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QMac Deluxe 2019; No Automatic Categorization after Restoring from Backup

ver 5.8.2. I restored my Quicken file from a backup when I got a new iMac about two months ago. Since then, Quicken will not recognize and auto-categorize some payees when I download transactions. Seems hit or miss. Even when I manually categorize a payee, the next time a transaction has that payee, comes in Uncategorized. Ugh.

Comments

  • NajmiNajmi Member ✭✭
    edited November 2018
    I am seeing the same behavior. At some point, recently, auto-categorization seems to have stopped. For me, 100% of the transaction are not being categorized. In addition, (I had posted this issue separately also, but did not receive any response...), the categorization updates for linked transfers no longer happens. 
  • KevinBKevinB Member ✭✭
    edited January 2019
    I wish I had your problem.  When I download transactions almost all of them get categorized.  I'm sure that sounds great to you but here is the problem.  Of all the downloaded transactions that get autocategorized, and this is no exaggeration, 95-99% (varies month-month) are objectively and demonstrably WRONG.
    And it gets worse. many of these tranasctions get Auto-Matched, and even worse than that many of them get automatically modified to incorrectly show "Linked" transfers to other transactions. This (obviously) means that reports are useless, makes any Budgets wasted effort and a slew of other problems.
    Fixing these bad transactions is an exercise in futility.  A small number can be fixed easily but the majority are a Herculean effort.  Those which get an Auto-Linked transfer are effectively impossible to fix as deletion of the transfer from the downloaded transaction simultaneously deletes the transaction it is linked to.  Where the "dependent" transaction was manually entered all effort spent entering it turns to waste.  Where the "dependent" transaction was Downloaded it is lost forever as Quicken will not allow a transaction to be Downloaded twice.   (At least not without deleting and recreating the account)

    I have spent scores, if not hundreds of hours, trying to fix these transactions and a large portion of them are still to be corrected.  I have realized (far too late) that I have spent twice as much time if not more trying to get good data in Quicken than if I was doing my finances a more manual way.  I'm still trying to find a way to fix everything because I am stubborn as a horse when it comes to technology but I have essentially given up on getting my data correct in Quicken.

    Just my 12 and a half cents worth.  Supposedly Quicken for Windows doesnt have this problem.

    To see comments from others on this issue check out those postings such as Disable automatic entry of downloaded transactions.

    Cheers.
  • smayer97smayer97 SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 2019
    KevinB said:

    I wish I had your problem.  When I download transactions almost all of them get categorized.  I'm sure that sounds great to you but here is the problem.  Of all the downloaded transactions that get autocategorized, and this is no exaggeration, 95-99% (varies month-month) are objectively and demonstrably WRONG.
    And it gets worse. many of these tranasctions get Auto-Matched, and even worse than that many of them get automatically modified to incorrectly show "Linked" transfers to other transactions. This (obviously) means that reports are useless, makes any Budgets wasted effort and a slew of other problems.
    Fixing these bad transactions is an exercise in futility.  A small number can be fixed easily but the majority are a Herculean effort.  Those which get an Auto-Linked transfer are effectively impossible to fix as deletion of the transfer from the downloaded transaction simultaneously deletes the transaction it is linked to.  Where the "dependent" transaction was manually entered all effort spent entering it turns to waste.  Where the "dependent" transaction was Downloaded it is lost forever as Quicken will not allow a transaction to be Downloaded twice.   (At least not without deleting and recreating the account)

    I have spent scores, if not hundreds of hours, trying to fix these transactions and a large portion of them are still to be corrected.  I have realized (far too late) that I have spent twice as much time if not more trying to get good data in Quicken than if I was doing my finances a more manual way.  I'm still trying to find a way to fix everything because I am stubborn as a horse when it comes to technology but I have essentially given up on getting my data correct in Quicken.

    Just my 12 and a half cents worth.  Supposedly Quicken for Windows doesnt have this problem.

    To see comments from others on this issue check out those postings such as Disable automatic entry of downloaded transactions.

    Cheers.

    I cannot speak to any other issues but the problem you are having with "...incorrectly show "Linked" transfers to other transactions... Where the "dependent" transaction was manually entered... " is actually a data entry issue not caused by QUicken. Quicken cannot create linked transfers via downloaded transactions. 

    What you need to do is make the Transfer field visible in both registers that are affected. Then go to the side where you want to keep the transaction and remove the data in Transfer field. This will preserve the side you want.

    BUT also, when you manually enter new transactions, you need to make sure you clear that field if the entry is not a transfer. QUicken remembers the last entry of the Payee with all its data, including if the entry was as a transfer. So the next time you manually enter it, the transfer will be entered again unless you clear it.

    Let us know how it goes.

    (If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)
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  • KevinBKevinB Member ✭✭
    edited January 2019
    KevinB said:

    I wish I had your problem.  When I download transactions almost all of them get categorized.  I'm sure that sounds great to you but here is the problem.  Of all the downloaded transactions that get autocategorized, and this is no exaggeration, 95-99% (varies month-month) are objectively and demonstrably WRONG.
    And it gets worse. many of these tranasctions get Auto-Matched, and even worse than that many of them get automatically modified to incorrectly show "Linked" transfers to other transactions. This (obviously) means that reports are useless, makes any Budgets wasted effort and a slew of other problems.
    Fixing these bad transactions is an exercise in futility.  A small number can be fixed easily but the majority are a Herculean effort.  Those which get an Auto-Linked transfer are effectively impossible to fix as deletion of the transfer from the downloaded transaction simultaneously deletes the transaction it is linked to.  Where the "dependent" transaction was manually entered all effort spent entering it turns to waste.  Where the "dependent" transaction was Downloaded it is lost forever as Quicken will not allow a transaction to be Downloaded twice.   (At least not without deleting and recreating the account)

    I have spent scores, if not hundreds of hours, trying to fix these transactions and a large portion of them are still to be corrected.  I have realized (far too late) that I have spent twice as much time if not more trying to get good data in Quicken than if I was doing my finances a more manual way.  I'm still trying to find a way to fix everything because I am stubborn as a horse when it comes to technology but I have essentially given up on getting my data correct in Quicken.

    Just my 12 and a half cents worth.  Supposedly Quicken for Windows doesnt have this problem.

    To see comments from others on this issue check out those postings such as Disable automatic entry of downloaded transactions.

    Cheers.

    smayer97 thank you for replying, I appreciate your input.  But I've thought about this for several days and I just dont buy your explanation that these problems are data entry issues.  Your explanation doesnt make any sense (possibly due to a failure in communication, likely on my part)  I know for a fact that your suggestion wont work for a large portion of my transactions and Quicken is most certainly doing things that you say it cant do. In fact, the more I think about these problems in light of your response makes me think it is all related to Quickens practices of (as you say) "remembering" transactions and "Automatically" categorizing transactions as discussed elsewhere on this site.  

    Assuming I am understanding your response correctly, let me attempt to be more clear and precise with the situations I encounter routinely.

    Scenario 1)  This scenario occurs in direct conflict with your contention that "Quicken cannot create linked transfers via downloaded transactions."
      Quicken downloads transactions to 2 different accounts.  Neither transaction is matched to an existing manually entered transaction but the 2 transaction are linked to each other through a transfer.  (I believe Sometimes the transactions show a "Transfer" category and sometimes they dont but I need to double check.  But either way the "Transfer field" for each transaction shows the account for the other transaction.)  I didnt create either transaction; Quicken created both!  Hence, Quicken did indeed create linked transfers between downloaded transactions.
    As far as a fix goes I've already tried your suggestion, it doesnt work because I lose one download.  And rhetorically, even if I hadnt how could "preserving the side I want" work when I want and need to keep both downloads. 

    Scenario 2)  An account contains a manually entered transaction which required a significant data entry effort as it has many split lines.  Quicken downloads a transaction to a different account and (in typical Quicken fashion) similarly links to the manually entered transaction as a  transfer.  Again, this is a situation where I need to keep both.

    Finally, regarding your instruction that 
    when you manually enter new transactions, you need to make sure you clear that field if the entry is not a transfer. QUicken remembers the last entry of the Payee with all its data, including if the entry was as a transfer. So the next time you manually enter it, the transfer will be entered again unless you clear it. 
    Well not to be insulting but this idea is lame and I suspect is one of the core reasons of why Quicken has so much trouble handling transactions.  I learned long ago to make sure when I am manually entering transactions to make sure that every field important to me is correct.   Sometimes a transaction  associated with a Payee is done by Transfer and sometimes its not.  why would I want to Quicken to remember the last entry of a Payee when virtually none of my transactions for any of my Payees exactly repeat the last transaction performed?  (And none of those that do perpetually repeat involve Transfers.)

    And an additional behavior that may be complicating or caused by Quicken trying to "remember" things is that I have seen a single Payee be assigned by Quicken to many downloaded transactions even though each transaction was for a different Payee all unrelated in anyway what-so-ever.  (Debit/Credit charges by Walmart, Target, Mobil, Auto-Zone, et cetera all show with the Payee of "Dr. John Smith")

    A message for the Quicken for Mac developers, Quicken conceptually has a lot of good ideas and functionality.  But please make it stop "remembering" transactions and stop automatically entering data.  It fails horribly on both.
  • I had the problem of automatic categorization disappearing after reloading everything after my hard drive died.  Just got off a chat and have the steps to fix (although it will take 3-5 downloads to see if the fix worked - I'm not there yet):

    1. Make sure "Automatically improve the quality of downloaded payee names and categories" box is checked in the "Connected Services" preferences (a weird way to say it!).
    2. Be sure to set the status of all downloaded transactions (i.e., the ones with the blue dots) to "Reviewed".
    3. Continue to do #2 until it starts working (we may have to always do it, since new transactions may need to be 'learned' through the same 'improvement' process; since I haven't been changing the status to "Reviewed" regularly, maybe that's why it didn't work for some payees but did for others).

    If this doesn't work, you may have to do what he took me through before explaining the above 3 steps:

    4. Toggle the "Automatically improve the quality of downloaded payee names and categories" box off and then back on.
    5. Make a backup file 'just in case'.
    6. Reset your Connected Services.

    Hopefully it's just steps 1-3 for everyone!
This discussion has been closed.