Connect to Amazon account to download orders assign categories to individual items, match up/split

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  • Laird B
    Laird B Member ✭✭
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    > @Keystone435 said:
    > Laird B using your csv --> qif method, how do you match with credit card entries? All of the Amazon transactions would be in a "AmazonDetail" cash account and separate from the credit card account associated with the Amazon account. What am I missing?

    This:

    > @Laird B said:
    > - Optionally, when you pay Amazon, record it as a transfer into the AmazonDetail account, and then reconcile payments against line-items.

    Previously, you might have recorded your payment "Amzn Mktp US*2A2Z999M0" in the account "Chase 4545" as "groceries", because you thought that's what it was. Instead, record it as a transfer to the account AmazonDetail.

    Now, you'll have a transaction in that account for "Davidson's Tea Tulsi Pure Leaves, 100-Count Tea Bags" that you'll categorize as "groceries", and a transfer in transaction that can be balanced with it.

    Another example: If you order tea, socks, and a hard drive, and pay all at once, now in the detail account you'll have:

    tea / 12.95 / groceries
    socks / 24.95 / clothing
    hdd / 109.95 / household
    payment / -147.85 / [Xfer from Chase 4545]

    ...which can be reconciled against each other.
  • Quicken Jasmine
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    Hello All,

    The status of this Idea has been changed to Under Consideration as it has reached enough votes and has been submitted to our Product and Development team for further review.

    Thank you!

    -Quicken Jasmine

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  • rismanma
    rismanma Member ✭✭✭
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    It sounds like a nice idea, but if it's for business accounts, then shouldn't this be a feature specific to Quicken Home & Business?

  • Laird B
    Laird B Member ✭✭
    edited February 15
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    Not so. I regularly make and import QIF files to create transactions, and Quicken has, IIRC, never placed any artificial hurdles on this. (Unlike their… extension… of OFX to create a separate revenue stream.)

  • Laird B
    Laird B Member ✭✭
    edited February 15
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    No specific connection to business use, other than some posters mentioned they were buying things for their business [from their personal Amazon accounts], and this would help them correctly account for that.

    From the illustration I gave above, let's suppose you had purchased the tea, the socks, and the hard drive in one transaction, but the hard drive was a reimbursable work expense.

    The imported AmazonDetail account receives three lines:

    tea / 12.95 /
    socks / 24.95 /
    hdd / 109.95 /

    …you fill in

    tea / 12.95 / groceries
    socks / 24.95 / clothing
    hdd / 109.95 / [Work Reimbursable]

    …which correctly categorizes your groceries and clothing expense, and creates a balance in your [Work Reimbursable] account indicating that work owes you 109.95.

    The Amazon charge comes through on your cc as a single transaction.
    Amazon X00230479 / 147.85 /

    In the cc account, you mark that as
    Amazon X00230479 / 147.85 / [AmazonDetail]

    …and now the AmazonDetail account now has
    tea / 12.95 / groceries
    socks / 24.95 / clothing
    hdd / 109.95 / [Work Reimbursable]
    Amazon X00230479 / 147.85 / [cc account]
    …which can be reconciled. Success, reconciled account, accurate categories. 🎉

    The Work Reimbursable account contains
    hdd / -109.95 / [AmazonDetail].

    When you get a direct deposit in your bank account based on your expense report, that account shows
    ExpenseCenter / 109.95 /

    …which you mark as
    ExpenseCenter / 109.95 / [Work Reimbursable]

    …and then the Work Reimbursable account also reconciles. Success, reconciled account, accurate categories. 🎉

    (I got distracted into laying this out in excruciating detail — but it really works quite smoothly and quickly if Quicken were just to import Amazon line item detail.)

  • Chris_QPW
    Chris_QPW Member ✭✭✭✭
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    @NotACPA was referring to the "official connection methods". QIF must be a sore spot in Quicken Inc's backside. I'm sure they would have removed it long ago if it wasn't for the fact that it has been there for so long, but you are mistaken even with QIF that Quicken Inc hasn't been putting in artificial hurdles. Note that in the case of official connection methods like Express Web Connect and Express Web Connect +, Web Connect, and Direct Connect, it isn't " artificial to require the financial institution to agree/sign a contract. Any business that tries to log into a financial institution (for any reason) without permission is going to get shutdown pretty quickly once they find out about it. That is call illegal hacking.

    The history of QIF is that in Quicken 2004 they tried to close it down, they wanted everyone to use QFX instead. They changed the GUI so that you couldn't import into any account types other than asset and liability. The only reason that downloading into the other account types continued is because someone found that if the account name and type were in the QIF file it would still import into the right account.

    Fast forward to Quicken Subscription. The removed that GUI block, but then turned around and stopped most of the post download processing, like matching to existing transactions and automatic categorization based on the payee/memorized payee list.

    And if we look over in the Quicken Mac world, they stopped allowing QIF imports for anything other than creating a new data file. They only put that in so that people could change over from competing products.

    So, clearly Quicken Inc isn't giving QIF a "free rain" unobstructed, but even more important, it isn't one of the "officially supported download methods" that @NotACPA was referring to.

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  • Laird B
    Laird B Member ✭✭
    edited February 15
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    @Chris_QPW Right you are — I had forgotten that whole 2004 fiasco. Sigh.

    (I agree that's likely what @notacpa meant — but they were quite emphatic with their "ANY import".

    )

  • Chris_QPW
    Chris_QPW Member ✭✭✭✭
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    Oh, BTW something that was found that is very strange. For Quicken Subscription and QIF imports these don't get processed.

    • Renaming rules (renaming rules have never been processed for QIF imports).
    • Matching existing transactions.
    • Automatic categorization using the matching of the downloaded payee to a payee entry in the memorized payee list.

    BUT for whatever reason automatic transfer detection is still processed!

    Note that just because of the syntax of QIF and the syntax of QFX there are different approaches to this.

    QIF allows for the category (including transfer syntax) and tags to be included in the transaction and imported. QFX/OFX has no syntax for categories/tags or transfers.

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