Add Option to Disable Autofill in Quicken for Mac (71 Legacy Votes)

Unknown

Theresa J said:

This is a bad bookkeeping practice, and this feature continually introduces errors, which also affects the budget. It would be better to default to no autofill. When you go to Target, do you always buy the same thing for the same price? So you only buy clothing, or you only buy groceries? The same thing every time? Or, do you buy things that would span several categories, and different categories on each trip? This does it on automatic downloads, as well as manual entries. I've voted. :-)

Had a bill I automatically entered through the Bills section for Netflix for $10.99 dated four days from now. 

Today Quicken Mac downloaded what should have been a transaction from Amazon for $10.99...and proceeded to match it to the Netflix transaction.

Grrrrr...

Unknown

Jwalt313 said:

The lack of an option to turn off auto-categorization is the reason that I am considering leaving Quicken after 20 years myself.

I'm having trouble imaging more than an "on/off" binary with a few lines of code... :-/

Unknown

Jwalt313 said:

The lack of an option to turn off auto-categorization is the reason that I am considering leaving Quicken after 20 years myself.

As someone who builds websites, I'm pretty sure it's not as simple as that, but still, they've been working on this software "from the ground up" for a few years, at least. Surely a developer or two could be tasked with this functionality.

Unknown

Theresa J said:

This is a bad bookkeeping practice, and this feature continually introduces errors, which also affects the budget. It would be better to default to no autofill. When you go to Target, do you always buy the same thing for the same price? So you only buy clothing, or you only buy groceries? The same thing every time? Or, do you buy things that would span several categories, and different categories on each trip? This does it on automatic downloads, as well as manual entries. I've voted. :-)

Happens ALL THE TIME to me! Because even though we don't spend the same money for the same things at Target all the time (so no autocategorization), it's entirely likely that the same amount will crop up for different payees. Netflix isn't the only one we're spending $10.99 on (so no autofill). Autofill/autocategorization is a terrible bookkeeping practice and makes more work for users and introduces more errors. This is not rocket science.

Also, I use the memo field to make notes to myself ***about that particular transaction***, and not all transactions for that payee for all time. But please, autofill that field too, because that makes sense.

smayer97

Jwalt313 said:

The lack of an option to turn off auto-categorization is the reason that I am considering leaving Quicken after 20 years myself.

It is all about prioritizing several hundred feature requests, on top of whatever features or fixes Quicken also has on their plate. 

I highly recommend that you browse through the IDEAS section of this forum and VOTE for the request of each of the missing features to be added back into Quicken for Mac....to help direct the priorities of the developers.

To do that click on this underlined link, following the instructions then VOTE to your heart's content: 
Categorized List of IDEAS of Feature Requests and Enhancements to Vote On

or if you prefer this layout:
EXPANDED List of Categorized IDEAS of Feature Requests and Enhancements to Vote On

Your VOTES matter!

(If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)

Unknown

Jwalt313 said:

The lack of an option to turn off auto-categorization is the reason that I am considering leaving Quicken after 20 years myself.

I voted 2 years ago.

Unknown

Jwalt313 said:

The lack of an option to turn off auto-categorization is the reason that I am considering leaving Quicken after 20 years myself.

Please do keep working on investment and Canadian stuff, instead of basic functionality for all users.

smayer97

Jwalt313 said:

The lack of an option to turn off auto-categorization is the reason that I am considering leaving Quicken after 20 years myself.

To vote for investment and Canadian stuff, find the respective feature and add you vote or create a new idea thread if it does not exist.

Unknown

Jwalt313 said:

The lack of an option to turn off auto-categorization is the reason that I am considering leaving Quicken after 20 years myself.

You missed my point. You’ve been working on investment and Canadian stuff for months, when what we need is this basic functionality.


And as long as you have made it so people’s Quicken data is pretty much trapped in the file types that can be exported and imported nowhere else, they are going to complain in “Can’t Get No Satisfaction” and on Twitter.

Michael Putzel

Theresa J said:

This is a bad bookkeeping practice, and this feature continually introduces errors, which also affects the budget. It would be better to default to no autofill. When you go to Target, do you always buy the same thing for the same price? So you only buy clothing, or you only buy groceries? The same thing every time? Or, do you buy things that would span several categories, and different categories on each trip? This does it on automatic downloads, as well as manual entries. I've voted. :-)

I'm not an accountant and don't need an auditor, but it drives me crazy that Quicken blithely accepts CapOne's interpretation of what category an item is in when I've been using different categories for years. I've seen suggestions here that Quicken will learn my categories in time, but it hasn't yet, and it's been months of totally unnecessary editing of categories for almost every credit card transaction--and that's a lot in my case. It screws up the budgeting and report functions that are central to using Quicken. 

Unknown

Theresa J said:

This is a bad bookkeeping practice, and this feature continually introduces errors, which also affects the budget. It would be better to default to no autofill. When you go to Target, do you always buy the same thing for the same price? So you only buy clothing, or you only buy groceries? The same thing every time? Or, do you buy things that would span several categories, and different categories on each trip? This does it on automatic downloads, as well as manual entries. I've voted. :-)

Oh my gosh! ^^^^This!!!!!

Unknown

Theresa J said:

This is a bad bookkeeping practice, and this feature continually introduces errors, which also affects the budget. It would be better to default to no autofill. When you go to Target, do you always buy the same thing for the same price? So you only buy clothing, or you only buy groceries? The same thing every time? Or, do you buy things that would span several categories, and different categories on each trip? This does it on automatic downloads, as well as manual entries. I've voted. :-)

What it does is use the info from your last transaction - splits and memos and all. I use the memo field to let me know if I had the receipt on the item, with an "R." It's a memo to myself about THAT TRANSACTION, not all subsequent transactions for that payee. And yes, unless you are on your toes, it screws up that transaction. How about NOT FILLING IN THE CATEGORY AND PAYEE? I also have to clean up transfers. I should just make a spreadsheet and forget about Quicken. It's a nightmare.

smayer97

Theresa J said:

This is a bad bookkeeping practice, and this feature continually introduces errors, which also affects the budget. It would be better to default to no autofill. When you go to Target, do you always buy the same thing for the same price? So you only buy clothing, or you only buy groceries? The same thing every time? Or, do you buy things that would span several categories, and different categories on each trip? This does it on automatic downloads, as well as manual entries. I've voted. :-)

All good reasons to also add your VOTE to Restore Transactions Downloading Acceptance and Matching workflow.

First, click on the underlined link above to go there, then click VOTE at the top of THAT page, so your will vote count for THIS feature and increase its visibility to the developers by seeking to have the features you need or desire end up in the latest version.

While you are at it, you may want to add your VOTE to related IDEAS found on the List of Requests for Downloading Data into Quicken. Click on the underlined link, then follow the instructions to add your vote to more related ideas. Your VOTES matter!

(If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)

Unknown

Theresa J said:

This is a bad bookkeeping practice, and this feature continually introduces errors, which also affects the budget. It would be better to default to no autofill. When you go to Target, do you always buy the same thing for the same price? So you only buy clothing, or you only buy groceries? The same thing every time? Or, do you buy things that would span several categories, and different categories on each trip? This does it on automatic downloads, as well as manual entries. I've voted. :-)

It does this regardless of manually entering, or uploading. The manual entry is not that great either.

So how about, instead of having all these votes about downloading things, we could just TURN OFF AUTOFILL AND AUTOCATEGORIZE altogether??? And we have to vote to get something Quicken had before because y'all decided to rebuild it from the ground up and y'all left this feature out?????

Gosh, all other personal finance software sucks now. Quicken used to have it right. Now, not so much. And yeah, I've been using Quicken for decades. This is a cluster.

smayer97

Theresa J said:

This is a bad bookkeeping practice, and this feature continually introduces errors, which also affects the budget. It would be better to default to no autofill. When you go to Target, do you always buy the same thing for the same price? So you only buy clothing, or you only buy groceries? The same thing every time? Or, do you buy things that would span several categories, and different categories on each trip? This does it on automatic downloads, as well as manual entries. I've voted. :-)

I share your frustration, as many do. Until or unless Quicken commits to a way to accelerate development, voting is one key way we have been given to try to influence priorities of the hundreds of features that still need to be re-implemented just to even match what QM2007 used to do. 

At least Quicken has provided that much as many (most) other software companies do not even give you a place to voice your feedback in public.

So keeping adding your vote to ideas. Your VOTES matter!

Unknown

Theresa J said:

This is a bad bookkeeping practice, and this feature continually introduces errors, which also affects the budget. It would be better to default to no autofill. When you go to Target, do you always buy the same thing for the same price? So you only buy clothing, or you only buy groceries? The same thing every time? Or, do you buy things that would span several categories, and different categories on each trip? This does it on automatic downloads, as well as manual entries. I've voted. :-)

I've voted on other products. I've voted on "Get Satisfaction" - a misnomer if I've ever heard one -  for 2 years now (****I can only vote once for an item****). In the meantime, I'm going to have to curse Quicken every time I have to use it, because it makes so. much. extra. work. I don't even care about the budget anymore. I made a budget in a spreadsheet, because autofill/autocategorize as it stands would totally eff up my budget accuracy. And I definitely won't recommend it to anyone else. I'll tell them to run away.

mkachli

smayer97 (QM2007, CDN user since '92) said:

This would really help if it can be set at the Payee level. I'm not looking for a universal option that turns off all autofill.

Be aware that for a single entry you can start typing the payee name and when you have enough of a match, you can press Option-Tab...this will only record the payee and no other details but that one transaction.

Option Tab seems to work only sometimes. Agree with TheresaJ 100%. The way autofill choices worked in Windows was perfect. So disappointed to see how the Mac version does it!

jacobs

mkachli said:

Option Tab seems to work only sometimes.

Hmmm, I use this pretty often, and I've never noticed it not work. Have you noticed anything about the times it hasn't worked for you that might be reproducible? If there's a bug, it would be great to get it reported.

mkachli

If I notice a pattern, I'll report back. It would be a lot more sensible to need a keyboard command to activate autofill rather than deactivate it. I counted my transactions in January and there were 45. Only 6 had the exact same transactions repeated every month.

smayer97

For some it works best one way, for other best the other. That is why an option is the only way to address that.

mkachli

Quicken Win had an option to purposefully memorize, and if you wanted, you could memorize just the Payee and the Category while leaving the amount blank, or the Payee name only. That was perfect. Here's a blow by blow for what you are enabling in Mac. My rent is different every month and I enter the amount in Quicken when I get the bill. I filled in Feb 1. This month was unusual and I got the bill for Mar 1 before I'd paid Feb, so I entered that too. (I definitely use "Edit this transaction" and not the part that is supposed to change All.) Autofill went back to Feb and also changed it to the March amount! That just seems crazy to me that any action would memorize backward in time on the register.

smayer97

mkachli said:

That just seems crazy to me that any action would memorize backward in time on the register.

That is not normal. Sounds like either user error or a bug. Please consider starting a new problem thread if it is a bug.

jacobs

@mkachli, I agree with @smayer97 that I've never heard an instance where editing a transaction affects a previous one -- but I'm wondering if we're correctly understanding what you do. Do you enter it as a new transaction each month? Or you have your rent as a scheduled transaction? If you edit the scheduled transaction, it will indeed change all as-yet-unpaid instances of the transaction. If you want to edit a single instance, you need to mark it paid, then edit the paid transaction. (It sounds as if you may have edited a scheduled transaction, which affects all future instances, including the February one you had not yet marked paid.)

mkachli

Yes, it is entered as Scheduled. What you are telling me it is *supposed* to do makes less than zero sense from a bookkeeping standpoint. I'm pretty sure I'm among the users who will not buy this software again. It's like it was designed by someone who never knows or cares what's going on with their checking account.

jacobs

I don't know if perhaps you're misunderstanding me, because I think it makes good sense. There are two types of transactions: a scheduled transaction is like a "template" for all future instances of this transaction; if you edit the "template", it will apply to all future instances of this transaction. If you want to edit one payment in the sequence, the way to do that is break it off from the "template" by making it "paid". Paid doesn't necessarily mean you have physically paid the bill; it means it is no longer being considered part of the scheduled thread of transactions. You can set the date into the future or past if you wish, and edit the amount, memo, category or anything you would in a regular transaction, so it doesn't mess up your accounting at all. (This is, in fact, similar to commercial accounting software I've worked with.)