Account monthly Statements should be downloadable from financial institutions (9 Legacy Votes)

Unknown

It would be very helpful if the Monthly Statements could be download from the Financial institution when available with out having to go to the Institution itself, Sign in and download the Statement so that you can reconcile your account. 

Unknown

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled PDF Statements.


Quicken 2018 has the ability to pull PDF statements directly from your bank websites into Quicken.  But like sMayer97 mentioned above, we currently support only about 50 websites for pulling in the PDF. We are working on making it available for more billers. I'll see if we can publish the list of billers for whom PDF is currently supported.

Note: This conversation was created from a reply on: PDF Statements.

mshiggins

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled PDF Statements.


Quicken 2018 has the ability to pull PDF statements directly from your bank websites into Quicken.  But like sMayer97 mentioned above, we currently support only about 50 websites for pulling in the PDF. We are working on making it available for more billers. I'll see if we can publish the list of billers for whom PDF is currently supported.

Note: This conversation was created from a reply on: PDF Statements.

Sangeetha, can the statements be automatically downloaded if they are not a biller? For example, can Quicken download monthly statements from brokerages like Fidelity or Ameritrade?

Unknown

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled PDF Statements.


Quicken 2018 has the ability to pull PDF statements directly from your bank websites into Quicken.  But like sMayer97 mentioned above, we currently support only about 50 websites for pulling in the PDF. We are working on making it available for more billers. I'll see if we can publish the list of billers for whom PDF is currently supported.

Note: This conversation was created from a reply on: PDF Statements.

No. It works only for billers.

Unknown

When Quicken 2018 "downloads" the pdf file, where does it go? Not seeing it on my PC.

Snowman

This should follow the KISS principle.  Keep It Simple Stupid.  Just go to the FI and download and create your own local copy of all statements.  This way Quicken will not make those statements a part of your Quicken data file and thus ballooning the size of the file and making one have to open Quicken just to see a statement.  By keeping all statements separate from Quicken you accomplish several things.  One you do NOT have to have Quicken to open your statements.  You do NOT have to rely on Quicken working properly to access your statement and finally if/when Quicken does something to break the ability to download statements you are not up a creek without a paddle while you wait for them to fix it.  Finally Quicken can decide WITHOUT NOTICE TO YOU to discontinue the feature and thus causing you to possibly lose the statements that you already have attached in Quicken.

I played with the biller feature and it is very cumbersome to use and still does not work properly.

Unknown

Simple is good when you don't have many statements. If there are a lot, then doing it manually becomes very time consuming and having automation is helpful. I would have thought this would have been implemented to save statements to a directory structure., much like I have been doing manually. They still could have milked out selected data for those who care.

Unknown

This should follow the KISS principle.  Keep It Simple Stupid.  Just go to the FI and download and create your own local copy of all statements.  This way Quicken will not make those statements a part of your Quicken data file and thus ballooning the size of the file and making one have to open Quicken just to see a statement.  By keeping all statements separate from Quicken you accomplish several things.  One you do NOT have to have Quicken to open your statements.  You do NOT have to rely on Quicken working properly to access your statement and finally if/when Quicken does something to break the ability to download statements you are not up a creek without a paddle while you wait for them to fix it.  Finally Quicken can decide WITHOUT NOTICE TO YOU to discontinue the feature and thus causing you to possibly lose the statements that you already have attached in Quicken.

I played with the biller feature and it is very cumbersome to use and still does not work properly.

Snowman...I heartily agree.

I don't download ANY biller statements in Quicken, nor do I attach any bills in Quicken.

I use an outside software to save my statements and bills after I scan them to my desktop.  

However, this can just as easily be accomplished by using either Windows or Mac file hierarchy and tags for the files.

As much as I use Quicken, I wouldn't trust the data file to maintain my billing statements and bank statements for reference.

I too keep it simple in Quicken.  

Snowman

All it takes is some planning.  I have shortcuts set to help automate the process  to all who provide pdf statements.  In my case that is in excess of 40 statements per month.  That was my old method.  Now I have a program that keeps all of my password / sign in IDs in an encrypted program.  For each statement I point to the record in the password program, it goes to the website, I enter my ID an password, I get the statement save it to my local NAS drive, reconcile in Quicken, Done.  It takes less than a minute per statement.  Not time consuming at all.  When weighed against all of the ways that Quicken would (and currently is) botching the process I like this way better.

Unknown

ok, sounds good. where can I buy a copy of that software to auto download my statements, by just putting in a userID and http address.

griebt42

I realize that this is a big ask but it would be a great feature if quicken could download bank statements and other documents for each account.

First you  would have to get a protocol agree upon by all the various institutions. All documents generated by the bank/whatever would be required to have a unique name.

The user would create a download directory for each account (with the ability to share the same directory for multiple accounts at the same bank). Then, sort of like the "one step update" process, the user would click on a button that would go make sure that all the statements, tax documents or other documents related to that account were downloaded to the specified directory.

There should be an option to allow this check to happen every time the "one step update" is used or seperately.

This would be a GREAT feature and save a lot of work, especially with all the banks trying to push people to electronic statements.

NotACPA

You can already download, outside of Quicken, any PDF reports that the FI generates .... and attach them to your account in Q.

What won't happen, however, is extracting the data from those reports and using it to populate transactions in your Q accounts.

And, why should a new format be created ... when PDF is so widely/internationally used?

Sherlock

If you haven't already, you may want to consider using: https://filethis.com/consumer/

griebt42

NotACPA: I think you missed my point.

Let's say you have, say 10 bank accounts at three different banks, another 6 accounts at 3 different investment firms, and 2 accounts at two different credit card companies. If downloading a statement takes 5 mouse clicks plus login times and sometimes file name typing times, you can easily spend 1/2 hour just downloading statements.

If you have to do that once a month then it can be a lot of time. If you try to "batch" them and do it once every 3 months or so then if you are like me, you forget, and then run the risk that the statements "fall off the end" at the F.I. you are using and you can never get them. 

I don't care about auto importing any data into quicken. I just want to have a permanent record of all these statements. For now, I use paper statements but with more and more pressure to use electronic statements that is getting harder to do.

I think that Quicken could provide a real value here to its customers by auto-downloading these statements. The statements themselves can be in PDF form (in fact that's preferred), but there still would need to be an agree upon protocol that quicken could use to request the statements and insure that within a given FI that they have a unique name (as opposed to "statement.pdf" which is used by some F.I.'s now).

griebt42

Sherlock: Thanks for the pointer. I go check it out.

I'm doubtful though that any product can currently do what I'm asking for unless there is already some protocol agree upon that I'm not aware of.

The key to making this all work is to have an agreed upon interface that client side apps can use, in a secure way, to grab statements and other electronic documents from a financial institution in such a way that they can be stored on the client in some well-known (pdf) format.

In any case, I'll check out the product that you mentioned. Thanks.

EdgyCricket

Filethis works almost exactly as you described. I use it for several accounts. It syncs to dropbox (as well as others) which then syncs to your computer.

The downside is it means trusting another entity with your logon credentials. Quicken already has them and I would prefer to keep it all within Quicken.

Quicken does have a statement download feature but all it does is give you a link to click on, it doesn't download the statement itself. 

Quicken_Tyka

Hello All 

 This Idea seems to have fallen stagnant and due to the Age of the request and lack of User Votes/Comments, will be archived within the next 7 business days.

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solostorm

I download and store the statements for recurring items such as bank account statements, credit card statements, utility bill statements, investment account statements, etc.  I have a file tree on my hard drive where I store all of these for my records.  Doing this work takes considerable time.

Quicken could live up to its name by automatically downloading and storing these .pdf files for us.  

I would not want to store these documents within the Quicken file, but rather have Quicken download them and store them in a file outside of Quicken itself - so I can then migrate the .pdf's to the proper location in the file tree.

johnkalabich

I would love if this could be done.

mikeschinkel

One of the biggest things that I have to do manually that Quicken cannot do for me is to download PDFs of statements from my online accounts.

Of course there is no way Quicken could do this now because there is no protocol for banks to offer up their statement PDFs for download, HOWEVER Quicken has the influence to get banks to add that as a feature, and THEN you could do it.

This would ensure that even over time or after I close an account I would still have access to all the statements even though they removed from from their website or don't allow me to login anymore.

This would be a KILLER FEATURE for me.

splasher

You over estimate Quicken's influence over the financial institutions (FI).

The FIs have no real interest in supporting Quicken, they would rather that their customers be completely dependent on their proprietary systems (website and app) and have no reason to make historical financial information easily transportable which would make it easy for their customers to change FIs.

What you need to do is to convince your FI that they should email the PDF (not a link to their website) to you since they no longer want to send you a paper copy via the USPS.

rskurato

Since you already are connecting directly to banks, credit cards and investments, it would be very convenient if Quicken could be used to download PDF statements every month (or quarter) and put them in a sub folder of quicken. From time to time I need to go to each institution and each account and download all the statements for my files, if this were incorporated into Quicken Classic (See, even using the new name) that would make life incredibly simpler.

Now for bonus points, would be nice to download common utilities, electric and gas bills, etc. You don't currently do this so I know its a stretch. I could see the bank/credit statement functionality being sold separately as a stand alone app, but I would hope it would make it into our subscription product.

splasher

You obviously haven't searched this forum much. Quicken and Intuit (the aggregator service they use) have enough trouble just getting the transactions reliably downloaded and you think that adding the statement PDFs would be possible? It would also require every financial institution (FI) to modify their systems (if they wanted to cooperate) to make it possible and their goal is to make you dependent on their proprietary systems to keep you from easily moving your accounts to another FI.

You dream big, besides, regardless what Quicken suggests, keeping your PDF files in Quicken is a HUGE waste of space. Every backup you make has all of them in it, that chews up a lot of disk space and time to copy. The attachments are also only viewable via Quicken and one at a time, not very handy. There is no way to pull them out and make use of them except via Quicken. I suggest that you keep your attachments in a folder structure separate from Quicken, it keeps your Quicken data file smaller and more manageable.

Well, that is my two cents on it.

mshiggins

I agree with Splasher's comments ... but - food for thought - I suggest looking at the problem from a slightly different perspective.

I have 64793 transactions dating back to 1979.
I have 79 transaction attachments. And a mere handful of account attachments.
ALL those attachments are also standalone Windows files - nI would never consider making Quicken the sole repository of my important non-Quicken financial data.  And, as implied above, I don't need most such information to be stored in Quicken at all.

Still, it would be very useful to be able to download financial institution statements (for example) without having to manually logon to each financial institution web site to initiate the download.

The financial institutions seem determined not to offer that service, claiming security concerns. While I think their security concerns are overnstated, I see no evidence that the financial institutions will relent.

But since there is already, what seems to be considered, a fairly secure mechanism for downloading data from financial institutions to Quicken; it seems to me that mechanism could also be used for downloading PDF (or other) files of financial institution statements (or other financial information, such as receipts). 

And I mean downloading financial information NOT required to be linked in any way to Quicken's Bill Manager - which I understand to be the only way such files can now be downloaded by Quicken.

The download need not be limited to storing the downloaded file(s) in Quicken either; Quicken could offer the option to save the downloaded file(s) to any non-Quicken file folder(s) of the user's choice - if Quicken did not offer that option, I think it would not be a good idea.

This may not be a natural Quicken feature; but, at the moment, Quicken seems to be the best vehicle for the purpose.

-JP

Chris_QPW

Quicken already does this, of course in a cruddy, incomplete way.

If you setup an Online Bill, and if the biller service provides it, Quicken will download and display the statement (PDF) with the bill.

"Cruddy" because it isn't probably the way one might want to setup or where they might want the PDF statement to be displayed and Quicken Inc has never stated where the statement is stored. Some indications are that it isn't in the data file, but instead either in the Quicken Cloud or the third-party server that does this.

In complete because of course there isn't any kind of industry standard for this, and as such it is very hit and miss.

https://help.quicken.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=3216360&_ics=1695894420949&irclickid=~oyQ~fnGVK~f.ba90VMJCApkg9~010USIAunmkfea3