savings goal contribution won't clear

Unknown

I am trying to get a savings goal contribution to clear with the downloaded banking transaction. I tried to do the manual match box but the downloaded transaction doesn't come up in the list of available matches. I am using Quicken Deluxe 2018.

Ron E

I have the same problem with Quicken 2017

mshiggins

From C. D. Bales:

"I am trying to get a savings goal contribution to clear with the downloaded banking transaction".

That sentence indicates that you don't understand what Quicken "savings goal" transactions are - or should I say, what they are not.

Savings Goal transactions are not real-world transactions, they do not (cannot) occur in any real-world account. So they can never have a Cleared Status of "c": a Cleared Status of "c" means that the Quicken transaction has "cleared" the real-world account - which can never happen to a savings goal transaction.

Quicken Savings Goal transactions are artificial transactions that exist nowhere but in Quicken; and whose only purpose is to help you save towards a specific goal by making it appear as if the balance of the contributing account is less than it really is, and by providing an Asset account to show you how much you have "saved" toward your goal (or seen another way, how much you have not spent which is now available for the purpose of the Goal).

If you are actually transferring money from one real-world account to another real-world account for the purpose of saving money for a specific "goal", those transactions are not (cannot be) Quicken "savings goal" transactions.

Unknown

C.D., 

Thanks for the response. I think there may be a disconnect between what you mean by "clear" and what Quicken defines as "clear". I understand that contributions towards savings goals will never get pushed to my bank account or actually transfer money to a savings account. However, Quicken does allow you to "match" a contribution transaction to a downloaded transaction from your bank where you actually transferred that money from one account to another.

For example, I created a contribution transaction (fake transaction) of $284.11 from my checking account in Quicken (so my checking account appears to have $284.11 less than reality). Then at the end of the month I had that money left over physically in my bank account, so I physically transferred $284.11 from my checking to savings account at my bank. This will then show up in my downloaded transactions in Quicken, and now my checking account has been docked a total of $568.22 in Quicken. Therefore, Quicken allows you to "match" the fake contribution transaction to the real transaction where you transferred the money, which would bring the total transferred amount in Quicken back to $284.11. Until you match the "contribution towards goal" with a real transaction, it shows up as "Uncleared" in Quicken. 



I am having the same problem as the original post from Kelly, where when I click "Match to a downloaded transaction," no downloaded transactions appear to select. The box is empty. 

Does anyone have tips or tricks to make the matching transaction appear in the box?

Thanks,
Anna

mshiggins

C.D., 

Thanks for the response. I think there may be a disconnect between what you mean by "clear" and what Quicken defines as "clear". I understand that contributions towards savings goals will never get pushed to my bank account or actually transfer money to a savings account. However, Quicken does allow you to "match" a contribution transaction to a downloaded transaction from your bank where you actually transferred that money from one account to another.

For example, I created a contribution transaction (fake transaction) of $284.11 from my checking account in Quicken (so my checking account appears to have $284.11 less than reality). Then at the end of the month I had that money left over physically in my bank account, so I physically transferred $284.11 from my checking to savings account at my bank. This will then show up in my downloaded transactions in Quicken, and now my checking account has been docked a total of $568.22 in Quicken. Therefore, Quicken allows you to "match" the fake contribution transaction to the real transaction where you transferred the money, which would bring the total transferred amount in Quicken back to $284.11. Until you match the "contribution towards goal" with a real transaction, it shows up as "Uncleared" in Quicken. 



I am having the same problem as the original post from Kelly, where when I click "Match to a downloaded transaction," no downloaded transactions appear to select. The box is empty. 

Does anyone have tips or tricks to make the matching transaction appear in the box?

Thanks,
Anna

From C. D. Bales:

"I think there may be a disconnect between what you mean by 'clear' and what Quicken defines as 'clear'".

I don't think so; I think there is just one definition.

When I first read your comments, I thought you were not talking about "Savings Goals" (the subject of this discussion) at all.

But when I looked at your snip, I noticed that your "fake" transaction has a payee name of "Contribution towards goal" - and that is the payee name that Quicken gives to Savings Goal contributions. So it appears that what you refer to as a "fake" transaction, is in fact, a Savings Goal contribution.

Therefore, I refer you back to my previous post: you cannot match a downloaded transaction to a Savings Goal transaction (contribution or withdrawal), because Savings Goal transactions do not represent real-world transactions, while downloaded transactions do.

To handle your situation, you need to "Withdraw" the $284.11 from the Savings Goal account, back into the account from which the contribution was made. Go to Planning > Savings Goals, locate the specific Savings Goal involved, click its "Withdraw" button and complete the withdrawal.

Then you can process the downloaded transfer transaction just as you would have done had you never made a Savings Goal contribution.

Unknown

C.D., 

Thanks for the response. I think there may be a disconnect between what you mean by "clear" and what Quicken defines as "clear". I understand that contributions towards savings goals will never get pushed to my bank account or actually transfer money to a savings account. However, Quicken does allow you to "match" a contribution transaction to a downloaded transaction from your bank where you actually transferred that money from one account to another.

For example, I created a contribution transaction (fake transaction) of $284.11 from my checking account in Quicken (so my checking account appears to have $284.11 less than reality). Then at the end of the month I had that money left over physically in my bank account, so I physically transferred $284.11 from my checking to savings account at my bank. This will then show up in my downloaded transactions in Quicken, and now my checking account has been docked a total of $568.22 in Quicken. Therefore, Quicken allows you to "match" the fake contribution transaction to the real transaction where you transferred the money, which would bring the total transferred amount in Quicken back to $284.11. Until you match the "contribution towards goal" with a real transaction, it shows up as "Uncleared" in Quicken. 



I am having the same problem as the original post from Kelly, where when I click "Match to a downloaded transaction," no downloaded transactions appear to select. The box is empty. 

Does anyone have tips or tricks to make the matching transaction appear in the box?

Thanks,
Anna

C.D.,

To be honest, I am completely confused on how to use the Savings Goal feature of Quicken. Could you maybe just start at the beginning from how to create Savings Goal and take me through contributing to that goal both in Quicken and in my bank account? 

Thanks,
Anna

mshiggins

C.D., 

Thanks for the response. I think there may be a disconnect between what you mean by "clear" and what Quicken defines as "clear". I understand that contributions towards savings goals will never get pushed to my bank account or actually transfer money to a savings account. However, Quicken does allow you to "match" a contribution transaction to a downloaded transaction from your bank where you actually transferred that money from one account to another.

For example, I created a contribution transaction (fake transaction) of $284.11 from my checking account in Quicken (so my checking account appears to have $284.11 less than reality). Then at the end of the month I had that money left over physically in my bank account, so I physically transferred $284.11 from my checking to savings account at my bank. This will then show up in my downloaded transactions in Quicken, and now my checking account has been docked a total of $568.22 in Quicken. Therefore, Quicken allows you to "match" the fake contribution transaction to the real transaction where you transferred the money, which would bring the total transferred amount in Quicken back to $284.11. Until you match the "contribution towards goal" with a real transaction, it shows up as "Uncleared" in Quicken. 



I am having the same problem as the original post from Kelly, where when I click "Match to a downloaded transaction," no downloaded transactions appear to select. The box is empty. 

Does anyone have tips or tricks to make the matching transaction appear in the box?

Thanks,
Anna

From C. D. Bales:

"Could you maybe just start at the beginning from how to create Savings Goal ....".


From Quicken Help:
______________________________________________

Once you know how much you need to save, you can track your savings progress in a virtual account called a savings goal account. A savings goal account is a way of hiding money from yourself so you don't inadvertently spend it on something else.

----------------------------------------------------------

There is more in Quicken Help about Savings Goals, you might want to read all of it. I'm not sure I can clear up your confusion, but ....


Say you want to "save" money to buy a present for your child on their next birthday, which is a year away. Say you have a problem resisting spending money when you see it is available in your checking account. You estimate that if you set aside $10 a month for the next 12 months, you will have what you need for the gift.

So you create a Quicken "Savings Goal" account (call it "Birthday Gift", for example) for $120. A Quicken Savings Goal account is a Quicken "Asset" account" that has no real-world counterpart.

Each month for the next 12 months you make a $10 "contribution" - which is a "transfer" - from your Quicken checking account to the Quicken "Birthday Gift" Savings Goal account. [You can create a Reminder for the Savings Goal contribution transaction, if it would help. You can also make "contributions" at any time for any amount, if you wish.]

No money is leaving your real-world account, and your Quicken "Birthday Gift" account has no real-world counterpart. Your Savings Goal contribution is just allowing you to "hide" the money from yourself, to reduce your temptation to spend it on something else, while giving you visibility into your progress on "saving" the funds needed for your goal.

At some point, when you have "saved" (failed to spend) the $120, you might buy the $120 gift. That transaction will reduce both your Quicken checking account balance and your real-world checking account balance by $120. [Note that you could have used the $120 to buy multiple gifts, creating multiple real-world transactions. Or you could have decided not to buy any gift at all, creating no real-world transactions. Or you could have elected not to use a Savings Goal for the gift, and created whatever real-world transactions you wanted. Neither the Savings Goal, nor any of its transactions, have a direct link to anything that happens in the real-world: everything having to do with a Savings Goal exists solely in Quicken.

At around the same time you make the actual purchase, you "withdraw" (transfer) the $120 from your "Birthday Gift" account back into your checking account (the timing of the Savings Goal "withdrawal" is up to you: your real-world account is unaffected by what you do with your Savings Goal). When you "withdraw" the funds, your Quicken Savings Goal account balance will decrease by $120. Your "Quicken" checking account balance will increase by $120 (but your real-world checking account balance will not change) - and your Quicken checking account balance will be in sync with your real-world checking account balance.

[Since Savings Goal transactions have no real-world counterpart; so they cannot be matched to downloaded transactions, and they cannot be "Cleared" or "Reconciled" in Quicken. When you reconcile a Quicken account that contains Savings Goal transactions (contributions or withdrawals), those Savings Goal transactions will not appear in the reconcile dialog.]

Unknown

C.D., 

Thanks for the response. I think there may be a disconnect between what you mean by "clear" and what Quicken defines as "clear". I understand that contributions towards savings goals will never get pushed to my bank account or actually transfer money to a savings account. However, Quicken does allow you to "match" a contribution transaction to a downloaded transaction from your bank where you actually transferred that money from one account to another.

For example, I created a contribution transaction (fake transaction) of $284.11 from my checking account in Quicken (so my checking account appears to have $284.11 less than reality). Then at the end of the month I had that money left over physically in my bank account, so I physically transferred $284.11 from my checking to savings account at my bank. This will then show up in my downloaded transactions in Quicken, and now my checking account has been docked a total of $568.22 in Quicken. Therefore, Quicken allows you to "match" the fake contribution transaction to the real transaction where you transferred the money, which would bring the total transferred amount in Quicken back to $284.11. Until you match the "contribution towards goal" with a real transaction, it shows up as "Uncleared" in Quicken. 



I am having the same problem as the original post from Kelly, where when I click "Match to a downloaded transaction," no downloaded transactions appear to select. The box is empty. 

Does anyone have tips or tricks to make the matching transaction appear in the box?

Thanks,
Anna

Just to add a couple of additional items to that excellent explanation.  When you reconcile your account against either a statement or an online balance, Savings Goal transactions are hidden even though they will still show as "uncleared" in your register.
When you complete a goal, rather than removing money from the goal account, you can just delete the goal which gives you the option to completely remove all related transactions from your register--no more uncleared transactions.