web connect from bank going to wrong account in Quicken for Mac

Bonnie Optekman

Every time I try to download activity from my bank via Web Connect, the info goes to last year's account. I've disconnected that account from my Bank. I've recreated this year's account a few times. And no luck. This is the second year this has happened. When it happened last year, the representative on the phone figured out a way to make it learn.

Any ideas?

Thank you,
Bonnie

Bonnie Optekman

Ok. I will forge ahead.
Thank you for your thoughtful response.

RickO

My question would be: why do you have your account separated into different accounts by year?

Bonnie Optekman

For easier organization and report generation

jacobs

Searching, viewing transactions, and report generation would be easier if you kept one account spanning multiple years. You're basically trying to fight against the way Quicken is designed to work. 

RickO

I totally agree with what @jacobs said. You should merge then into one account. You can easily use the filter at the top of the register to limit view to one year. Same for reports: use the customize button to limit to whatever timeframe you wish.

One of several advantages: when you want to do a quick search for something and you don't know for sure what year it is, it's one search instead of many.

So how do you merge the years together. It's not hard. Just go to one of the older year accounts and select all transactions. Then drag and drop them into this year's account in the sidebar. Repeat for each older year account, then delete all the now empty old year accounts.

Of course, before attempting any major reorganization like this, make sure you have a good backup.

John_in_NC

Bonnie:

When you state "goes into last year's account", do you have the years broken up into separate files? Or, do you have multiple years broken up as different accounts within the same data file?

Bonnie Optekman

Rick, I have multiple years broken up as different accounts within the same data file.
I always thought that was safer - in case a file is corrupted - and allowed me a quick look at the year without opening one huge file.
I guess others don't use this strategy.

RickO

Hi Bonnie,

No, this is not a strategy that is recommended or very often used. It has disadvantages as you have seen, and really has no advantages. In my single checking account, I have transactions for the last 20 years (about 14,000) in one account.

There is absolutely no increased safety that results from splitting into separate accounts within the same data file. If the file were to get corrupted (which is rare these days), separate accounts within the file would not matter. Your best protection against data corruption is to have frequent backups. It is best to have both automatic backups on the local drive as well as some backups stored on another drive (or even better, offsite) in case your hard drive gets corrupted or fails.

I would recommend, if you are not already, 

1) enable auto backups within Quicken in Preferences > General. If you have a cloud storage service such as Dropbox, iCloud Drive, Google Drive, etc, you can point those backups at that storage for the most safety. It's recommended that your file be encrypted (Preferences > Security) if you are going to store backups online.

2) Utilize Time Machine to keep a backup of your entire system on an external hard drive. Large external hard drives are not expensive these days and this is insurance you absolutely must have.

From the speed standpoint, again, splitting into multiple accounts by year does absolutely nothing to increase speed of access to the data. The file will not open any faster nor will switching to an account that has one year vs many. There is a date filter at the top of the register that will let you easily take a look at only one year. There are pre-set options for "this year" and "last year" to make selection easy. You can leave the filter on "this year" if you like to always only see this year unless you clear the filter.

So, I strongly recommend that you follow the steps I outlined above to combine your year-by-year split account back into a single account. Be sure to create a backup before starting a large change such as this and check it thoroughly before moving on with new data entry. 

Combining the years using drag and drop will be simple. The only complexity you may encounter is if you've added starting balance transactions at the beginning of each year to carry last year's balance over. You will need to either delete these or just not copy them to the combined account. Depending on how accurately and carefully you do this, you may need to create one final balance adjustment to get the current balance right.

Let me know if you have questions and let us know how it goes.

Bonnie Optekman

Ok. I will forge ahead.
Thank you for your thoughtful response.