Quicken for Mac 2018 v5.5.x Released

RickO

Concordman said:

Backup file with 5.5.0 is much quicker; Just one question ,I note the size of the backed up datafile is  2X the size of the previous file backed up with 5.4.4. very strange to observe. Did I somehow duplicate the file in the datafile? 

Yes, QM18 has never made a backup if the file didn't change.

Yes, they are no longer compressing the backup (although, technically speaking, it is still in a .zip wrapper). 

Marcus, I'd like to suggest you make compression a user option. The options would be two checkboxes. One "backup compressed" with a note: slower but smaller backup files. The other "backup uncompressed" with a note: faster but larger backup files.

smayer97

James IsTheName said:

Please PLEASE add the following feature:  Transaction Splits by PERCENTAGE
It would be SO helpful to be able to assign a memorized percentage split for transactions.  Here is an example of what and why...

I have a home business and would like to allocate expenses to multiple categories.  

Internet/Phone Bill:  50% Personal & 50% Business
City Power/Sewer:  70% Personal & 30% Business
Rent/Mortgage:  70% Personal & 30% Business
Auto Expenses:  50% Personal & 50% Business
Groceries:  90% Personal & 10% Business
Apple Music:  75% Personal & 25% Business
Etc, etc, etc...

To have to manually enter currency amounts seems undue, especially since so many other aspects of a transaction can be memorized.  

Thoughts?  Ideas?  Do you think this is possible and could be implemented in a future (or current!) release?

Thanks so much for your time,

Chris

Glad it worked out for you...but I do not just have reservations, I have obstacles that prevent me from migrating...lack of key report types and features, inability to use sub-classes, nor to batch edit the many tags on split transactions,...and the carry forward of over 80 saved reports... just for starters 

smayer97

jsurpless said:

Any update to reports that would allow for column reports (by class, etc) as in Q2007?

They have mentioned that a new reporting engine has been created that is suppose to facilitate the creation of the types of reports that QM2007 can produce...they also are striving to implement what is needed for QM2007 users to migrate before Apple completely drops support for technology used by QM2007, e.g. 32-bit software, which includes QuickDraw, one of the key techs used. 

So they are under the gun...we just have to wait and see. Meanwhile, You can add your VOTE for the Columnar report. You may also want to add your vote to each of the components that make up the essential related report features described here.

First, click on each underlined link above to go there, then click VOTE at the top of THAT page, so your will vote count for THAT feature and increase its visibility to the developers. Your VOTE matters!

For background, you may want to read this post too. BTW, the columnar-type report is the basis for MANY other reports, as described in detail in this post a little lower; only the selection and formatting criteria are different.

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

smayer97

Concordman said:

Backup file with 5.5.0 is much quicker; Just one question ,I note the size of the backed up datafile is  2X the size of the previous file backed up with 5.4.4. very strange to observe. Did I somehow duplicate the file in the datafile? 

Yes...with QM2017 v4.5, a feature was introduced that only triggers a backup IF there is a change in the data file.

And yes...compression should at least be an option...

but glad it is still in a zip wrapper, otherwise, this would defeat the benefit of being able to store the backup files in a DropBox like folder synced to the cloud, which prevents permission issues from arising.

John Morrow

The following keyboard shortcuts would be handy in my opinion:

• Spacebar : in Reconcile window, toggle Clr status and move to next transaction. This speeds up reconciliation considerably and avoids using the mouse. Other financial software do this already.

• ⌘⌫ : delete transaction (same effect as ⌫, but used in other macOS software and so engrained in finger memory). Has the added benefit of preventing inadvertent transaction loss (when ⌫ is disabled).

John Morrow

The new Bills & Income looks good. Further food for thought:

• Category, Tag and Memo should have their own columns. So should the Frequency, for example bi-monthly (the next date is generally not enough).

• Double-clicking anywhere in a row should popup a dialog asking whether to Edit Payee, Schedule or Detail (similar behavior to double-clicking a Scheduled Transaction in a Register). This has the merit that you can double-click anywhere where the cursor already is, rather than having to move the cursor to the blue-ellipsis button, which requires a precise hand movement because of its (small) size.

• I often find myself having to edit at least 2 of: Payee, Schedule and Details. Number of operations necessary:
  • 1 to move to the blue button
  • 1 to click on the blue button
  • 1 to select Edit Schedule
  • 1 to click Save
  • 1 to click on the Blue button again
  • 1 to click Save
  • 1 in addition if you wanted to show the Tag or Memo fields
  • TOTAL : 7 clicks (in addition to the operation you really wanted to perform).
• I think this says it all. There are simply too many clicks to get to the work needing done.

RickO

John Morrow said:

The following keyboard shortcuts would be handy in my opinion:

• Spacebar : in Reconcile window, toggle Clr status and move to next transaction. This speeds up reconciliation considerably and avoids using the mouse. Other financial software do this already.

• ⌘⌫ : delete transaction (same effect as ⌫, but used in other macOS software and so engrained in finger memory). Has the added benefit of preventing inadvertent transaction loss (when ⌫ is disabled).

Any command that has a menu item, as does Delete Transaction, you can change the keyboard shortcut for yourself:

http://osxdaily.com/2017/08/08/create-custom-keyboard-shortcut-mac/

Unfortunately, that won't help with the Clr toggle since there's no menu item for that one.

John Morrow

John Morrow said:

The following keyboard shortcuts would be handy in my opinion:

• Spacebar : in Reconcile window, toggle Clr status and move to next transaction. This speeds up reconciliation considerably and avoids using the mouse. Other financial software do this already.

• ⌘⌫ : delete transaction (same effect as ⌫, but used in other macOS software and so engrained in finger memory). Has the added benefit of preventing inadvertent transaction loss (when ⌫ is disabled).

@RickO, unless I'm mistaken, it won't for the Delete Transaction either. ⌘⌫ is not a supported keyboard shortcut (nor is ⌫).

John Morrow

I've started using the new Unassigned Tax Item feature... but I have a question : are they supposed to appear in the Tax Schedule Report ? Should they not ?

RickO

John Morrow said:

The following keyboard shortcuts would be handy in my opinion:

• Spacebar : in Reconcile window, toggle Clr status and move to next transaction. This speeds up reconciliation considerably and avoids using the mouse. Other financial software do this already.

• ⌘⌫ : delete transaction (same effect as ⌫, but used in other macOS software and so engrained in finger memory). Has the added benefit of preventing inadvertent transaction loss (when ⌫ is disabled).

Yup, you're right. I should have tested that. I use Keyboard Maestro for a lot of stuff and can do it with that tool.

Concordman

Concordman said:

Playing around with the bills & income section , cleaned up list of payees that no longer need to be  in the bills & income section, ran into one payee that QM would not allow deleting ; the alert claims its a duplicate payee, A payee with this name already exists. Each payee must have a unique name. Does not make sense as I note only one payee with this name in list of payees. Any ideas will be appreciated.

That did it..Thank you Rick!

Snoopy FC

John Morrow said:

The new Bills & Income looks good. Further food for thought:

• Category, Tag and Memo should have their own columns. So should the Frequency, for example bi-monthly (the next date is generally not enough).

• Double-clicking anywhere in a row should popup a dialog asking whether to Edit Payee, Schedule or Detail (similar behavior to double-clicking a Scheduled Transaction in a Register). This has the merit that you can double-click anywhere where the cursor already is, rather than having to move the cursor to the blue-ellipsis button, which requires a precise hand movement because of its (small) size.

• I often find myself having to edit at least 2 of: Payee, Schedule and Details. Number of operations necessary:
  • 1 to move to the blue button
  • 1 to click on the blue button
  • 1 to select Edit Schedule
  • 1 to click Save
  • 1 to click on the Blue button again
  • 1 to click Save
  • 1 in addition if you wanted to show the Tag or Memo fields
  • TOTAL : 7 clicks (in addition to the operation you really wanted to perform).
• I think this says it all. There are simply too many clicks to get to the work needing done.

Those are all great comments.  I particularly like the idea of having the additional columns for those items, and double clicking for editing.  

RCinNJ

John Morrow said:

I've started using the new Unassigned Tax Item feature... but I have a question : are they supposed to appear in the Tax Schedule Report ? Should they not ?

John, thanks for pointing out the new Unassigned Tax Item category. I've wanted this for years. I just confirmed this shows up in Tax Reports. I did have to redo my report customization to get it to show.

Now I wish they would change Tags so these could be added to the selected Accounts and Categories rather than "only transaction with": Any or None. To me this is the most confusing part of the current Report engine.

Unknown

How about adding a Bill pay feature where 1]it doesn't take the vendor over a month to respond to the set up and then 2]does not require one to submit every personal document known to man to activate?

RickO

John Morrow said:

I've started using the new Unassigned Tax Item feature... but I have a question : are they supposed to appear in the Tax Schedule Report ? Should they not ?

RC.. you might want to go vote for this IDEA post:

https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/add-selection-criteria-for-no-category-and-no-ta...

RCinNJ

John Morrow said:

I've started using the new Unassigned Tax Item feature... but I have a question : are they supposed to appear in the Tax Schedule Report ? Should they not ?

Thanks for pointing me to this IDEA post. I voted. 

Unknown

pauldv172 said:

Confused on Bill Pay.  I just paid my Electric bill.  It is a variable payment. Now the future bill shows due in 38 days--does not show a pdf-- but ACTION states PAY NOW.  Why would it say PAY NOW?  Should say Waiting or something like that.

Also, would want to see the PDF before I pay the bill.  I want to look at it for correctness before I pay it.

I do not like for Quicken to automatically enter amounts. My bills are never the same month after month. Also why is so hard to change the date when asking for a payee report?

smayer97

John Morrow said:

I've started using the new Unassigned Tax Item feature... but I have a question : are they supposed to appear in the Tax Schedule Report ? Should they not ?

Yes because not only is it confusing, it does not allow selecting both transactions with specific tags or categories and those without any...you have to choose one or the other. In QM2007 and QWin, you can have both.

Brendan

pauldv172 said:

I am trying to do an online transfer from my checking account to may saving account.  When I hit pay now, I get a message: 
Wells Fargo Bank cannot deliver your payment to Transfer For Save For by 02/03/18 because that date falls on a weekend or holiday.  The date will be changed to 02/05/18.
 I clicked ok but it will not change the date nor will it let me manually change the date.  I have to cancel the transaction.

No one else ran into this?  And, no feedback from Marcus?  I just tried it this morning, and it did allow a transfer, but not sure if that is because it is a weekday, or something changed.

Lysander Spooner

RCinNJ said:

This update finally convinced me to install the QM2018 I purchased several months ago. Did this yesterday. Mostly smooth data transfer from QM2017. Only needed to adjust a few transactions.

I was able to download transactions yesterday. Today it's a mess! I keep getting requests to enter my passwords. When I do they are rejected. Also asked numerous times today to log into my Quicken account. Any suggestions? I also don't understand the message about using my confidential info stored in "Quicken 2015 password" (and not just that I went from 2007 to 2016, never owned QM2015).

Is this related to my trying to run QM2017 simultaneously to make sure I don't find any more data transfer errors, etc?

If the requests continue, you may want to quit all Quicken programs, then open Keychain Access from the Utilities folder and delete all Quicken related entries from your login keychain. This will force Quicken to freshly ask you to store your passwords in the keychain.

I had to do this under QM2017 and it does work. Have not had to do it with QM2018 yet.

s2kdriver

First of all, 5.5 is a great update for Canadian users.  Thank you very much for adding Canadian investment account types (RRSP, TFSA, etc) and an overall Canadian feature selector.  Note there are a few Canadian investment types still missing: LIRA & LIF (Locked In Retirement Account & Life Income Fund), but these are close enough to possibly substitute RRSP & RRIF types for now.

However, there are still a few issues I would like to report:

1. The long standing problem with Remove Shares is still present.  Remove Shares is treated as a $0 dollar sale from a capital gains perspective.  This improperly shows as a capital loss in the report for the period, but more importantly, it negatively skews the IRR & ROI performance measures for the period.  This is unfortunate as it makes the new performance measures useless if you have a Remove Shares transaction in the account.  Can this be fixed?

2. For Canadian users who sell shares in brokerage accounts, the LIFO/FIFO method of calculating cost basis and gains/losses does not apply.  In Canada we are required to use ACB (Adjusted Cost Basis) which is a cost averaging technique across all purchased lots.  I realize that Quicken Mac now supports explicit lot assignment during sales, and there is a Custom preset for manually allocating the sold shares across lots.  However, I would like to ask if it would be possible to add an additional preset called ACB or Average Cost (and also in the defaults for the account) that would automatically allocate the sold shares in proportion to the pre-sale holdings across all lots.  That would really help your Canadian users in getting the cost basis correct.

3. Lastly, this may be a potential bug or perhaps something I don't understand correctly.  When using the explicit lot assignment feature on multiple sales for the same security, I have noticed that custom lot assignments on a future date sale seem to affect the available shares at an earlier date in the lot assignment dialog box.  This does not make sense since the future date sale has not happened yet.  It appears that custom lot calculations are erroneously being carried backwards in time or treated as a global that is not time dependent.  This is easy to duplicate:

a) buy 3 lots of 10 shares each on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of any month
b) sell 6 shares on the 4th of the month, allocating evenly across lots (2 shares per lot)
c) sell 9 shares on the 5th of the month, allocating evenly across lots (3 shares per lot)
d) reopen the sale transaction for the 4th (the original sale) and select specify lots.  You will see that the available shares to sell are 7 per lot.  It should indicate 10 per lot, as no sales have happened yet.  This seems to be a bug and may prevent all users (not just Canadian) from effectively using the custom lot feature to select their preferred cost basis accounting.  Can this be fixed?

Other than these issues, the 5.5 release seems to be stable.  Thanks again.

Unknown

Since we have a cloud connected Quicken app for our iPhones and iPads, will we soon be able to write and print checks from these devices?

John Morrow

John Morrow said:

I've started using the new Unassigned Tax Item feature... but I have a question : are they supposed to appear in the Tax Schedule Report ? Should they not ?

RCinNJ, my report is empty. How did you get yours to show any Unassigned Tax Items?

RCinNJ

John Morrow said:

I've started using the new Unassigned Tax Item feature... but I have a question : are they supposed to appear in the Tax Schedule Report ? Should they not ?

Hi John, as a quick check to see that it worked: in "Customize Report" I selected "All" for both Accounts and Categories and "None" for Tags. As pointed out elsewhere, the Tags tab is confusing and underpowered. Let us know if this works (or not) for you.

RCinNJ

John Morrow said:

I've started using the new Unassigned Tax Item feature... but I have a question : are they supposed to appear in the Tax Schedule Report ? Should they not ?

Update: I just found a major problem of missing transactions. On closer inspection I saw there were missing transactions for this Category! I am trying to see if I can figure out a pattern and will report back.

RCinNJ

John Morrow said:

I've started using the new Unassigned Tax Item feature... but I have a question : are they supposed to appear in the Tax Schedule Report ? Should they not ?

OK, I figured out what is happening with the missing transactions in the Tax Report. I do not believe this has anything to do with the new "Unassigned tax" category. I am not sure if this is a bug or how it is suppose to work, with an unintended consequence that could be a very real problem for me if I (or my accountant) don't catch it. For several transactions I have tracked the savings account where the transaction was transferred (the account doesn't belong to me, but I have access so I can make the transfers and I track this account in QM so I can see the transfers happen correctly). Since there is a transfer out and a transfer in, QM must cancel them out and not show anything. I was able to make it reappear by removing the "Tag" from the Transfer field. 

Quicken Marcus

pauldv172 said:

Confused on Bill Pay.  I just paid my Electric bill.  It is a variable payment. Now the future bill shows due in 38 days--does not show a pdf-- but ACTION states PAY NOW.  Why would it say PAY NOW?  Should say Waiting or something like that.

Also, would want to see the PDF before I pay the bill.  I want to look at it for correctness before I pay it.

You don't have to link your payee.  Quicken will only automatically update your bills with the correct balance due if you link the payee.  The feature will update with the correct balance but you don't have to use it.  To change the date of a payee report, just click on Customize.

Quicken Marcus

Gilles said:

Tax schedule does not work correctly, it will not show results of Capital gains/losses from Canadian dollars brokerage accounts
it only shows the ones form USD brokerage accounts
My main currency is Canadian dollar, even if I set up Canadian, US or both
the results are wrong in tax schedule ( not showing any Canadian dollars Brokerage accounts results)

I'm seeing some weirdness in the Schedule D/Schedule 3 section of the tax report regardless of currency.  Let us investigate more.

Quicken Marcus

John Morrow said:

I've started using the new Unassigned Tax Item feature... but I have a question : are they supposed to appear in the Tax Schedule Report ? Should they not ?

We've always had the concept of the Unassigned Tax item on the Mac but it was a little less obvious how to set it.  In the past, you would click on the Tex Related checkbox and then NOT select any Tax form or line item and this would be Unassigned.  These items appear in the tax report when you select Summarize by Category and not Tax Schedule/Form.  This is equivalent to the Tax Summary on QWin.

Quicken Marcus

Gilles said:

Tax schedule does not work correctly, it will not show results of Capital gains/losses from Canadian dollars brokerage accounts
it only shows the ones form USD brokerage accounts
My main currency is Canadian dollar, even if I set up Canadian, US or both
the results are wrong in tax schedule ( not showing any Canadian dollars Brokerage accounts results)

OK. I think I've tracked down the actual issue.  It appears that multi-currency only appears if a form other than the Schedule D /Schedule 3 report triggers it.  In other words, if you have a Schedule A in the US or General T1 in Canada that has transactions from 2 currencies then everything works as designed where both currencies appear in the report.  If the only tax form that would schedule multi-currency is the Schedule D or Schedule 3 then it won't work.  The Capital Gain stuff is very different from the rest of the report and it doesn't appear to trigger having both currencies to appear in the report on its own.  I'll file a bug report and we'll get this fixed.