Add ability to link accounts to brokerage accounts to Quicken for Mac (104 Legacy Votes)

jacobs

@noel67 At the top of this page, under the first post in the thread, there's a blue box for voting. Click the little gray triangle under the vote counter to register your vote. 

timhinz

Hello.

timhinz

My question: I am on a Quicken MAC subscription. I am using a Fidelity Investments Cash Management Account for Checking. Quicken will not let me setup the account as a Checking - only as an 'other' investment account.

I see this for Windows:
https://www.quicken.com/support/how-do-i-add-linked-checking-account-existing-investment-account

I do not see it for Mac.

Is there a way to do this? If not, I'd like quicken to add this feature for a Mac - it has been years.

Thanks for any help/advice.

Tom Hughes

Quicken for Windows allows for a brokerage account to have a cash account that appears as a separate account. They are linked so that income to the brokerage account is auto-transferred to the cash account, and purchases in the brokerage account automatically deduct from cash; but the two accounts appear separately on the sidebar.

This is useful for a number of reasons. First, it makes it easy to see your total cash position -- which is whatever is in your checking and savings accounts plus cash in your brokerage account. Secondly, it makes it easy to reconcile the cash account because it works just like another checking account.

Without the automatic transfer, every activity in the brokerage account requires two entries: the event itself (a buy or a sell) and a transfer to cash.

[Merged Post]

pigossi

What about doing this on Quicken for Mac? Cannot find the "Show Cash in a checking account" option.

bobluck

Again Quicken Mac left out of the party. Why can't we get the feature to link a checking account on Quicken Mac? Without it scheduling transactions is pretty much useless. Quicken Instructions make it seem simple, but only to find out I must be running Windows to manage my money like an adult.

Quicken_Tyka

Hello @bobluck

Thank you for taking the time to visit the Community to post your question. I have moved your post to the ongoing feature request to track/add a linked checking account.

This feature is planned, however, I do not have an ETA on when this will be available. As your comment has been moved to this post, you will be notified of any updates or changes as soon as they become available.

Thank you,
-Quicken Tyka

bobluck

I can't find where the track/add a linked checking account feature is indicated a planned. Where can we track the status of this planned feature? Do you have a link or post that we can bookmark to see progress?

jacobs

@bobluck. The information that this is planned is at the top of this thread, in the same yellow box where users vote for ideas. Because this thread has many comments, you need to click on the “1” icon below to jump to the top; then scroll down enough that you can see the yellow box under the first post.

The “when” part of the question can’t be answered, unfortunately. The developers never say when a particular feature will be added. Priorities sometimes change, and timeframes shift as other work hits snags or unanticipated delays, so we never know where a particular idea fits in their plans.

Jim Markisohn

Is it too much to ask for an update on the implementation of this feature? it has been requested for several years, and accepted by the Quicken team for implementation, yet no update since last August. While Quicken may be pleased with its current market dominance, the lack of timely interaction - even if the answer is "no" - does nothing to keep people like me from looking for other options. Rest assured, when there is one, you will find loyalty to the Quicken brand to be less than you think.

jacobs

@Jim Markisohn  Quicken almost never announces when specific features will be coming for release. There are many variables in their development timelines, and they apparently feel it would be worse to give a timeframe and miss it due to unexpected delays than to not give a timeframe at all. My understanding is that when an idea is actually marked as "Planned", it has been assigned a slot on the development roadmap. That slot might be a month or a year in the future, and is often dependent on one or several particular developers for implementation, so if they get delayed finishing something else or get pulled onto what they believe is a more urgent priority, the schedule can and does get juggled.

There are, by my rough approximation, close to 600 Idea threads on this forum. Of those, about 50 have advanced to the "Under Consideration" stage, and about 15 have been marked by the developers as "Planned." Quicken users among ourselves reasonably disagree about which issues should be at the top of the list, so the developers sift through them and decide based on things they think are most worthwhile, would impact the largest number of users, would make the biggest positive impact, how much time they estimate it will take to implement, how many and which programmers are needed to work on implementation, whiter there needs to be any coordination with the Quicken Windows and/or Quicken Cloud development teams, whether there are multiple enhancement ideas in a related area of the program they want to group together for efficiency in revising the code, and more. 

Of the 15 Idea threads for Quicken Mac marked as Planned, and some go back much farther than this one — but for the reasons above, that gives us no insight into when a particular feature will be released. And some which never get marked as "Planned" get implemented as they're working on other changes in the program. 

All of that is a long-winded way of saying your request for an update on the status of this feature request is not likely to be answered. The developers and management don't typically read these threads on the forum (except perhaps on working on implementation of an idea request, to make sure they understand what user expectations are), and for the reasons above, they don't provide progress reports or timeframe estimates. 

Jim Markisohn

Jacobs – Thank you for the response. I do indeed appreciate the difficulties of prioritizing – to say nothing of implementing – feature enhancements to SW products. In my my 45+ years in hi-tech, I have seen my share of product development miscues, vaporware andsuccesses. My issue (despite my personal preference for the brokerage account linking feature to be at the top of this list), is not the prioritization, but rather the lack of any update since it was elevated to “Planned” status nearly 10 months ago.

Unlike some items on user “wish lists”, this feature does not represent new functionality for Quicken, merely for the Mac version. The lack of the feature which is the subject of this thread has been a particular pain for any user (with a brokerage account) - especially for those migrating from a Windows version. Like many, I have used the product through several DOS, then Windows versions, before finally jumping over to Apple computers for home use beginning in 2006. Converting to the Mac version has made things difficult for those of us who have used Quicken Windows and have brokerage accounts. We have all lived through the very slow maturation of the Mac version and its many inadequacies, as I am sure you are aware. However, this never stopped Intuit (and now Quicken) from selling the product at the same price as the more full-featured Windows product (while failing to disclose this difference in any product information or marketing material I have seen).

In the end, though the “solution” involves programming, my original post was not about technology, but a comment on customer communication and brand loyalty. In my view, Quicken is failing in this regard by not being more transparent about the development of a key feature already offered in a comparable product, while continuing to sell it at full price. So, while Quicken may be a fine product and even the best in its class, in terms of the experience of at least one long-term customer, they are doing nothing to engender loyalty.

jacobs

@Jim Markisohn Yes, I agree that it would be better for consumers if Quicken has a better way of communicating what it's top priorities/works in progress/6 or 12 month roadmap was. I was just explaining why they don't, and probably won't, do that. There are too many variables in the development process, too many things which get pushed back because of unexpected complexity, and unexpected issue which puts programmers off their planned tasks to deal with, bugs which turn out to need significant additional work to fix, etc. I've seen features in a beta test be removed from a released version because they needed more work and wanted to push out other features/fixes which were complete. And I've seen instances where the product manager has indicated that a particular feature took much longer to complete than they had anticipated.

If they were to pre-announce what's coming and when in any way, they'd get complaints/raise anger/lose loyalty on two fronts: (1) for features on such a list which don't end up shipping when they said they would, customers would howl their dissatisfaction; (2) for features not on such a list, customers would scream about other features which are not on the list. As much as I'd like to see them communicate more about what's coming, I understand why they don't.

As for the differences in features between Quicken Windows and Quicken Mac, there are dozens and dozens -- some which are different, some which are incomplete, and some which are missing entirely in Quicken Mac. Over time, they are working to narrow that feature gap, but as we've seen, progress is slow. As you note, they never offered Quicken Mac for less money, and now they have blurred the lines because you purchase a subscription level and get to choose the platform (or even both platforms), making it impossible to offer price differentiation were they inclined to (which they clearly are not). But it would take lots of bullet points and fine prints to disclose the differences, and such a list would likely also cause as much confusion as it would aim to alleviate.

Not that I am urging sympathy for Quicken management (haha!), but I do understand that they're in a bit of a no-win situation. I've seen many tech companies and programmers over many years feel the best thing they can do is keep their heads down and power ahead as quickly as they can, without taking time away from development to engage in much discussion between developers and customers. I feel we are fortunate to have Marcus as the Mac product manager, because we get at least some explanations about what they're doing and why from time to time. Not as much as we'd like, but more than nothing. 

Jim Markisohn

@jacobs - Agreed.

bobluck

Waiting patiently, subscription about to end, will not renew without this ability.

jimvanzino

Still waiting for this essential feature as well............

jacobs

For what it's worth, this feature request is marked as "Planned" by the developers. This means it's either being worked on or is on their schedule to be worked on. Only about 2-3% of the Idea requests on this site are marked as "Planned", so that's the good news. The bad news is that no one knows when it will be complete; it could be a month from now or a year from now or longer. (Even though it's frustrating to us users, Quicken never says when features are scheduled to be released, because the development schedule morphs continually as certain features consume more time than expected and as new priorities pop up.)

hbwilliams22

Woah, this still is not available for Mac users? What am I to do with a brokerage account that has activity in it?

jacobs

@hbwilliams22 Your banking transactions will appear in the brokerage account, adding to or subtracting from the cash balance in the account, just as you'd want them to. the only problem you may run into is if your brokerage account has a cash balance in addition to the linked checking account; in Quicken, these amounts will be merged together as cash in the account.  

JB20

I have Quicken for Mac Deluxe and have a checking account that is part of my investment portfolio. Previous versions of Quicken allowed me to treat this type of account as a proper checking account. Somewhere down the line however this functionality was removed and when I tried to add a new checking account that is part of my investment portfolio Quicken forces it to be grouped under investments. I can still use it as a checking account but it is cumbersome and it's not grouped in the right location. I wish they can provide a mechanism to change the account grouping.

dougcurrie

This happens for my Fidelity Cash Management Account (CMA). There is a discussion about that at https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20137248#Comment_20137248
I concur that there should be a way to configure Quicken Mac to treat the CMA as a checking (Banking/Cash) account.

jacobs

I see a moderator has moved your new Idea request into this existing thread requesting similar capabilities. Happily, if you go to Page 1 of this thread, you can see it is marked as "Planned" by the developers. That means they agree this is needed, and have allocated time on their development roadmap to implement it. Unfortunately, we have no idea of knowing when they plan to release this feature; it could be next month or next year.

Meanwhile… although you can't move the checking account under the Cash heading in the left sidebar, under the Investing heading in your brokerage account, you can use the cash in the account exactly like a checking account. For each transaction, set Type=Payment/Deposit; this opens up the same columns as you have in a checking account (e.g. Category, Tags, Transfer, Check #, Memo), including the ability to have splits. And you can reconcile the account just as you would a regular checking account. Is there something you're finding you're unable to accomplish, other than the cosmetic desire to see it under the Cash heading in the sidebar? 

mverdiell

Same issue. I have been wanting to transfer to Mac since eons and cannot do it because this linked cash account feature is missing (and that is a problem with both Fidelity and UBS). Any word if they are considering fixing this for real?

jacobs

Any word if they are considering fixing this for real?

No one here (including the Quicken moderators) knows any more than the fact that this feature request is marked as "Planned" at the top of the first page of this thread. So yes, they are planning to address this. When? No one outside the development team knows, and they never say when.

bobluck

I'm planning on being cremated as well, but would like to do some stuff before then.

jacobs

@bobluck For what it's worth, when they mark an Idea thread as "Planned", it means more than just, "We agree this is a great idea that we should do some day." When they mark it "Planned", it means they have analyzed what work it is expected to take to bring to fruition, which members of the development team are needed (e.g. database programmers, user interface designers, user experience programmers, connectivity specialists, etc.), and assigned to work to a specific time period on their development schedule. Of course, along the way, s--t happens — the project turns out to have more complexity than originally estimated, other development work gets moved higher on the priority list, members of the development team leave or switch roles — which is why they don't pre-announce when they expect to release anything.

bobluck

@jacobs all good points that I'm aware of, just venting my frustration and pure disgust with the idea of Software as a service. I don't mind paying for a quality product that works as needed, and upgrading when new must have features are added. A model that has a proven track record and has driven innovation in the past.

The leasing software model is so flawed and only benefits the developer, the customer is left paying for subpar software that does not seem to improve in meaningful ways over time.

Chris_QPW

I think the Quicken Mac people should read through this thread and think about if they really should have this feature added based on the complications it can cause. Or even more to the point would this feature in combination with the feature request to "review downloaded transactions before they go into the register".

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7898292/new-brokerage-account-linked-checking-download-transactions-auto-entry-issues

I know it has been said before that "Well Quicken Mac developers will just not make the same mistakes that the Quicken Windows developers made" in response to my mentioning the problems Quicken Windows has with some of the requested features. But I will remind you that one of the reasons the Quicken Mac developers gave for rewriting Quicken Mac was because the register code had gotten too complicated and buggy. That is the way the world works. The more complicated it gets the more likely things aren't going to work to plan.

I believe the Quicken Mac developers are still pushing back on having a second "review downloaded transactions" system, and hopefully they will "win" that one, because sooner or later problems like this will happen to Quicken Mac too.