start / Prior Balance is off. Not the same as the statements and when I last reconciled (a month ago). What is the fix?
I believe that when you have reconcile errors one needs to understand the history of the account. Was the account a carry over from a previous versions of Quicken? Are the accounts new since QM2016 first release? Are they new since another QM2016 release?
Historically I have mostly used QM for keeping track of my bank account and bill pay. So I have years and years of reconciled bank accounts (back to 2002). When QM2016 was introduced the reconciliation carried right over. With 3.5.1 this was also true, no problems.
When I transitioned from QM2007 to QM2016 I wanted to track more than just bank accounts. When I added a credit card QM picked up transactions and balance at a point in time defined by the credit card bank. Only 6 months of transactions from the date I did the import were transferred. As a result, the start point of these ledgers had a high probability that it was between statement dates. Initially with QM2016, I had trouble with reconcilling, Quicken and the bank were close but not exact. With 3.5.1 and the "online balance" method a reconciliation amount was determined which brought Quicken in sync with the bank (which I confirmed via the respective webpage). I have high confidence going forward that the 2 will continue to match.
When I added investment accounts I was also faced with only 6 months of transactions being downloaded. (Note that this is not a Quicken problem but one of the bank only providing 6 months of history not the total history.) The current number of shares was correct and current price correct so I did have an understanding of whether the day or week's gain (or loss) was a short term or long term factor. This took some digging into past transactions and adding these manually. Yes, a bit of work but well worth it to me but we are now aligned.
Yes, you can find issues but overall QM2016 is an excellent financial package! I have looked at other Mac packages and they do not provide the capabilities that are included with QM2016.
OK, I am getting a bit preachy also ...0 -
Lisa, what is your bank's name?rolandwalkenhors said:I installed the Mac 3.5.1 update this morning. Now I can't pay a credit card bill with Direct Connect. This worked fine before: I would select the correct payee and then set the transaction up as a transfer. It would pay the bill via Direct Connect, and enter it in my Quicken registers as a transfer from the Direct Connect checking account to the credit card account. Since the update, Quicken tells me it can't do a transfer because the credit card and checking accounts are not with the same institution (they're not). It does this even if I leave the Transfer field blank in the transaction.
Edit: Of course I am using the Online Payment tab.
Edit2: When I look at previous Direct Connect bill payments from these registers, the Transfer To field contains both the payee name and the transfer account name, one printed over the other (unreadable).
Edit3: What I called the Transfer To field in Edit2 is not labeled as such in those old transactions, as it is when I attempt a new one. Quicken seems to be combining the Payee and Transfer (To/From) fields in those past transactions since the update.
Edit4: Ah! When I looked at the checking account's settings, it said "Bill Pay: Not Available" (Intra-bank Funds Transfer was On). I clicked (I think) "Check for Bill Pay," and the dot next to Bill Pay changed from red to green. Seems to work now. The overprinting of payee and transfer account in older transactions also has gone away. You might want to investigate why the update disabled Direct Connect Bill Pay. Also, the Save button was greyed out when I edited the checking account's settings, so I had no choice other than Cancel, but luckily the change took effect anyway.0 -
For those having problems with reconcile. Please see my longer write-ups on this thread about the new behavior. There is a very good chance that you are experiencing a one-time event--an odd state the first time you reconcile with the new system (since Quicken now considers *all* transactions in your register when determining the starting balance).George Shirk said:I downloaded and installed Quicken for Mac v 3.5.1. Then I began to reconcile my checking account, The process using prior versions was quite straight forward. I have being using Quicken/Intuit for nearly twenty years and have had no difficulty reconciling my accounts. I did so on July 1, 2016. Using the current version on August 3, 2016, Quicken shows a discrepancy of $ 2271.95. It also shows the my Quicken balance is nearly $400 higher than the checking account shows it to be.
If nothing else works, I will go into TimeMachine and reinstall the last version, and pray that I will never need to install any newer version. Obviously I need help. I would like to point out that I am very comfortable with mathematics, having earned three degrees in that field.
Two questions. Did any of the software developers actually use the software? Has anyone there heard of the saying "If it ain't busted, don't fix it"?
George B. Shirk
[Edited Personal Info]
If you're having trouble, try this:- Selecting the "Use Statement Balance" option in Step 1
- Do NOT change the "starting / prior balance" even if it is not what you see on your statement.
- Enter the statement ending date from your most recent bank statement (this is the last date on the statement--after you're unreconciled transactions)
- Enter the statement ending balance from your most recent bank statement (the balance that you expect on your statement ending date)
- Click Next
- On Step 2 click the mark all as "Cleared" button. Then review the list and make sure everything now marked as cleared--checked--is really cleared (e.g. un-check any checks that have not yet cleared, transactions that my have been entered in error, etc.)
Jeff
ps - I'm on vacation this week (Aug 15-19) and so may be slow to reply to the community.0 -
Doug, Thanks for the kind words. Much appreciated!Lizzy Lou said:I absolutely LOVE what you've done with the Budget function. SO much easier and intuitive, it finally makes sense for me to invest the time to do some real budgeting! One issue I've come up with, though, is how to exclude an account from the Actuals. I have an HSA (Health Savings Account) that I wanted to exclude from the Budget Actuals, and I finally figured out that if I go to the account settings and check the box to "hide" it from reports, it removed this account from the Budget Actuals as well as other reports - easy! However, when I try to exclude my Mortgage (Loan) account in this same manner, it does remove the Mortgage account from other reports, but it still shows up in my Budget Actuals. How do I remove my Mortgage account from the Budget Actuals? (It's really annoying, because it shows all my mortgage actuals to be zero (0), because the debit from my checking account is cancelled out by the credit on my mortgage account.) Thanks!
As for the Overview graph issue. Try categorizing your Credit Card payments using the pre-defined category "Transfer" or "Transfer: Credit Card Payment". Transactions in this Transfer category will be excluded from this chart by default (thus preventing the double counting).
Hope this helps and thanks again,
Jeff0 -
Suntrust. I can download information fine, but since the update cannot pay bills.rolandwalkenhors said:I installed the Mac 3.5.1 update this morning. Now I can't pay a credit card bill with Direct Connect. This worked fine before: I would select the correct payee and then set the transaction up as a transfer. It would pay the bill via Direct Connect, and enter it in my Quicken registers as a transfer from the Direct Connect checking account to the credit card account. Since the update, Quicken tells me it can't do a transfer because the credit card and checking accounts are not with the same institution (they're not). It does this even if I leave the Transfer field blank in the transaction.
Edit: Of course I am using the Online Payment tab.
Edit2: When I look at previous Direct Connect bill payments from these registers, the Transfer To field contains both the payee name and the transfer account name, one printed over the other (unreadable).
Edit3: What I called the Transfer To field in Edit2 is not labeled as such in those old transactions, as it is when I attempt a new one. Quicken seems to be combining the Payee and Transfer (To/From) fields in those past transactions since the update.
Edit4: Ah! When I looked at the checking account's settings, it said "Bill Pay: Not Available" (Intra-bank Funds Transfer was On). I clicked (I think) "Check for Bill Pay," and the dot next to Bill Pay changed from red to green. Seems to work now. The overprinting of payee and transfer account in older transactions also has gone away. You might want to investigate why the update disabled Direct Connect Bill Pay. Also, the Save button was greyed out when I edited the checking account's settings, so I had no choice other than Cancel, but luckily the change took effect anyway.0 -
Lisa, we are working on an issue now (reported by "Ron" on this thread) where customers with SunTrust are having Bill Pay problems after 3.5.1.rolandwalkenhors said:I installed the Mac 3.5.1 update this morning. Now I can't pay a credit card bill with Direct Connect. This worked fine before: I would select the correct payee and then set the transaction up as a transfer. It would pay the bill via Direct Connect, and enter it in my Quicken registers as a transfer from the Direct Connect checking account to the credit card account. Since the update, Quicken tells me it can't do a transfer because the credit card and checking accounts are not with the same institution (they're not). It does this even if I leave the Transfer field blank in the transaction.
Edit: Of course I am using the Online Payment tab.
Edit2: When I look at previous Direct Connect bill payments from these registers, the Transfer To field contains both the payee name and the transfer account name, one printed over the other (unreadable).
Edit3: What I called the Transfer To field in Edit2 is not labeled as such in those old transactions, as it is when I attempt a new one. Quicken seems to be combining the Payee and Transfer (To/From) fields in those past transactions since the update.
Edit4: Ah! When I looked at the checking account's settings, it said "Bill Pay: Not Available" (Intra-bank Funds Transfer was On). I clicked (I think) "Check for Bill Pay," and the dot next to Bill Pay changed from red to green. Seems to work now. The overprinting of payee and transfer account in older transactions also has gone away. You might want to investigate why the update disabled Direct Connect Bill Pay. Also, the Save button was greyed out when I edited the checking account's settings, so I had no choice other than Cancel, but luckily the change took effect anyway.
I will keep you updated.0 -
Just to clarify, my bank was Fifth Third. When I reverted to an older version of QM (3.4.1), bill pay is finerolandwalkenhors said:I installed the Mac 3.5.1 update this morning. Now I can't pay a credit card bill with Direct Connect. This worked fine before: I would select the correct payee and then set the transaction up as a transfer. It would pay the bill via Direct Connect, and enter it in my Quicken registers as a transfer from the Direct Connect checking account to the credit card account. Since the update, Quicken tells me it can't do a transfer because the credit card and checking accounts are not with the same institution (they're not). It does this even if I leave the Transfer field blank in the transaction.
Edit: Of course I am using the Online Payment tab.
Edit2: When I look at previous Direct Connect bill payments from these registers, the Transfer To field contains both the payee name and the transfer account name, one printed over the other (unreadable).
Edit3: What I called the Transfer To field in Edit2 is not labeled as such in those old transactions, as it is when I attempt a new one. Quicken seems to be combining the Payee and Transfer (To/From) fields in those past transactions since the update.
Edit4: Ah! When I looked at the checking account's settings, it said "Bill Pay: Not Available" (Intra-bank Funds Transfer was On). I clicked (I think) "Check for Bill Pay," and the dot next to Bill Pay changed from red to green. Seems to work now. The overprinting of payee and transfer account in older transactions also has gone away. You might want to investigate why the update disabled Direct Connect Bill Pay. Also, the Save button was greyed out when I edited the checking account's settings, so I had no choice other than Cancel, but luckily the change took effect anyway.0 -
I understand the workaround, but one essential question. WHY should it be necessary????? Intuit has the habit of making things harder rather than easier. As noted elsewhere, by essentially having folks accept a slug of unreconciled items, we have no control over our budgeting. It is not clear if it includes things from last month or 5 years ago. One is relevant; the other is not. But there is no way to tell. Thank goodness for Time Machine. I am now using a version that works, aka 3.4.1George Shirk said:I downloaded and installed Quicken for Mac v 3.5.1. Then I began to reconcile my checking account, The process using prior versions was quite straight forward. I have being using Quicken/Intuit for nearly twenty years and have had no difficulty reconciling my accounts. I did so on July 1, 2016. Using the current version on August 3, 2016, Quicken shows a discrepancy of $ 2271.95. It also shows the my Quicken balance is nearly $400 higher than the checking account shows it to be.
If nothing else works, I will go into TimeMachine and reinstall the last version, and pray that I will never need to install any newer version. Obviously I need help. I would like to point out that I am very comfortable with mathematics, having earned three degrees in that field.
Two questions. Did any of the software developers actually use the software? Has anyone there heard of the saying "If it ain't busted, don't fix it"?
George B. Shirk
[Edited Personal Info]0 -
Jeff, thanks for the tip. This worked and now my overview does not include credit card payments.Lizzy Lou said:I absolutely LOVE what you've done with the Budget function. SO much easier and intuitive, it finally makes sense for me to invest the time to do some real budgeting! One issue I've come up with, though, is how to exclude an account from the Actuals. I have an HSA (Health Savings Account) that I wanted to exclude from the Budget Actuals, and I finally figured out that if I go to the account settings and check the box to "hide" it from reports, it removed this account from the Budget Actuals as well as other reports - easy! However, when I try to exclude my Mortgage (Loan) account in this same manner, it does remove the Mortgage account from other reports, but it still shows up in my Budget Actuals. How do I remove my Mortgage account from the Budget Actuals? (It's really annoying, because it shows all my mortgage actuals to be zero (0), because the debit from my checking account is cancelled out by the credit on my mortgage account.) Thanks!
Regards, Doug0 -
@Doug Blakely, @Quicken Jeff: I have no issues with how QM2016 records transactions or the new Reconcile process. The latter is more consistent with the way your financial institution prepares the monthly or periodic statements that it sends to you. My primary issues with QM2016 are with the reports that it generates due to flawed selection logic and treatment of retirement accounts.Lizzy Lou said:I absolutely LOVE what you've done with the Budget function. SO much easier and intuitive, it finally makes sense for me to invest the time to do some real budgeting! One issue I've come up with, though, is how to exclude an account from the Actuals. I have an HSA (Health Savings Account) that I wanted to exclude from the Budget Actuals, and I finally figured out that if I go to the account settings and check the box to "hide" it from reports, it removed this account from the Budget Actuals as well as other reports - easy! However, when I try to exclude my Mortgage (Loan) account in this same manner, it does remove the Mortgage account from other reports, but it still shows up in my Budget Actuals. How do I remove my Mortgage account from the Budget Actuals? (It's really annoying, because it shows all my mortgage actuals to be zero (0), because the debit from my checking account is cancelled out by the credit on my mortgage account.) Thanks!
If I click on Overview in the sidebar, QM2016 displays a Spending by Category report. The displayed graph indicates that Tax is my largest spending category. If I click on Tax, I'm taken to the All Accounts Income view that provides a detailed report on the taxes that I've paid.
Looking at the detailed report, I discover that it includes tax payments made to Israel, Sweden, and Switzerland. These are not expenses attributable to me, personally. They are expenses incurred in my retirement accounts. Why is personal finance software reporting these as personal expenses?
The only income and expenses related to a retirement account that QM2016 should be reporting are contributions to and distributions from the retirement account. If you look at the All Accounts Spending and Income views, you will find that QM2016 does recognize your contributions as spending and your distributions as income but reports both as being $0.00. This is because QM2016 doesn't exclude retirement accounts and sees an equal amounts withdrawn from a taxable account and deposited into a retirement account and vice versa.
If you look at the Category Summary report, you see the same error being made. Distributions from a retirement account are not reported in the "Money In" section of the report and Contributions to a retirement account are not reported in the "Money Out" section of the report. You will most likely find them in the "Transfers Between Accounts" section.
The Category Summary report can be customized. It occurs to you that you can get your retirement account contributions and distributions to be included in the right sections of the report by excluding your retirement accounts from the report. Oops! that doesn't work as any transaction that involves multiple accounts is not included in the report if one of the accounts has been excluded from the report. This is not what one would logically expect to occur.
You find this same logic problem in the Budget report/tool. Retirement account contributions and distributions are not included in Expenses and Income in the preliminary budget that is generated. If you are contributing 10% of your salary to your employer's 401(k) Plan, it would be reasonable to expect that expense to be included and not report that you have an additional 10% of income that you can spend. And, if you are in your dotage as I am, excluding 55% of my annual income from the budget because its a distribution from a retirement account makes the Budget report/tool completely useless.
What's really strange about Budget report/tool is that it includes some, not all, income from my retirement accounts. As it is in a retirement account, I can't use it to pay any of my expenses without taking a distribution from the retirement account that won't be reported as income.
The basic solution to the problem would be for Quicken to exclude retirement accounts from all reports. In the All Accounts Spending and Income views, you will discover that your retirement account contribution and distributions will be correctly reported by excluding your retirement accounts. The transaction selection logic used in All Accounts appears to be the basis for all other reports generated by QM2016.0 -
@M C Crocket, I can understand your concerns with reporting retirement accounts as they are not part of your income or expense until you actually take a draw. I am also recently retired so Quicken is an important tool for me to manage my overall budget.Lizzy Lou said:I absolutely LOVE what you've done with the Budget function. SO much easier and intuitive, it finally makes sense for me to invest the time to do some real budgeting! One issue I've come up with, though, is how to exclude an account from the Actuals. I have an HSA (Health Savings Account) that I wanted to exclude from the Budget Actuals, and I finally figured out that if I go to the account settings and check the box to "hide" it from reports, it removed this account from the Budget Actuals as well as other reports - easy! However, when I try to exclude my Mortgage (Loan) account in this same manner, it does remove the Mortgage account from other reports, but it still shows up in my Budget Actuals. How do I remove my Mortgage account from the Budget Actuals? (It's really annoying, because it shows all my mortgage actuals to be zero (0), because the debit from my checking account is cancelled out by the credit on my mortgage account.) Thanks!
I have observed a similar "problem" with the Overview function in that there I have a large portion reported in the "Financial" category. For me this is reporting any reinvestments made in my accounts as well as other fees. That is, anything in the "Financial" category as I have set it up.
My initial approach was to just mentally subtract the Financial number and only look at spending in the other categories. However, in the process I found an interesting difference between the way that the Budget and Overview functions report. The Overview function by default shows spending to date while the Budget function shows spending for the month (including scheduled transactions). If you filter the Overview for This Month and subtract the amount reported for Financial I find that they do match. This was confirmation that I am indeed tracking the same categories in both "Overview" and "Budget".
I have not figured out a way to easily turn off the "Financial" part of the pie for the "Overview" report. @Quicken Jeff, any thoughts?
I will admit that getting the categories and expense/income right can be challenging. For example, I track my checking account and auto loan. The monthly payment is shown as an EXPENSE from the checking account. It has to be shown as a “Transfer In” category or INCOME for the auto loan and be entered in the Decrease column as a positive value. Then the 2 account can link. Otherwise they are out of sync. (I should also note that the auto loan is a manual account as this bank is not supported as a online account by Quicken.)
I also struggle with a loan account within my investments. This is a cash account but because it is in the Investment category really none of the transactions types work and the only choice is “Payment/Deposit” with some amount positive (repayment) and some negative (interest). It works but not fully clean.
So, I have made things work for me. It has taken some work but your are correct that out of the box QM2016 doesn’t really do a great job with investments.
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One additional comment / cautionary note that I have noticed with Budgets.Lizzy Lou said:I absolutely LOVE what you've done with the Budget function. SO much easier and intuitive, it finally makes sense for me to invest the time to do some real budgeting! One issue I've come up with, though, is how to exclude an account from the Actuals. I have an HSA (Health Savings Account) that I wanted to exclude from the Budget Actuals, and I finally figured out that if I go to the account settings and check the box to "hide" it from reports, it removed this account from the Budget Actuals as well as other reports - easy! However, when I try to exclude my Mortgage (Loan) account in this same manner, it does remove the Mortgage account from other reports, but it still shows up in my Budget Actuals. How do I remove my Mortgage account from the Budget Actuals? (It's really annoying, because it shows all my mortgage actuals to be zero (0), because the debit from my checking account is cancelled out by the credit on my mortgage account.) Thanks!
If you have a Category with sub-Categories you need to made sure that you categorize you expenses as one of the sub-Categories not at the Category level otherwise it will not roll up correctly when you view your Budget report.
For example if you have a Category of "Utilities" with sub-Categories of Electric, Gas, Cable, Phone and you record $10 to each sub-Category (Utilites:Electric for example) the Budget report will show the total Utilities expense as being $40. If, however, you were to record 1 of the entries at just the Utilities level, the Budget report will show $30 and you are off by $10.
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I am having problems downloading transactions from Huntington Bank. Keep getting download error code 180. How do I resolve this. Worked first few days after update.0
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Now that we have "proper" reconciliation options, how can I hide reconciled transactions from the account register?0
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This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Overlay problems with 3.5.1 Bill Reminders.
On editing a bill reminder with (quicken Mac 2016 3.5.1) long pay names I get text overlays for the payee as well as the category fields...
Any one else have this issue?0 -
No preaching here. Just frustration that there is no bright line answer to the problem of how to bring "problem child" accounts into balance with the new reconciliation method. (And as with earlier versions, I'm glad I haven't yet upgraded. Holding at Version 3.4.1 until clarity and support are upgraded as well.)J. Atwood said:I am having the same as other. I have been reconciling for years (20?) and when I got to do it now, my account Start / Prior Balance is off. Not the same as the statements and when I last reconciled (a month ago). What is the fix?
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No preaching here. Just frustration that there is no bright line answer to the problem of how to bring "problem child" accounts into balance with the new reconciliation method. (And as with earlier versions, I'm glad I haven't yet upgraded. Holding at Version 3.4.1 until clarity and support are upgraded as well.)J. Atwood said:I am having the same as other. I have been reconciling for years (20?) and when I got to do it now, my account Start / Prior Balance is off. Not the same as the statements and when I last reconciled (a month ago). What is the fix?
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This is my experience with the latest update to 3.5.1 when I went to reconcile my latest bank statement ( I balanced my register so this is just a comment for the team):alfried3 said:So sorry I updated Mac 2016. Can't download transactions and can't change connections. Everything was fine, prior to updating to 3.5.1
1.I clicked on "Reconcile" and entered the revised screen.
2.I clicked on "Use Statement Balance"
3.The first field auto displayed the "Starting/Prior Balance" dollar amount which was correct.
So far so good!
4.Next you're suppose to enter the "Statement Ending Date" but it has today's date auto filled in for some reason, so I had to clear it out in order to enter the correct ending date from my statement as you should (and when you do a hover over, it displays instructions to enter the statement ending date too not todays date).
5. I clicked on "Next" which took me into the actual reconciliation screen.
6. The Starting/Prior Balance in the last screen is now called "Quicken Balance" in this screen which are not the same thing. Quicken balance is the current "todays" balance in your register and not applicable to the reconciliation period BUT the dollar amounts both prior and ending where correct.
7. This is the strange part that is concerning. THE DATE I ENTERED AS THE CURRENT "STATEMENT ENDING DATE" BEING RECONCILED IN THE PRIOR SCREEN AUTO FILLED AND DUPLICATED THE SAME DATE IN THE NEXT SCREEN IN BOTH THE "STATEMENT BALANCE" AND THE "QUICKEN BALANCE" AS OF MONTH/DAY/YEAR . BOTH MY PRIOR BALANCE (QUICKEN BALANCE) AND CURRENT STATEMENT BALANCE HAVE THE SAME DATE......THIS IS NOT CORRECT.
MY PRIOR BALANCE "AS OF DATE" SHOULD BE THE DATE I ENTERED AS THE ENDING DATE OF THE PRIOR RECONCILIATION. JUST NOT SURE WHAT ISSUES THIS DATE DISCREPANCY WILL CREATE IN THE FUTURE AND THE DATA HISTORY.
I saw someone post Quicken changed something about "ending balances" no longer exist but they do as it did come up as the prior balance correctly in my recon so it does exist. This is a must in order to reconcile properly. Online may be different, but I choose not to use the online features. But I don't understand the comment that Quicken now looks at "all" transactions because the reconciliation screen only looks at transactions from the last reconciled item to the ending date specified. I understand if something happened to any data that was already reconciled it would affect the accuracy or change the Statement/Prior Balance figure which some people are experiencing and not sure if that is just online or not but I did not have that problem.0
