Change "New Match" to "New" or "Unmatched"

Chris Lipscombe

Quicken 2019 subscription, latest version as of today, Windows

I downloaded my transactions from my bank. Quicken mistakenly matched a future payment to a transaction because the amount was the same.

How do I Unmatch this New Match in Quicken.

Chris_QPW

I was matching to a transaction that was entered in by a reminder, and also manual entered transactions (multiple tests). But I wasn't using any bill payment system like Quicken Bill Pay or bill pay through a Direct Connect to the financial institution or the new "Bill Manager".

I don't have any of those setup. I suppose that that might change its behavior, but I sort of doubt it.

I do know that there isn't any difference between a transaction entered manually or by a reminder. Reminders just enter the transaction as if you would manually.

From what I understand when Quicken Bill Pay or Direct Connect you can get a status off of them and that might influence it, I don't know. I did have Direct Connect bill pay about 15 years ago. And if I remember correctly you got to the status by clicking on the check column or something like that, which seems like it wouldn't affect the status column (the column with New/New Match is the status column), but I certainly can be wrong.

I guess it really doesn't matter since you seem to be happy with the accepting through the Downloaded Transactions tab.

Chris_QPW

Click on the "New Match", and select "Un-match this transaction".

Chris Lipscombe

> @Chris_QPW said:
> Click on the "New Match", and select "Un-match this transaction".

Thank you for the reply.

This does not work ... it is not an option. When I click New Match, I only get the options to Accept or Accept All.

Perhaps because Quicken is grabbing this transaction out of my future bills payments?

More detail ... I have a bill set up weekly, every Saturday, for $10.00. It is set to automatically be put into my register on Saturdays.

I did an Interact Transfer on Tuesday to a friend to pay back $10.00 I owed.

When I download my transactions, Quicken automatically matched the weekly $10.00 to Interac transfer I just made.

Right Clicking New Match on this item only gives me the option to Accept or Accept All.

Chris Lipscombe

Update ... sorry ... not Match and Unmatch ... the options I get are Mark As Reviewed and Mark All As Reviewed.

Tom Young

I think the problem might be that you're automatically accepting transactions downloaded into the Account.  Try turning that off and you should be able to deal with the downloads in the the Downloaded Transactions area under the register.  There you'll be able to manually match the transaction to the correct transaction in the register.

Chris Lipscombe

I believe you are talking about:

Edit / Preferences / Downloaded Transactions / Automatically add to banking registers

I will disable that option and see what happens. I have no new transactions at the moment to test it out on.

Thank you for the suggestion.

Chris_QPW

I already guessed that you were using automatic entry, and in fact that is the only way this will work.

I tested this before replying, so I'm not sure why it doesn't work for you(I might need to do some more testing). Are you sure that the transaction was in New Match state?

And to clarify. Especially for the SuperUsers that tend not to use automatic transaction entry (and strongly recommend against it, without really using it for any length of time).

If you turn off automatic entry your transaction will be in the Downloaded Transactions tab. From there the proper process is to select each transaction and review it before accepting it into the register. For transactions that match it will have the status of Match. For the cases where it doesn't match automatically you can use the manual match option. But note it works a bit different from when it is used with automatic transaction entry on. With automatic entry mode you can only match transactions that have the same amount as the downloaded one. The manual match in the Downloaded Transactions tab will match transactions that have a different amount. The main problem with this is that it was designed like this for a "different purpose". The result will be to split the transaction, with one line for the original entered transaction, and a second line with an amount of the difference between the one in the register and the downloaded one. This is not what most people want, they want the "estimate entered transaction amount" entered into the register to be adjusted to the "accurate downloaded amount". So in practice what you end up doing is going to the "estimated entered transaction amount" in the register and change it to what the downloaded amount is (this is the same thing you would have done using automatic entry so that you can use its manual match). Once you do that Quicken should automatically change its status to Matched in the Downloaded Transaction tab. But of course when you have two transactions with the same amount it can pick the wrong one. If that happens there is an unmatch and you can then use the manual match.

Now note once you accept the transaction into the register there isn't any thing you can do to fix an improperly matched transaction, other that reenter the transactions. This is why the proper procedure is to accept the transactions in one at a time, even though there is an Accept All button. If you hit Accept All it is like automatic transaction entry mode, but without some of the benefits.

With automatic entry mode I can think of few kinds of situations you might run into where you might want to use the unmatch option.

1) You have multiple transactions in the register with the same amount, and it matches the wrong transaction automatically (it will be New Match state). Here clicking on New Match should get you the unmatch option.

2) You have multiple transactions in the register that aren't matched yet and when you download a transaction it doesn't match any these {should be in the New state} (or matches the wrong one and you use the unmatch option). So you change the amount in the "estimated entered transaction" to match the download one. And go select its status and it gives you the option to do the manual match to the downloaded one. Normally there will only be one transaction in the manual match dialog because it only matches transactions with the same amount. So you normally just hit OK. But if there are more than one transactions that have the same amount and have yet to be matched to downloaded transaction you will have two in the list and will have to select the right one before selecting OK. And after you do that the transaction should be in New Match state. This is what I take it that you ran into.

Unfortunately what I did is sort of test #1 thinking that once in New Match state it should behave the same no matter how you got there. And in fact I didn't even have a "false match" to the wrong transaction since that is hard to simulate. I just put in a transaction that I knew was going to download (because I was working with a backup copy of my file). And as such I automatically got the transaction with the New Match state, and went from there.

I will have to retest and see if there is something different in the #2 flow.

Chris Lipscombe

I was working in "Lazy" mode where all downloaded transactions were automatically entered in my register, and there is where that one transaction matched to a upcoming bill payment in error and I could not unmatch it, and no, I did not confirm it and then try to correct it then.

I have since switched off the automatic entry into my register. I did not know that this existed until this thread. I have only downloaded one new transaction today with this new method and it was a simple new transaction.

I will continue to play with this new method and hopefully correct any false hits before they get entered into my register.

I would rather put the time in at the download stage and go through the transactions one by one for accuracy instead of trying to fix false hits afterwards.

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

Chris_QPW

@Chris Lipscombe

Thanks for detailed update on what happened.

I'm going to use it to do a bit more testing, more out of curiosity than anything else since you are happy with the Downloaded Transactions tab path.

BTW just so people know. Automatic transaction entry mode for the banking accounts is the default for new users. And if I remember correctly automatic transaction entry mode for the investment accounts is off.

And also note that on the Mac side they don't have this choice, there is only the automatic transaction entry mode.

Chris_QPW

P.S. The Web and mobile interfaces are "automatic transaction entry" mode only too.

Chris_QPW

Well for what it is worth I wasn't able to reproduce the problem.

Whenever I have "New Match" my menu has the unmatch option.
It is only when I have "New" that the menu doesn't have the unmatch option.

I have enclosed the screenshots.

Chris Lipscombe

Were you matching to scheduled bill payments too?

I appreciate your effort.

Chris_QPW

I was matching to a transaction that was entered in by a reminder, and also manual entered transactions (multiple tests). But I wasn't using any bill payment system like Quicken Bill Pay or bill pay through a Direct Connect to the financial institution or the new "Bill Manager".

I don't have any of those setup. I suppose that that might change its behavior, but I sort of doubt it.

I do know that there isn't any difference between a transaction entered manually or by a reminder. Reminders just enter the transaction as if you would manually.

From what I understand when Quicken Bill Pay or Direct Connect you can get a status off of them and that might influence it, I don't know. I did have Direct Connect bill pay about 15 years ago. And if I remember correctly you got to the status by clicking on the check column or something like that, which seems like it wouldn't affect the status column (the column with New/New Match is the status column), but I certainly can be wrong.

I guess it really doesn't matter since you seem to be happy with the accepting through the Downloaded Transactions tab.

Chris Lipscombe

I had a chance to use the manually verify (non-auto entry into register) method this morning with a few transactions. Worked well. I like how I can review and manually match transactions without Quicken making "a guess", sometimes incorrectly, at matching. Works well.

Thanks all for your help, and Chris_QPW for all your detailed explanations and tests.

Tom Young

@Chris Liscombe

You still have to be careful to lapse back into "lazy mode" and simply start accepting any and all transactions that Quicken shows as a match, like hitting that "Accept all" button, or not looking to make sure that the match really is correct if accepting transactions one at a time.  Although Quicken's matching algorithm works pretty well it certainly doesn't work perfectly and I've been guilty "lazy mode" mistakes.

Chris_QPW

"Although Quicken's matching algorithm works pretty well it certainly doesn't work perfectly"

Actually I have found it to be pretty poor. For instance say you have two transactions with the same amount one dated 3 weeks ago and one today and the downloaded transaction has the same amount and is dated for today. It will pick the one 3 weeks ago. It use to be much worse in that the first transaction could be years ago and it would still pick it. I think in last few years they have put something like a month limit on that search. And note this goes for even if the payee is exactly correct for the second one, but the first one is a different payee.

The main reason I think that matching works at all is because for most people they don't have a lot of repeating amounts. I basically have no transactions with a repeating amount, so I never run into this kind of problem. I also don't have a lot of pre-entered transactions. Just a few bills that reminders like my credit card bills, so I don't even have a lot of matching. Especially since most of the time my credit card amounts aren't exact and have to be adjusted to do the match. They aren't exact because if I have a return after the statement closes there isn't anything that tells Quicken about that change.

But even so I personally think that both systems can work well when (the are working!) is used properly.

Just as a user can just hit the Accept All in the Downloaded Transactions tab and be at the mercy of the Quicken guesses, or they can go through each transaction and review it and make sure it is correct. The same is true for the automatic entry mode. If the system is used properly the person should be reviewing each transaction if for no other reason to make sure the category is correct, but especially for matches. And that goes for the Downloaded Transactions tab. The fact that unmatch didn't work is some kind of bug, that certainly isn't "by design". When the system is working right it is quite use able.

So the user can be "lazy" in both modes, it is up to the user.

The main reason I like the automatic transaction entry mode over the Downloaded Transactions tab is that I can scan all of the downloaded transactions for the proper category at once because they are in the register. For the Downloaded Transactions tab you have click on each transaction to see what category Quicken has assigned it.

The other reason I like automatic transaction entry mode is because the register is more powerful than the Downloaded Transactions tab list at this point.

Take the case where you have to reset a Express Web Connect account and get a bunch of duplicate transactions. You can't do a multiple select in the Downloaded Transactions tab. So you either have to delete them one at a time or accept them into the register, sort by order entered and then use the register's multiple select to delete them.

With automatic transaction entry mode the process is like this. First you make sure the existing transactions are all reviewed (status cleared), do the reset, then just sort on the status column removing, the duplicate transactions will all have the status of New and be grouped together. Select them and delete them (making sure not to delete any that are really new). Sort by date. Done.

Note they are never going to match the existing "duplicate" transaction because the whole reason you get duplicates is because Intuit's screwy system for creating the unique Ids gives you new Ids for every transaction if you do a reset.

Chris_QPW

BTW in my opinion there is one thing about the automatic entry mode that tends cause problems, and that is mainly because it came second.

On the Windows side automatic entry mode is the newer way of doing this. That means that long time users will almost without exception will used the older method and not even try the new method for any length of time.

And the beta testers which Quicken Inc listens to the most for input on problems are usually long time users. So in problems in the automatic entry mode don't get reported in beta, and the moment anyone has a problem here the SuperUsers suggest switching out of that mode, which further means that bugs in the system go "unreported". Quicken Inc isn't going to work on problems that have a "fix".

But note that the automatic entry mode is the default for new users. So basically this creates a void of proper reporting of such bugs. I will note though that in reality there aren't that many complaints about it, and there have to be a lot of people using it, so one way or another it is working for a lot of people.

On the Mac side, since the rewrite after 2007 the only system they have is the automatic entry mode. And yes there have been many complaints and requests to have the Downloaded Transactions tab method put in there. But from what I can see that is mostly from long them Mac users and Windows users that have converted over to Mac. Quicken Mac 2007 and below didn't have automatic entry mode, and as such the were use to the Downloaded Transactions tab method too. So sure there is a call for it, but people have been using the automatic entry mode for years now, clearly that system can work.

Having two systems where one is favored by the long time users really does affect the quality of the other system.