Quicken Bill Manager

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: Migrating from Quicken Bill Pay to Quicken Bill Manager.

Gordon Everest

Quicken: Don't blow this switch to an in-house bill pay service.

Urge you to get it right before you pull the plug on Metavante's Quicken Bill Pay service. Software development is an exceedingly complex task. It is fool hardy to set a deadline and then hope that the coders can get it done by some imposed deadline. If they feel any pressure compromises will be made. Quicken has been successful because they have (1) listened to their customers/users and (2) been careful to make sure that the systems were developed with integrity. I hope management doesn’t blow it on this switchover to take the electronic bill payment functionality in-house. Give your developers the time to get it done right.
.. There is currently a lot of confusion out there. You have announced a deadline but also still say you are "working on it." That is the response I have gotten repeatedly from tech support when I have presented a problem. Not everything is ready to go yet. You have announced this change with detailed information about what we need to do now, but I think prematurely.

BIO: I was a beta-tester for the very first Quicken for Windows 3.1 in 1991, and also a beta tester for Quicken's first foray into providing an online bill pay service a few years later. Also served as an "Accounting Partner" for Quicken for several years. Since then I found Quicken has generally done a good job of working with customers and rolling out enhancements. I sincerely hope that continues. http://geverest.umn.edu

I will follow this with several posts about problems and suggestions.

Gordon Everest

We need some information that gives an OVERVIEW OF THE NEW SYSTEM – its architecture, functionality, major user interfaces, and how the underlying information (payers/billers, reminders, and payment accounts) is stored and maintained. This is needed before the "how to" documents currently provided. "How to" instructions don't show me the main functions, and how they fit together. First tell me WHAT needs to be done, then give me the detailed "how to" instructions along with the screen shots. I find nothing on your website which would help at this point. We need a big picture view.

Gordon Everest

TERMINOLOGY is a problem. You say "biller" but I can't always tell. Please just use the term payee. A biller is a kind of payee with which you have a special relationship. I don't know whether or not a payer is a biller, and I don't need to care. Only way to find out is to try to add a bill reminder (which I may or may not want/need). First step is to select "online" or "manual." If online I enter the payee name and if the system can't find it, what do I do? I need to set it up as "manual"?
Sounds like Quick Pay only relates to those payees who you have set up as billers. Does that mean everyone else is a "Slow pay", i.e., paid by check?
If you have not set up an online bill pay channel with a payee (one of your 11,000 "billers"?) I have to go to "manual" set up. I would hope that, just because you don't have that set up yet, that you will be issuing checks, when Metavante has been doing that already. Your "how to" instructions say "Manual bills can be paid with Check Pay." Does that mean that they will be paid by check? Or are you simply saying that I, the user, must go through Check Pay to make a payment, and you still decide whether or not to pay online or by sending a paper check as is currently done by Metavante. Why should you be asking me to "Allow paying with Check Pay"? I don't care how you do it. I just want them to get paid.

Gordon Everest

SETTING UP A REMINDER BEFORE I CAN SET UP A PAYEE???
Currently there is no way to set up a payee in the new system without also setting up a reminder first. That is an unnecessary coupling. I have some 200 payees and about 20 reminders set up. For most of my payees I don’t need a reminder. They may not be on any kind of schedule. I pay a contractor to remove snow from my roof when it snows, not when they send me a bill at the end of the month!
The reminders are far less important than getting the payee information correctly set up.
When I try to add (+) and payer, you ask first if it is online or manual. I have no idea which to choose (and I don't know yet who is a biller and who is not). If I look at QBP online payer list, I see online payees with a 2 day lead time, and paper check payees with a 4 day lead time. But that doesn't work. If I enter a payee and you can't find them, TELL ME I needed to have selected "Manual" even though I know Metavante pays them electronically because they have a 2 day lead time.

Gordon Everest

IS MY LIST OF PAYEES GOING AWAY UNLESS I DO SOMETHING BEFORE MAY 31?
This morning I asked tech support "What happens if I do nothing before May 31?" They gave me assurance that all the user information will be transferred over to the new bill pay manager even if I do nothing. Whew, that was a relief. The way you present this cutover, you leave us wondering what is going to happen to the existing information. So far, I have been unable to set up a payee without first setting up a bill reminder. For some payees nothing comes to me on a regular basis, just when work is done. So I fake it. When I click 'Done' I am presented with a payee setup window with all the information blank. If I go back I see an "Edit" link. I wonder what is being edited – no clue. That takes me to a Payee information window and the option to copy from Quicken Bill Pay, which I do. Then click 'Done' again. I am presented again with a window to set up payee information which I just did. What gives here? Turns out I have to allow Check Pay. But they are always paid electronically in Quicken Bill Pay (2 day lead time), not with a check. Do you begin to see my confusion and frustration? Words matter – "Check Pay" does not mean "Paid by Check" (I hope). Did you have any trial runs with possible users before rolling this out? I think not. So now, every user is a guinea pig.
.. You need to make it clear up front that before you pull the plug on Metavante (your current bill pay provider) all information will be retained. I presume what you are really trying to do is get the information for all payees for each user stored on your own Quicken servers. Further you would like us to clean it up a little. So why not suggest that we try to clean up our payee list by deleting those we never expect to use again. In Quicken Bill Pay all payees were kept forever. Also make it clear that payees are stored both with the provider and locally on the user's own computer. I don't know if Metavante deletes payees from their database after we have deleted them from our local database. But I guess it doesn't really matter since their database will be out of the picture when the switch is completed.

Gordon Everest

PAY NOW or PAY LATER.
Your "How to" instructions give me only a Pay Now option for both Quick Pay and Check Pay. Then you say that the payments are processed Now. It looks as though I cannot change the payment date. I need to be able to schedule ALL my payments for some future date. I have all my bills set up with a payment due date of between the 15th and the 20th of each month. That way, if monthly, I have all bills in hand by shortly after the first of each month. In the first 10 days or so of each month I sit down and schedule all my payments. I set them up to pay 2 days before the actual due date (as suggested by Metavante QBP and Quicken), or just arbitrarily choose a date. That way I can manage my cash flow. Let me stress, I sit down once a month to pay all my bills. It usually takes about 2 – 3 hours. Batching like this is most efficient for my time. I would not want the system to require me to sit down a couple of days before each bill is due and then say "Pay Now." With Quicken Bill Pay I specified the day each payment would be processed. I must have the same ability using the new Quicken Bill Manager. I understand from this tread, that you will be offering that feature in the future. Until then I cannot use your new bill pay service.

Gordon Everest

WOW, Just read:
"The ability to schedule payments is planned to be added by the end of Summer 2020."
If that is the case, you must not stop service with Quicken Bill Pay (Metavante). That would be a disaster for me. This feature is absolutely essential for me and I am sure for many other users. You are definitely not ready for this transition to an inhouse bill pay service. As long as Metavante is doing better than you, it would be foolish for you to switch. Please management, are you listening? Can you imagine the outcry? Can you image what you will see on social media? Don't let that happen. It could ruin your business.

Gordon Everest

Now I don't see the several posts I just made today. Hope it is just because this discussion is moderated and awaiting approval.

thecreator

Hi @""Gordon Everest" ,

Check out the Announcement from Quicken Kathryn found in my signature in Information. Information has been updated.

dilorenzoc

Hi Gordon. I absolutely agree with everything you posted. I have a few similar posts in the Migrating to Quicken Bill Pay section. I too have been a long time user of Quicken (1994) and can't believe what is happening to the product, especially with regard to their new Bill Paying feature. I have been trying to transition over to Bill Manager for weeks without success. Calls to tech support have only added to the frustration since the agents sound as confused as I am. Recently I tried to add DirecTV as an online bill, but couldn't get it verified because my username and password was not recognized by whoever/whomever Quicken is sending the information to. That is the last straw. I will never use Bill Manager. I have been spending days transitioning my payee information to my bank. The fact that Quicken would want us to migrate to a system that will provide its users with less functionality blows the mind of this long time Software Development Engineer.

Gordon Everest

Dilorenzoc.  I am so thankful that they have extended the transition to August 31.  In the meantime I will continue to use exclusively the Metavante Bill Pay system.  I will suspend all efforts to migrate to the new Bill Manager system.  I trust Quicken will not pull the plug on Metavante until they have a working replacement even if that goes beyond August 31.  And it should have all the functionality that we have come to expect.  I have had no trouble working with Metavante, often calling them directly.  They are there 24x7.  Whenever I have called, they have responded quickly and the support person is able to see exactly what is going on and is able to resolve the issue.  I think one of the motives for Quicken to make this move is the confusion in the minds of their users.  Why not be completely up front about having a third party handle the bill pay functions?  It has been nicely integrated into the operation of Quicken software.  Just make people aware that they are dealing with two different parties when it comes to the bill pay service.  If it is working well, why try to replace it, just give users the full information about the relationship.