How do I change the address on a recurring check?

Question

I need to change the address that prints on monthly checks to one vendor. I can't see any way to access the check Payee Address window either from an individual check or within Bills & Income. Seems like this should be easy. Is there a way to do this rather than delete the recurring series and create a new one? Thanks.

jacobs · Answer

@RCinNJ  You merged two different things I was trying to say. In the new Bill Pay and Check Pay screens, you do not need to type the name of the company in the two lines provided for address, because the Payee name is the company name and it doesn't need to be repeated.

But in the old address for print-at-home checks, you DO need to have the company name in the address field, as shown here:

You said there is no Preview of check printing, but if you go through the Print Checks dialog box and select to Open in Preview (from the PDF dropdown at the bottom of the Print dialog box) to see what will be printed:

(Then click Reprint Check so Quicken doesn't assign a check number and knows it still needs to be printed.)

I don't believe anything has changed in years with the print-at-home checks. It was always this awkward to enter/edit the mailing address for checks. The recent changes are in the introduction of Bill Pay and Check Pay. (I am hoping the next round of changes will bring the entry and editing of print-at-home check addresses into the same place in the Payees & Rules screen to reduce confusion; all addresses should be in the same place, and it should be easy to copy from one type to the other.)

RCinNJ · Answer

@Jacobs thanks for this explanation. I know that Quicken Francisco was trying to help, but I'd prefer not to have to spend time following directions from a moderator that are incorrect and then spend my time documenting what I did so I can confirm that I didn't misunderstand.

Bottom line is that currently this whole process is very opaque and broken. Currently it's not clear whether changes made to the address of the check will even carry forward, and with no preview of the check address I never would have thought that (unlike with actual checks) I didn't need to enter the Payee name in the address field or that once I'd entered the information I'd need to open a check and click another field to get it to work. However, I did just try this and, no, only what is at the bottom is being printed and so clicking "Use Bill Pay Address" populates an address without the Payee name. Why does it have to be so difficult? As you say, simply adding a tab for "Checks" with an address field would make short work of this problem.

So many changes lately break things that worked fine for years. I believe that is poor program development.

Thank you!

jacobs · Answer

@RCinNJ As you've found, Francisco's instructions don't work. The addresses in the Payees & Rules screen are only for the new Bill Pay or Check Pay features.* Unfortunately, the address for print-at-home checks is buried in some of the old core of Quicken, and the developers have not integrated it with the new bill payment features, nor the expanded capabilities of the Payee screen options. What is clearly needed is an additional tab on a Payee screen for "Print Checks" to show the address and account/memo for print-at-home checks.

The preview you're looking for for a print-at home check is visible if you edit a transaction, open Details, and click the Checks tab. Here you can see/enter/edit the address for the Payee that will print on your check.

You say there aren't enough lines, but I think there are. You said you need company, name, person's name, street address. The company name is the Payee name; you don't have to type that in the address fields. So where it gives you two lines, one is for the street address and the optional line is for something like "Attn: Mr. Smith" or additional address details.

*Now here's the asterisk from above. If you enter an address in the Payee Bill Pay screen and Save it, then go to edit the transaction for which you wish to print a check, and click on the Checks tab, you'll see the address you want to enter or edit for this check you're going to print. There is a button to "Use Bill Pay Address" which will copy and paste the address from the Payee Bill Pay screen onto the check (and save it as the checking printing address this for this Payee). Some caveats: (1) if you edit the address here, it is NOT reflected back to the Bill Pay address; it's a one-way copy-and-paste from Check Pay address to check address; (2) if you entered an address for the Payee on the Check Pay tab (which seems more logical for check payments) there is no way to copy that address to the check payment screen; for some reason, they only implemented a button to copy the Bill Pay address, not the Check Pay address.

Hopefully they'll go back in the future any make this all easier and more transparent. There are now three possible addresses for a Payee, and they should all be accessible in the same place.