Double Transactions (in Q Mac)

AnneK48

My cash accounts (bank) accounts are not matching my manual transactions. I enter a transaction, even a recurring transaction and after downloading Quicken adds another transaction with the same amount. I then have to go in and delete the duplicates. This is really annoying. This began after the newest update.

jacobs

I think I know the answer to this; hopefully someone else will jump in if I'm saying this incorrectly...

There was a bug in Quicken Mac a while back where recurring transactions scheduled for the 31st would get skipped in months with 30 days, and transactions scheduled for the 29th or 30th would get skipped in February. The solution the developers chose was to make anything scheduled for the 29th, 30th or 31st to change to "last day of the month" to insure that it would happen in any month regardless of the number of days in the month.

So the answer is either schedule bills for the 28th, or for the last day of the month. (You can always manually change the date of a transaction in a given month after it has been marked paid, if it matters to you to move it to, say, the 29th instead of the 31st.)

UKR

Instead of deleting the apparent duplicate transaction, have you tried dragging it over the manually entered one?
It looks to me as if Quicken is not able to correctly match the downloaded transaction with your manual transaction. Dragging the two together should help Quicken learn how to do it better next time.

AnneK48

Crap Thank you. I have been using Quicken for Windows for forever. I just switched to Mac and I forgot that little trick. I had read about it before and even tried it once or twice. I'll do that. It is only happening with the cash/bank accounts not the credit cards. I'll get with the program sooner or later. Do you know if there is a comprehensive "how to" for the Mac version?

jacobs

@AnneK48 Unfortunately, there is nothing like a comprehensive user manual for Quicken Mac; I think the days of software vendors creating those is largely gone. But there are a number of resources around which can help new users learn their way around the software. 

Quicken has a page on their website called The Complete Guide to Getting Started with Quicken Mac. Well, it's hardly a complete guide, but it's a start:
https://www.quicken.com/complete-guide-getting-started-quicken-2018-mac

Here's another page on the Quicken website which offers, on the right side, several links to information about getting started with Quicken Mac:
https://www.quicken.com/quicken-tips

One of the best introductions to Quicken Mac continues to be a series of videos a fellow user here made back when Quicken 2015 came out. They're a bit dated because some things have changed since the 2015 version, but the core of how to set up accounts, creating and editing entries, using search and report, is mostly unchanged and a better primer than Quicken's own videos. I think anyone who watches all these videos can jump into using Quicken Mac with a decent idea how things work:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXg3kc_5lgZOLvyDPMbg9dQ

Quicken has a series of short videos showing how to do certain tasks in the program, and showing what's new in later versions of Quicken. You can find them here, under the Quicken Mac heading:
https://www.youtube.com/user/Quicken

Don't overlook the built-in Help in Quicken. It's not a comprehensive user guide, but there's a lot of how-to information there.

AnneK48

I am a huge keyboard shortcut user. I have found (just by searching) a couple I used in the Windows version i.e. "+" for the next check number and Opt Click to force a reconcile. That is the sort of information for which I am looking. Those sort of "hidden" things. I can pretty much figure out how the program works. One thing I really miss is in the splits. In Windows I could go in and change amounts and if there was an amount hanging I could just "adjust" and it would correct to the correct amount I haven't seen any way to do that in the Mac version. Overall I am happy with it though.

jacobs

Have you looked at Help > Quicken Help > Keyboard Shortcuts? It's a good start, although it's not complete. 

As for editing splits: if you adjust the amount of a split, it creates a remainder amount on a new split line. If your intention is to get rid of that amount by adjusting the transaction total amount, just click the minus sign in front of that last split line. That will cause this dialog box to pop up:

Click Enter or the blue button, and the transaction total will be adjusted. Is that what you're looking for?

AnneK48

That is what I am looking for. I haven't seen that message yet. I'll try that on my next split. Thank you. You have been VERY helpful!

jacobs

It's an ongoing learning curve with Quicken Mac (and I say that as a very longtime Mac user!). Sometimes, there are hidden little gems like this one that do exactly what you wish it would do, but you need to discover what button or key to press; sometimes, what you are looking for is a missing feature that has yet to be implemented, and it can get frustrating looking for something that just isn't there!

Use this forum to keep asking questions; folks here can frequently point you in the right direction, or tell you when you have indeed reached a dead end.

AnneK48

Sorry to keep bugging you but I have asked this question of the Community and received no answer. My manual bills are defaulting to the last day of the month and I can't change it. I don't use Bill Pay. I thought it might have been a carryover from Windows but now I don't think it is. I just entered a new bill and wanted it to be scheduled for March 29th and it defaulted to the last day of the month. I have it scheduled for monthly. I can change it to any date but the 29th, 30th or last day. When I pick any of those days it defaults to the last day. The first day I can schedule it for the 28th. Any ideas? In looking around it might be a bug. Would be nice if it could be fixed to allow for specific dates.

jacobs

I think I know the answer to this; hopefully someone else will jump in if I'm saying this incorrectly...

There was a bug in Quicken Mac a while back where recurring transactions scheduled for the 31st would get skipped in months with 30 days, and transactions scheduled for the 29th or 30th would get skipped in February. The solution the developers chose was to make anything scheduled for the 29th, 30th or 31st to change to "last day of the month" to insure that it would happen in any month regardless of the number of days in the month.

So the answer is either schedule bills for the 28th, or for the last day of the month. (You can always manually change the date of a transaction in a given month after it has been marked paid, if it matters to you to move it to, say, the 29th instead of the 31st.)

AnneK48

Well I am not a big fan but thanks for the information.

jacobs

I think the issue the developers faced if they tried to make the program "smarter" about dates around the end of a month is that's it's not apparent what the program should do. If they let you create a payment for the 31st of a month, for instance, what should it do in April? Some users would say the bill gets paid on April 30, while others would say May 1. If they move it to May 1, then some people would end up with two payments in May and none in April, which can mess up budgets. So they took the option that would give people predictable results, and leave it to users to tweak dates here or there on their own if necessary. 

smayer97

No solution will fit every need but IIRC QWin uses a solution that works well but I do not remember the details. 
When scheduling on the 29, 30 or 31, QM2007 uses a simple approach by presenting a dialog box asking the user to select the behaviour... schedule on last day of month or skip the month. 
Then it becomes matter of using the closest fit solution.