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PC Financial Mastercard transaction download no longer supports QFX or QIF?

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Comments

  • Unknown Member
    edited November 2018
    davidvh said:

    Allow me to add my voice, too.

    I haven't spoken to a single person at PC Financial who understands what Quicken files do... and thus their importance to us.

    No one understands that Quicken files automatically enter and reconcile transactions. It's a huge time saver.

    Each time I inquire when Quicken downloads will return I'm told to use CSV files...

    CSV files are compatible with Excel, Open Office, and Google Docs.

    I try to explain that CSV files are little more than up-to-date statements and do not provide the same functionality.

    Why would they direct me to use Excel, Open Office, or Google Docs when I enquire about Quicken? It's maddening.

    P.S. But that doesn't mean there is zero cost since they have to support both in software and in customer support areas.  And I definitely agree that they are most likely did a price to number of customer evaluation.
  • Arctic Hare (H&B 2019 Canadian)Arctic Hare (H&B 2019 Canadian) SuperUser ✭✭✭
    edited November 2018
    davidvh said:

    Allow me to add my voice, too.

    I haven't spoken to a single person at PC Financial who understands what Quicken files do... and thus their importance to us.

    No one understands that Quicken files automatically enter and reconcile transactions. It's a huge time saver.

    Each time I inquire when Quicken downloads will return I'm told to use CSV files...

    CSV files are compatible with Excel, Open Office, and Google Docs.

    I try to explain that CSV files are little more than up-to-date statements and do not provide the same functionality.

    Why would they direct me to use Excel, Open Office, or Google Docs when I enquire about Quicken? It's maddening.

    I consciously elected not to get into breaking the costs down into contract costs, infrastructure costs, and support labour costs as this is more detail than would be of interest to most people. The point was, really, that the termination of Quicken support was likely a calculated decision, not a naive, knee jerk avoidance of a bit of extra work.
  • Unknown Member
    edited November 2018
    davidvh said:

    Allow me to add my voice, too.

    I haven't spoken to a single person at PC Financial who understands what Quicken files do... and thus their importance to us.

    No one understands that Quicken files automatically enter and reconcile transactions. It's a huge time saver.

    Each time I inquire when Quicken downloads will return I'm told to use CSV files...

    CSV files are compatible with Excel, Open Office, and Google Docs.

    I try to explain that CSV files are little more than up-to-date statements and do not provide the same functionality.

    Why would they direct me to use Excel, Open Office, or Google Docs when I enquire about Quicken? It's maddening.

    Bottom Line: They've consciously abandoned customers.
  • Arctic Hare (H&B 2019 Canadian)Arctic Hare (H&B 2019 Canadian) SuperUser ✭✭✭
    edited November 2018
    davidvh said:

    Allow me to add my voice, too.

    I haven't spoken to a single person at PC Financial who understands what Quicken files do... and thus their importance to us.

    No one understands that Quicken files automatically enter and reconcile transactions. It's a huge time saver.

    Each time I inquire when Quicken downloads will return I'm told to use CSV files...

    CSV files are compatible with Excel, Open Office, and Google Docs.

    I try to explain that CSV files are little more than up-to-date statements and do not provide the same functionality.

    Why would they direct me to use Excel, Open Office, or Google Docs when I enquire about Quicken? It's maddening.

    Which is sometimes a good business decision. Not all customers are profitable customers.
  • Unknown Member
    edited November 2018
    In my view, by not including Quicken support PC MasterCard has abandoned a large number of customers.

    Every other card that I hold offers Quicken downloads. PC MasterCard is the first that doesn't.

    I'm going to evaluate how many points I receive from my PC MasterCard. If I receive the same or more monetary value with another credit card I'll switch.
  • smayer97smayer97 SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November 2018
    davidvh said:

    Allow me to add my voice, too.

    I haven't spoken to a single person at PC Financial who understands what Quicken files do... and thus their importance to us.

    No one understands that Quicken files automatically enter and reconcile transactions. It's a huge time saver.

    Each time I inquire when Quicken downloads will return I'm told to use CSV files...

    CSV files are compatible with Excel, Open Office, and Google Docs.

    I try to explain that CSV files are little more than up-to-date statements and do not provide the same functionality.

    Why would they direct me to use Excel, Open Office, or Google Docs when I enquire about Quicken? It's maddening.

    I know this started as a Windows thread but this issue affects Mac users too, so note that ImportQIF will not help Mac users since you need Windows to run it. 

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

    P.S. I updated the thread to reflect this.
    Have Questions? Check out these FAQs:COMPLETE list of Product Ideas - Quicken for Mac to VOTE on

    Object to Quicken's business model, using up 25% of your screen
    ? Add your vote here:
    Quicken should eliminate the LARGE Ad space when a subscription expires


    (
    Canadian Q user since '92, STILL using QM2007)

  • Pete@[email protected] Member ✭✭
    edited November 2018
    I was also gob-smacked to see their fluffy new website dropped support for Quicken/Money/OFX compatible downloads. That fakakta .CSV format is an empty suit. Thanks for nothing, PCF!

    Since that download feature is such a huge time-saver, I'm switching back to my standby BMO MasterCard immediately, even though those tasty PC Points were ultimately edible.

    Well played PCFinancial. What a spectacular sales-prevention strategy. Gah!
  • jgpuckeringjgpuckering Member ✭✭
    edited November 2018
    I too sent a message about the unannounced deprecation of the Download to Quicken feature, and got the much the same response as everyone else mentioned here, although the response that Chris Bright got was a bit more informative than most in that it spoke to prioritizing and re-evaluating based on customer feedback.  That, at least, is a hopeful sign.

    I should have checked this site before sending off a letter to them this morning.  I would have included some information about this Community page and the number of complaints.  The PC Financial web team could benefit from information on the users of this feature.

    I would urge anyone reading this thread and who will miss this feature to send their own feedback to PC Financial.  The more feedback they get, the more likely they are to restore the feature.


  • jgpuckeringjgpuckering Member ✭✭
    edited December 2018
    Here's the text of a letter I sent to PC Financial this morning ...

    To whom it may concern,

    I am writing this to provide
    feedback regarding the recent changes to the PC Financial Mastercard
    website. 

    While some of the recent website
    changes are useful, and the site now looks prettier, I find that overall it is
    less functional than the old site.

    The most grievous change, for me, is the removal of the
    transaction Download to Quicken feature. 
    When I asked via the website message feature what happened to this
    feature, the answer I got back was simply that it was no longer available.  I was told there is a Download to .CSV
    option, but that is of no use to Quicken users.

    I worked in the software industry for over 35 years, and one
    rule we always followed was to avoid taking features away from our users unless
    there was a damn good reason to do so. 

    So I ask, what was your reason for removing this
    feature?  Revamping the website look and
    feel or replacing its underlying technology are not reasons to remove a
    feature.  Did anyone survey the user base
    to see what the impact of this would be? 
    Did anyone do a usability study to determine how much work this would
    impose upon Quicken users?

    Here's the impact on me. 
    Every month I generate about 60 transactions on my PC Mastercard.  Where before I could simply download those
    within 30 seconds, now I have to enter each one manually.  But worse than that, as it happens I often
    enter transactions manually in order to capture certain details I want to
    track.  With the QFX download previously
    available, I could download the transactions that have arrived since the last
    time I downloaded, and it would merge anything new in with my manual entries.  That meant I didn't have to enter every
    transaction, and I didn't have to figure out which ones I entered manually and
    which ones I skipped.

    Each month, I reconcile my Quicken account to my paper
    statement.  This involves first
    downloading transactions to QFX in order to ensure I have all the transactions
    for the month.  Without that step, I will
    now spend more time reconciling the statement because of transactions I might
    have neglected to enter manually.

    You might wonder why I bother with all this.  The answer is that the benefits outweigh the
    effort.  Quicken provides me with
    budgeting, transaction history, and an overall snapshot of all my account
    balances, my net worth, and my net worth trend year over year. I can tell you
    when and where I bought my five year old BBQ, and how much I paid for it.  I can tell you how much I spent on groceries
    this month, last month, this quarter, this year, and every year this
    century.  Quicken gives me complete
    financial control.

    There are thousands of Quicken users in Canada.  I don't know how many use PC Mastercard, but
    you risk alienating all of them be eliminating the feature – even more so, by
    doing it without notice or consultation or even a decent explanation.  There’s not even a mention of Quicken in the
    FAQ. 

    As for the rest of the website revamp, my synopsis would
    be:  pretty, with a few new bells and
    whistles, but not better.  The Dashboard
    is pretty, and the Current/Available Balance chart is nice, but the bar chart
    showing transaction amounts by day is of very little use.  

    The new transaction list has some nice filtering options.  But the old transaction list was far more
    dense and compact, allowing me to see many transactions at once.  The new list is sparse, with a lot of empty
    whitespace.  There are pretty icon beside
    each transaction that provide no real value. 
    Where I could once see 20 or more transactions at a time without
    scrolling, now I can only see a handful. 
     All this will make monthly
    reconciliation more painstaking.

    The Trends feature may be, for those who don’t use Quicken,
    a nice option.  For me, it’s simply not
    flexible enough.  The category bar graph
    uses categories that are based on merchant industry, which works to a limited
    extent but breaks down pretty rapidly with multi-category vendors like Shoppers
    Drug Mart, the grocery store (where I can also get wine, beer, household
    products, clothing etc.), Wal-Mart, Canadian Tire, etc.  A single large transaction in the month, such
    as buying a travel package, can make one bar very tall and the rest nearly
    invisible.  There is no provision for
    drilling into the Other category.

    The transaction view of the Trends feature provides a bar
    graph of the daily transaction total for the selected time period.  What is the use case for this?  Why would anyone care if they had more
    transactions on Tuesday than on Wednesday? 
    If the point is to highlight large transactions, a top 10 list on the
    dashboard would be more useful.  And you
    can always sort the transaction list by amount. 
    (Although, I’m not even sure what it means to sort by Highest Date when
    no date range is selected.  What is the
    default date range?)

    Here’s the bottom line for me.  PC Mastercard has been my primary-use card for
    many years now.  I have it for the PC
    Points it generates, and use those points to offset my grocery expenses.  That’s the value it provides to me.  But my time is valuable too.  Now, as a result of these website changes,
    it’s going to cost me more time to track my expenses on this card.  The value it provides has been
    diminished.  So, in response, I will
    shift my transactions over to another card, one where I will spend less time
    tracking transactions and still get points benefits.  One that has a Download to Quicken option.

    Please forward this letter to your website management
    team.  I’m sure they will want to hear
    this feedback.

    Sincerely,

     

    Gary Puckering





  • Arctic Hare (H&B 2019 Canadian)Arctic Hare (H&B 2019 Canadian) SuperUser ✭✭✭
    edited November 2018

    Here's the text of a letter I sent to PC Financial this morning ...



    To whom it may concern,

    I am writing this to provide
    feedback regarding the recent changes to the PC Financial Mastercard
    website. 

    While some of the recent website
    changes are useful, and the site now looks prettier, I find that overall it is
    less functional than the old site.

    The most grievous change, for me, is the removal of the
    transaction Download to Quicken feature. 
    When I asked via the website message feature what happened to this
    feature, the answer I got back was simply that it was no longer available.  I was told there is a Download to .CSV
    option, but that is of no use to Quicken users.

    I worked in the software industry for over 35 years, and one
    rule we always followed was to avoid taking features away from our users unless
    there was a damn good reason to do so. 

    So I ask, what was your reason for removing this
    feature?  Revamping the website look and
    feel or replacing its underlying technology are not reasons to remove a
    feature.  Did anyone survey the user base
    to see what the impact of this would be? 
    Did anyone do a usability study to determine how much work this would
    impose upon Quicken users?

    Here's the impact on me. 
    Every month I generate about 60 transactions on my PC Mastercard.  Where before I could simply download those
    within 30 seconds, now I have to enter each one manually.  But worse than that, as it happens I often
    enter transactions manually in order to capture certain details I want to
    track.  With the QFX download previously
    available, I could download the transactions that have arrived since the last
    time I downloaded, and it would merge anything new in with my manual entries.  That meant I didn't have to enter every
    transaction, and I didn't have to figure out which ones I entered manually and
    which ones I skipped.

    Each month, I reconcile my Quicken account to my paper
    statement.  This involves first
    downloading transactions to QFX in order to ensure I have all the transactions
    for the month.  Without that step, I will
    now spend more time reconciling the statement because of transactions I might
    have neglected to enter manually.

    You might wonder why I bother with all this.  The answer is that the benefits outweigh the
    effort.  Quicken provides me with
    budgeting, transaction history, and an overall snapshot of all my account
    balances, my net worth, and my net worth trend year over year. I can tell you
    when and where I bought my five year old BBQ, and how much I paid for it.  I can tell you how much I spent on groceries
    this month, last month, this quarter, this year, and every year this
    century.  Quicken gives me complete
    financial control.

    There are thousands of Quicken users in Canada.  I don't know how many use PC Mastercard, but
    you risk alienating all of them be eliminating the feature – even more so, by
    doing it without notice or consultation or even a decent explanation.  There’s not even a mention of Quicken in the
    FAQ. 

    As for the rest of the website revamp, my synopsis would
    be:  pretty, with a few new bells and
    whistles, but not better.  The Dashboard
    is pretty, and the Current/Available Balance chart is nice, but the bar chart
    showing transaction amounts by day is of very little use.  

    The new transaction list has some nice filtering options.  But the old transaction list was far more
    dense and compact, allowing me to see many transactions at once.  The new list is sparse, with a lot of empty
    whitespace.  There are pretty icon beside
    each transaction that provide no real value. 
    Where I could once see 20 or more transactions at a time without
    scrolling, now I can only see a handful. 
     All this will make monthly
    reconciliation more painstaking.

    The Trends feature may be, for those who don’t use Quicken,
    a nice option.  For me, it’s simply not
    flexible enough.  The category bar graph
    uses categories that are based on merchant industry, which works to a limited
    extent but breaks down pretty rapidly with multi-category vendors like Shoppers
    Drug Mart, the grocery store (where I can also get wine, beer, household
    products, clothing etc.), Wal-Mart, Canadian Tire, etc.  A single large transaction in the month, such
    as buying a travel package, can make one bar very tall and the rest nearly
    invisible.  There is no provision for
    drilling into the Other category.

    The transaction view of the Trends feature provides a bar
    graph of the daily transaction total for the selected time period.  What is the use case for this?  Why would anyone care if they had more
    transactions on Tuesday than on Wednesday? 
    If the point is to highlight large transactions, a top 10 list on the
    dashboard would be more useful.  And you
    can always sort the transaction list by amount. 
    (Although, I’m not even sure what it means to sort by Highest Date when
    no date range is selected.  What is the
    default date range?)

    Here’s the bottom line for me.  PC Mastercard has been my primary-use card for
    many years now.  I have it for the PC
    Points it generates, and use those points to offset my grocery expenses.  That’s the value it provides to me.  But my time is valuable too.  Now, as a result of these website changes,
    it’s going to cost me more time to track my expenses on this card.  The value it provides has been
    diminished.  So, in response, I will
    shift my transactions over to another card, one where I will spend less time
    tracking transactions and still get points benefits.  One that has a Download to Quicken option.

    Please forward this letter to your website management
    team.  I’m sure they will want to hear
    this feedback.

    Sincerely,

     

    Gary Puckering





    FWIW: it would probably be more effective to send more concise feedback to the marketing folks at PCG. The decision not to renew the contract with Quicken would have been a business decision, not a technical one.
  • Unknown Member
    edited December 2018
    Cannot believe that PC Financial won't allow this feature anymore ... it is unbelievable ... I guess for small businesses using Quickbooks it will also be a problem..  PC Financial new website is also a step back in many ways.  I will probably also change my MasterCard to something more useful that includes download to Quicken.  I have used Quicken for at least 20 years now!  Can someone suggest a good alternative that includes the download to Quicken? ..

  • Arctic Hare (H&B 2019 Canadian)Arctic Hare (H&B 2019 Canadian) SuperUser ✭✭✭
    edited November 2018
    areay.eas said:

    Cannot believe that PC Financial won't allow this feature anymore ... it is unbelievable ... I guess for small businesses using Quickbooks it will also be a problem..  PC Financial new website is also a step back in many ways.  I will probably also change my MasterCard to something more useful that includes download to Quicken.  I have used Quicken for at least 20 years now!  Can someone suggest a good alternative that includes the download to Quicken? ..

    Yes. BMO Cashback World MasterCard has great benefits and works well with Quicken; the transactions tend to flow through faster than with other cards; on occasion they download later the sam day.
  • Ken BrindleyKen Brindley Member ✭✭
    edited November 2018
    I also spoke to support person who you could tell had no idea what I was talking about. She kept trying to tell me how to download the app to my phone and then after she figured out I wanted to download the transactions she showed me how to download my statement into a .pdf and said I could convert it whatever other format I wanted. LOL

    When I used the online message I got pretty much the same answer everyone else has received. 
    I will be changing cards shortly if there is no indication that this will be fixed quickly. 

    Very poor decision PC Mastercard.
  • Unknown Member
    edited December 2018
    Is there a way to import the csv file into Quicken?
  • Arctic Hare (H&B 2019 Canadian)Arctic Hare (H&B 2019 Canadian) SuperUser ✭✭✭
    edited November 2018
    jb1010 said:

    Is there a way to import the csv file into Quicken?

    Yes. As noted above, ImportQIF can convert CSV to QIF and import into Quicken:
    http://www.quicknperlwiz.com/
  • Ken BrindleyKen Brindley Member ✭✭
    edited December 2018
    Even if you can load a .csv file, There is no simple way to download all the transactions since the last time to downloaded. 
  • Arctic Hare (H&B 2019 Canadian)Arctic Hare (H&B 2019 Canadian) SuperUser ✭✭✭
    edited November 2018

    Even if you can load a .csv file, There is no simple way to download all the transactions since the last time to downloaded. 

    No one asked if it was convenient to download and convert a .csv; the question was, is it possible.
  • Ken BrindleyKen Brindley Member ✭✭
    edited November 2018

    Even if you can load a .csv file, There is no simple way to download all the transactions since the last time to downloaded. 

    I understand, just pointing out that this does not resolve the real issue
  • jgpuckeringjgpuckering Member ✭✭
    edited November 2018

    Here's the text of a letter I sent to PC Financial this morning ...



    To whom it may concern,

    I am writing this to provide
    feedback regarding the recent changes to the PC Financial Mastercard
    website. 

    While some of the recent website
    changes are useful, and the site now looks prettier, I find that overall it is
    less functional than the old site.

    The most grievous change, for me, is the removal of the
    transaction Download to Quicken feature. 
    When I asked via the website message feature what happened to this
    feature, the answer I got back was simply that it was no longer available.  I was told there is a Download to .CSV
    option, but that is of no use to Quicken users.

    I worked in the software industry for over 35 years, and one
    rule we always followed was to avoid taking features away from our users unless
    there was a damn good reason to do so. 

    So I ask, what was your reason for removing this
    feature?  Revamping the website look and
    feel or replacing its underlying technology are not reasons to remove a
    feature.  Did anyone survey the user base
    to see what the impact of this would be? 
    Did anyone do a usability study to determine how much work this would
    impose upon Quicken users?

    Here's the impact on me. 
    Every month I generate about 60 transactions on my PC Mastercard.  Where before I could simply download those
    within 30 seconds, now I have to enter each one manually.  But worse than that, as it happens I often
    enter transactions manually in order to capture certain details I want to
    track.  With the QFX download previously
    available, I could download the transactions that have arrived since the last
    time I downloaded, and it would merge anything new in with my manual entries.  That meant I didn't have to enter every
    transaction, and I didn't have to figure out which ones I entered manually and
    which ones I skipped.

    Each month, I reconcile my Quicken account to my paper
    statement.  This involves first
    downloading transactions to QFX in order to ensure I have all the transactions
    for the month.  Without that step, I will
    now spend more time reconciling the statement because of transactions I might
    have neglected to enter manually.

    You might wonder why I bother with all this.  The answer is that the benefits outweigh the
    effort.  Quicken provides me with
    budgeting, transaction history, and an overall snapshot of all my account
    balances, my net worth, and my net worth trend year over year. I can tell you
    when and where I bought my five year old BBQ, and how much I paid for it.  I can tell you how much I spent on groceries
    this month, last month, this quarter, this year, and every year this
    century.  Quicken gives me complete
    financial control.

    There are thousands of Quicken users in Canada.  I don't know how many use PC Mastercard, but
    you risk alienating all of them be eliminating the feature – even more so, by
    doing it without notice or consultation or even a decent explanation.  There’s not even a mention of Quicken in the
    FAQ. 

    As for the rest of the website revamp, my synopsis would
    be:  pretty, with a few new bells and
    whistles, but not better.  The Dashboard
    is pretty, and the Current/Available Balance chart is nice, but the bar chart
    showing transaction amounts by day is of very little use.  

    The new transaction list has some nice filtering options.  But the old transaction list was far more
    dense and compact, allowing me to see many transactions at once.  The new list is sparse, with a lot of empty
    whitespace.  There are pretty icon beside
    each transaction that provide no real value. 
    Where I could once see 20 or more transactions at a time without
    scrolling, now I can only see a handful. 
     All this will make monthly
    reconciliation more painstaking.

    The Trends feature may be, for those who don’t use Quicken,
    a nice option.  For me, it’s simply not
    flexible enough.  The category bar graph
    uses categories that are based on merchant industry, which works to a limited
    extent but breaks down pretty rapidly with multi-category vendors like Shoppers
    Drug Mart, the grocery store (where I can also get wine, beer, household
    products, clothing etc.), Wal-Mart, Canadian Tire, etc.  A single large transaction in the month, such
    as buying a travel package, can make one bar very tall and the rest nearly
    invisible.  There is no provision for
    drilling into the Other category.

    The transaction view of the Trends feature provides a bar
    graph of the daily transaction total for the selected time period.  What is the use case for this?  Why would anyone care if they had more
    transactions on Tuesday than on Wednesday? 
    If the point is to highlight large transactions, a top 10 list on the
    dashboard would be more useful.  And you
    can always sort the transaction list by amount. 
    (Although, I’m not even sure what it means to sort by Highest Date when
    no date range is selected.  What is the
    default date range?)

    Here’s the bottom line for me.  PC Mastercard has been my primary-use card for
    many years now.  I have it for the PC
    Points it generates, and use those points to offset my grocery expenses.  That’s the value it provides to me.  But my time is valuable too.  Now, as a result of these website changes,
    it’s going to cost me more time to track my expenses on this card.  The value it provides has been
    diminished.  So, in response, I will
    shift my transactions over to another card, one where I will spend less time
    tracking transactions and still get points benefits.  One that has a Download to Quicken option.

    Please forward this letter to your website management
    team.  I’m sure they will want to hear
    this feedback.

    Sincerely,

     

    Gary Puckering





    Well, I can't make the business case -- except to point to the Quicken Community discussion on this topic to illustrate that many users are upset about it, and I did that in the message which I sent. 

    After receiving the concise but unhelpful answer to my original query, my goal with the letter was threefold. 

    One goal was to explain the burden which deprecating the Quicken download feature imposes upon Quicken users.  The reply I received demonstrated no understanding of the difference between CSV and QFX capabilities from the user perspective.

    The second goal was to provide detailed feedback on the new website features.  It's all well and good to revamp a website and give it a better look and feel.  It's not ok to do that at the expensive of functionality and utility.

    My third goal was to point out that my request to add Quicken as a topic in the FAQ went unaddressed in their response.  It would be better to have a single consistent statement addressing Quicken than several different answers to different users.

    Since QFX is a proprietary format for which institutions pay a license fee, the next step for us Quicken users might be to start lobbying PCG to either drop that fee, or to support OFX, or both.  Otherwise, they may continue to lose the interest of customers who rely on QFX for reliable and accurate transaction download.
  • Arctic Hare (H&B 2019 Canadian)Arctic Hare (H&B 2019 Canadian) SuperUser ✭✭✭
    edited November 2018

    Here's the text of a letter I sent to PC Financial this morning ...



    To whom it may concern,

    I am writing this to provide
    feedback regarding the recent changes to the PC Financial Mastercard
    website. 

    While some of the recent website
    changes are useful, and the site now looks prettier, I find that overall it is
    less functional than the old site.

    The most grievous change, for me, is the removal of the
    transaction Download to Quicken feature. 
    When I asked via the website message feature what happened to this
    feature, the answer I got back was simply that it was no longer available.  I was told there is a Download to .CSV
    option, but that is of no use to Quicken users.

    I worked in the software industry for over 35 years, and one
    rule we always followed was to avoid taking features away from our users unless
    there was a damn good reason to do so. 

    So I ask, what was your reason for removing this
    feature?  Revamping the website look and
    feel or replacing its underlying technology are not reasons to remove a
    feature.  Did anyone survey the user base
    to see what the impact of this would be? 
    Did anyone do a usability study to determine how much work this would
    impose upon Quicken users?

    Here's the impact on me. 
    Every month I generate about 60 transactions on my PC Mastercard.  Where before I could simply download those
    within 30 seconds, now I have to enter each one manually.  But worse than that, as it happens I often
    enter transactions manually in order to capture certain details I want to
    track.  With the QFX download previously
    available, I could download the transactions that have arrived since the last
    time I downloaded, and it would merge anything new in with my manual entries.  That meant I didn't have to enter every
    transaction, and I didn't have to figure out which ones I entered manually and
    which ones I skipped.

    Each month, I reconcile my Quicken account to my paper
    statement.  This involves first
    downloading transactions to QFX in order to ensure I have all the transactions
    for the month.  Without that step, I will
    now spend more time reconciling the statement because of transactions I might
    have neglected to enter manually.

    You might wonder why I bother with all this.  The answer is that the benefits outweigh the
    effort.  Quicken provides me with
    budgeting, transaction history, and an overall snapshot of all my account
    balances, my net worth, and my net worth trend year over year. I can tell you
    when and where I bought my five year old BBQ, and how much I paid for it.  I can tell you how much I spent on groceries
    this month, last month, this quarter, this year, and every year this
    century.  Quicken gives me complete
    financial control.

    There are thousands of Quicken users in Canada.  I don't know how many use PC Mastercard, but
    you risk alienating all of them be eliminating the feature – even more so, by
    doing it without notice or consultation or even a decent explanation.  There’s not even a mention of Quicken in the
    FAQ. 

    As for the rest of the website revamp, my synopsis would
    be:  pretty, with a few new bells and
    whistles, but not better.  The Dashboard
    is pretty, and the Current/Available Balance chart is nice, but the bar chart
    showing transaction amounts by day is of very little use.  

    The new transaction list has some nice filtering options.  But the old transaction list was far more
    dense and compact, allowing me to see many transactions at once.  The new list is sparse, with a lot of empty
    whitespace.  There are pretty icon beside
    each transaction that provide no real value. 
    Where I could once see 20 or more transactions at a time without
    scrolling, now I can only see a handful. 
     All this will make monthly
    reconciliation more painstaking.

    The Trends feature may be, for those who don’t use Quicken,
    a nice option.  For me, it’s simply not
    flexible enough.  The category bar graph
    uses categories that are based on merchant industry, which works to a limited
    extent but breaks down pretty rapidly with multi-category vendors like Shoppers
    Drug Mart, the grocery store (where I can also get wine, beer, household
    products, clothing etc.), Wal-Mart, Canadian Tire, etc.  A single large transaction in the month, such
    as buying a travel package, can make one bar very tall and the rest nearly
    invisible.  There is no provision for
    drilling into the Other category.

    The transaction view of the Trends feature provides a bar
    graph of the daily transaction total for the selected time period.  What is the use case for this?  Why would anyone care if they had more
    transactions on Tuesday than on Wednesday? 
    If the point is to highlight large transactions, a top 10 list on the
    dashboard would be more useful.  And you
    can always sort the transaction list by amount. 
    (Although, I’m not even sure what it means to sort by Highest Date when
    no date range is selected.  What is the
    default date range?)

    Here’s the bottom line for me.  PC Mastercard has been my primary-use card for
    many years now.  I have it for the PC
    Points it generates, and use those points to offset my grocery expenses.  That’s the value it provides to me.  But my time is valuable too.  Now, as a result of these website changes,
    it’s going to cost me more time to track my expenses on this card.  The value it provides has been
    diminished.  So, in response, I will
    shift my transactions over to another card, one where I will spend less time
    tracking transactions and still get points benefits.  One that has a Download to Quicken option.

    Please forward this letter to your website management
    team.  I’m sure they will want to hear
    this feedback.

    Sincerely,

     

    Gary Puckering





    Good luck with that idea. Quicken has contracts with thousands of financial institutions. Clearly, the fee for supporting EWC is part of Quicken’s revenue model. In fact, I would assert that Intuit created the QFX variant specifically to create a revenue model.
  • Unknown Member
    edited December 2018
    Thanks all for the CSV import information.

    I agree it's a shame that PC Financial has removed this functionality.  I suspect it is because very few customers actually use it.

    Having said that PC Financial does offer a CSV file export. 

    At the very least Quicken should be able to support importing the CSV file without forcing people to purchase a third party utility.

    It's Quicken's responsibility to import a variety of formats.  (even if this means that certain functionality is lost depending on the type of import)

    I'm sure we have more influence with Quicken than we will ever have with a financial institution.
  • Unknown Member
    edited November 2018

    Here's the text of a letter I sent to PC Financial this morning ...



    To whom it may concern,

    I am writing this to provide
    feedback regarding the recent changes to the PC Financial Mastercard
    website. 

    While some of the recent website
    changes are useful, and the site now looks prettier, I find that overall it is
    less functional than the old site.

    The most grievous change, for me, is the removal of the
    transaction Download to Quicken feature. 
    When I asked via the website message feature what happened to this
    feature, the answer I got back was simply that it was no longer available.  I was told there is a Download to .CSV
    option, but that is of no use to Quicken users.

    I worked in the software industry for over 35 years, and one
    rule we always followed was to avoid taking features away from our users unless
    there was a damn good reason to do so. 

    So I ask, what was your reason for removing this
    feature?  Revamping the website look and
    feel or replacing its underlying technology are not reasons to remove a
    feature.  Did anyone survey the user base
    to see what the impact of this would be? 
    Did anyone do a usability study to determine how much work this would
    impose upon Quicken users?

    Here's the impact on me. 
    Every month I generate about 60 transactions on my PC Mastercard.  Where before I could simply download those
    within 30 seconds, now I have to enter each one manually.  But worse than that, as it happens I often
    enter transactions manually in order to capture certain details I want to
    track.  With the QFX download previously
    available, I could download the transactions that have arrived since the last
    time I downloaded, and it would merge anything new in with my manual entries.  That meant I didn't have to enter every
    transaction, and I didn't have to figure out which ones I entered manually and
    which ones I skipped.

    Each month, I reconcile my Quicken account to my paper
    statement.  This involves first
    downloading transactions to QFX in order to ensure I have all the transactions
    for the month.  Without that step, I will
    now spend more time reconciling the statement because of transactions I might
    have neglected to enter manually.

    You might wonder why I bother with all this.  The answer is that the benefits outweigh the
    effort.  Quicken provides me with
    budgeting, transaction history, and an overall snapshot of all my account
    balances, my net worth, and my net worth trend year over year. I can tell you
    when and where I bought my five year old BBQ, and how much I paid for it.  I can tell you how much I spent on groceries
    this month, last month, this quarter, this year, and every year this
    century.  Quicken gives me complete
    financial control.

    There are thousands of Quicken users in Canada.  I don't know how many use PC Mastercard, but
    you risk alienating all of them be eliminating the feature – even more so, by
    doing it without notice or consultation or even a decent explanation.  There’s not even a mention of Quicken in the
    FAQ. 

    As for the rest of the website revamp, my synopsis would
    be:  pretty, with a few new bells and
    whistles, but not better.  The Dashboard
    is pretty, and the Current/Available Balance chart is nice, but the bar chart
    showing transaction amounts by day is of very little use.  

    The new transaction list has some nice filtering options.  But the old transaction list was far more
    dense and compact, allowing me to see many transactions at once.  The new list is sparse, with a lot of empty
    whitespace.  There are pretty icon beside
    each transaction that provide no real value. 
    Where I could once see 20 or more transactions at a time without
    scrolling, now I can only see a handful. 
     All this will make monthly
    reconciliation more painstaking.

    The Trends feature may be, for those who don’t use Quicken,
    a nice option.  For me, it’s simply not
    flexible enough.  The category bar graph
    uses categories that are based on merchant industry, which works to a limited
    extent but breaks down pretty rapidly with multi-category vendors like Shoppers
    Drug Mart, the grocery store (where I can also get wine, beer, household
    products, clothing etc.), Wal-Mart, Canadian Tire, etc.  A single large transaction in the month, such
    as buying a travel package, can make one bar very tall and the rest nearly
    invisible.  There is no provision for
    drilling into the Other category.

    The transaction view of the Trends feature provides a bar
    graph of the daily transaction total for the selected time period.  What is the use case for this?  Why would anyone care if they had more
    transactions on Tuesday than on Wednesday? 
    If the point is to highlight large transactions, a top 10 list on the
    dashboard would be more useful.  And you
    can always sort the transaction list by amount. 
    (Although, I’m not even sure what it means to sort by Highest Date when
    no date range is selected.  What is the
    default date range?)

    Here’s the bottom line for me.  PC Mastercard has been my primary-use card for
    many years now.  I have it for the PC
    Points it generates, and use those points to offset my grocery expenses.  That’s the value it provides to me.  But my time is valuable too.  Now, as a result of these website changes,
    it’s going to cost me more time to track my expenses on this card.  The value it provides has been
    diminished.  So, in response, I will
    shift my transactions over to another card, one where I will spend less time
    tracking transactions and still get points benefits.  One that has a Download to Quicken option.

    Please forward this letter to your website management
    team.  I’m sure they will want to hear
    this feedback.

    Sincerely,

     

    Gary Puckering





    I would assert that Intuit created the QFX variant specifically to create a revenue model.
    I would too, especially since Microsoft went with straight OFX (free since it is an open standard), and MS Money was dropped years ago because it wasn't profitable enough for them.

    Note there are only a few keys different between QFX and OFX.
  • Arctic Hare (H&B 2019 Canadian)Arctic Hare (H&B 2019 Canadian) SuperUser ✭✭✭
    edited November 2018
    jb1010 said:

    Thanks all for the CSV import information.

    I agree it's a shame that PC Financial has removed this functionality.  I suspect it is because very few customers actually use it.

    Having said that PC Financial does offer a CSV file export. 

    At the very least Quicken should be able to support importing the CSV file without forcing people to purchase a third party utility.

    It's Quicken's responsibility to import a variety of formats.  (even if this means that certain functionality is lost depending on the type of import)

    I'm sure we have more influence with Quicken than we will ever have with a financial institution.

    Quicken doesn’t permit direct import of CSV files for at least three good reasons: 1) it would be in conflict with the revenue model; 2) CSV files do not provide a means to avoid duplicate transactions, and 3) it would be a support nightmare.
  • Unknown Member
    edited November 2018
    jb1010 said:

    Thanks all for the CSV import information.

    I agree it's a shame that PC Financial has removed this functionality.  I suspect it is because very few customers actually use it.

    Having said that PC Financial does offer a CSV file export. 

    At the very least Quicken should be able to support importing the CSV file without forcing people to purchase a third party utility.

    It's Quicken's responsibility to import a variety of formats.  (even if this means that certain functionality is lost depending on the type of import)

    I'm sure we have more influence with Quicken than we will ever have with a financial institution.

    BTW I think there are few reason why Quicken Inc doesn't support CSV.
    1. All the standard describes is how to separate the columns of data.  It doesn't define what data is in what columns.  Therefore there is always "mapping" that has to be done because each financial institution will do it differently.  This in turn implies more support costs for the users that can't get the mapping correct for a given financial institution.
    2. They already have QIF format and have tried to get away from it pushing QFX instead.  Which I think was done for two reasons.  One is they didn't want to continue to support two formats (even though they ended up doing that, but not they have "degraded" that support with the subscription Quicken { https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/qif-importing-into-quicken-windows-2018-is-broken-in-the-r2-3-patch-update }).  And the second is of course getting revenue from users.
    Note that most of these decisions were made by Intuit, and you might think that now Quicken Inc is a separate company they might change these things, it isn't likely in my opinion.

    Quicken Inc contracts with Intuit to provide the downloading of transactions.  And Intuit is still very much in control of such matters (they get the licensing/support fees, not Quicken Inc)
  • Unknown Member
    edited November 2018
    jb1010 said:

    Thanks all for the CSV import information.

    I agree it's a shame that PC Financial has removed this functionality.  I suspect it is because very few customers actually use it.

    Having said that PC Financial does offer a CSV file export. 

    At the very least Quicken should be able to support importing the CSV file without forcing people to purchase a third party utility.

    It's Quicken's responsibility to import a variety of formats.  (even if this means that certain functionality is lost depending on the type of import)

    I'm sure we have more influence with Quicken than we will ever have with a financial institution.

    CSV files do not provide a means to avoid duplicate transactions
    Note neither does the QIF format.  And in the past the matching has been pretty terrible, but now with the subscription version of Quicken's downgrading of QIF support, it doesn't even try, transactions go straight into the register.
  • Unknown Member
    edited November 2018
    jb1010 said:

    Thanks all for the CSV import information.

    I agree it's a shame that PC Financial has removed this functionality.  I suspect it is because very few customers actually use it.

    Having said that PC Financial does offer a CSV file export. 

    At the very least Quicken should be able to support importing the CSV file without forcing people to purchase a third party utility.

    It's Quicken's responsibility to import a variety of formats.  (even if this means that certain functionality is lost depending on the type of import)

    I'm sure we have more influence with Quicken than we will ever have with a financial institution.

    Arctic Hare:  Not sure why from a Quicken customer's perspective a "good reason" is that supporting csv imports is in "in conflict with the revenue model".  It may be a "reason" but certainly not a "good" reason.

    I used the utility that you suggested and quite easily imported the PC Financial csv transactions into Quicken.  Thank you.

    It's just a reality that not all financial institutions will export in Quicken format.  Therefore it's incumbent on Quicken to address this gap.

    Quicken should not be the tail wagging the dog and "dictating" to its users to change financial service providers just because a provider does not support the "Quicken format" !
  • Arctic Hare (H&B 2019 Canadian)Arctic Hare (H&B 2019 Canadian) SuperUser ✭✭✭
    edited November 2018
    jb1010 said:

    Thanks all for the CSV import information.

    I agree it's a shame that PC Financial has removed this functionality.  I suspect it is because very few customers actually use it.

    Having said that PC Financial does offer a CSV file export. 

    At the very least Quicken should be able to support importing the CSV file without forcing people to purchase a third party utility.

    It's Quicken's responsibility to import a variety of formats.  (even if this means that certain functionality is lost depending on the type of import)

    I'm sure we have more influence with Quicken than we will ever have with a financial institution.

    Quicken needs to generate sufficient revenue to stay in business. MS Money used the open format and couldn’t generate enough revenue to stay in business. Quicken is the only full feature program of its kind left. Personally, i’d Like it to remain financially viable.
  • Unknown Member
    edited November 2018
    jb1010 said:

    Thanks all for the CSV import information.

    I agree it's a shame that PC Financial has removed this functionality.  I suspect it is because very few customers actually use it.

    Having said that PC Financial does offer a CSV file export. 

    At the very least Quicken should be able to support importing the CSV file without forcing people to purchase a third party utility.

    It's Quicken's responsibility to import a variety of formats.  (even if this means that certain functionality is lost depending on the type of import)

    I'm sure we have more influence with Quicken than we will ever have with a financial institution.

    It's just a reality that not all financial institutions will export in
    Quicken format.  Therefore it's incumbent on Quicken to address this
    gap.
    Not necessarily.

    Customers request tons of features all the time.

    Quicken Inc has to evaluate where they should put their resources.
    They are going to be doing that based on the number of users that need a feature.
    The impact on the users.
    The likelihood that that will get more users to purchase Quicken.
    The difficulty of implementing it.
    The difficulty of supporting it.

    And BTW that evaluation might be completely different for different companies supporting personal finance software.

    For instance a company based in Canada might look at this different than one in the US, because more of their customers are based there.

    And a smaller player that doesn't have as many customers might be willing to support it because they need to have a feature that the "big guy" doesn't have to attract customers.
  • Unknown Member
    edited November 2018
    jb1010 said:

    Thanks all for the CSV import information.

    I agree it's a shame that PC Financial has removed this functionality.  I suspect it is because very few customers actually use it.

    Having said that PC Financial does offer a CSV file export. 

    At the very least Quicken should be able to support importing the CSV file without forcing people to purchase a third party utility.

    It's Quicken's responsibility to import a variety of formats.  (even if this means that certain functionality is lost depending on the type of import)

    I'm sure we have more influence with Quicken than we will ever have with a financial institution.

    BTW on MS Money and them not charging the financial institutions.  It was speculated that it wasn't that Microsoft didn't want go charge them, but it basically couldn't.  It was trying to compete with Quicken and getting the financial institutions to support it was key, and not charging help get that support.

    Basically the same can be said of Express Web Connect.  There isn't a charge to the financial institution for that connection method.  15,000+ on Express Web Connect, 2,500 on Direct Connect (down from 4,500) {zero in Canada}.
  • Unknown Member
    edited November 2018
    areay.eas said:

    Cannot believe that PC Financial won't allow this feature anymore ... it is unbelievable ... I guess for small businesses using Quickbooks it will also be a problem..  PC Financial new website is also a step back in many ways.  I will probably also change my MasterCard to something more useful that includes download to Quicken.  I have used Quicken for at least 20 years now!  Can someone suggest a good alternative that includes the download to Quicken? ..

    Just checked .. Unfortunately, there is a minimum yearly income for this and I don't qualify .. :(  however, do all of the BMO Mastercards work with Quicken ?  there are others with no annual fee too...
This discussion has been closed.