Update from 2017 to 2020 Bills and Reminders Issues and Observations

Bob.

Two things in life I hate and Updating mission critical software is both of them

Recently had to update Quicken 2017 Home and Business to 2020 Subscription even though 2017 was "finally:" working flawlessly. It was expiring. The upgrade went OK, but immediately and not surprisingly found issues and numerous undocumented (at least for me and my searches) changes all in Bills and Reminders. No problems in other parts of Quicken.

A thread here on Community suggested that the password for a Data File is removed before Updating. I wanted to be sure that was required so started a thread. Found that removing password was not necessary and that thread bloomed into all my issues with the Update / Upgrade. I have closed that thread and thought a fresh one showing what I have found could be beneficial here. Old thread was: https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7874341/data-file-password-during-upgrade/p1

Bob.

Let me first share what I saw / learned as regards Bills and Reminders. No other functions of Quicken 2020 I can find has issues for me:

1. The upgrade does NOT bring across Bills and Reminders properly. Confirmed with support. I had to delete ALL Online Billers, then Linked Reminders and reenter all as if the first time.

2. In recreating the Reminders, SOME (more than one) NEW Reminders would prepopulate the bill amount with a payment amount that had not been used for over a year. Not the most recent amounts, but older amounts that had been updated to a more current amount long ago in Quicken 2017.

3. Saving a Reminder would change the Date to TODAY and the Amount to 0.00. I had to Edit this and All Future Instances to make desired changes.

4. After running One Step Update, the Reminder amounts change to 0.00 as 2020 seems to update Reminders based on the Online Amount Due at the biller rather than the estimated amount I had always used for each Biller in Reminders. The dates seem to stick.

5. If a bill had been paid in 2017, creating a new Reminder as I had done above for the following month after the paid in 2017 bill would show a Reminders as PAID AND a Reminders as DUE for the very same month and day. Had to ignore (no longer SKIP) the new DUE reminder.

6. Paying all my Bills that came into Online Billers had an ENTER button in 2017which is now Pay and different. The drop down next to PAY shows an Enter option for that bill / occurrence.  If I Entered in 2017 it would show the Bill as Paid and the Date Paid. Now the last Payment does not get populated and the Bills and Income page does not show this Bill as paid. I am told it will when the payment clears the bank, but have not yet seen this.

7. Any Bill paid in 2017 before the Update / Upgrade does not mark Last Payment when cleared in 2020. I am told this will only happen with bills paid in Quicken 2020.

8. Once Paid, a Bill shows Awaiting Next Bill for that biller until the next bill is scraped from the biller. In 2017, Awaiting Next Bill only occurred when there was an issue after paying a bill in 2017, and that happened quite often. I am told this is now how 2020 is designed. Bills and Reminders has always been the source of 90% of my issues with Quicken.

9. Briefly after updating I saw PDF Statements on the Bills and Income page. After deleting and redoing all Bills and Reminders I have not seen one again since.

10. History for a Biller is spotty. Some show accurately, some do not show any history although there should be years of it. So history seems out of sync from the Update.

11. Also, there are now Online Bills and Manual Bills. A Manual Bill is what I would previously set up as a Reminder that had no Online Biller to check through Quicken. I would pay it by Entering in the Reminder. Not yet sure how these will be paid in 2020 as I have not yet had the opportunity to see the difference between Pay and Enter.

Must say I have had amazing support from Quicken_Anja. However had hoped this month would have Quicken 2020 start settling in, show new bills, start populating the Last Payment column, show pdf statements, etc and none of that yet and a possible new issue follows.

I received an email from my Utility Company that my new bill could be viewed and paid online. I have never received an email from then like this before and I imagine it is driven by Covid and a way to ask for more time, etc. However, this being the first new available bill since I updated to Quicken 2020, One Step Update nor Update All Bills shows a bill due for this biller.

I figure with all going on, the Utility company may have the bill available on their site but not yet available for Quicken to scrape (though it should be ready), or Quicken 2020 is not yet working properly at least for me. I have not tried to "Refresh the Bill" as if that worked I would be concerned that other bills will not come in and I would not know when to refresh those bills nor should I have to.

So, I thought I would post what I have observed and pose this question as I wait a little longer hoping this particular issue will sort itself and start me on the path of having Bills and Reminders function as designed in 2020. If I am misunderstanding how any of the changes I have seen should be working, would love to know.

Sorry for being so long winded.

Thanks.

~Bob

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TomEHawke

From the Preferences window, go to Navigation. Check "Combine Bills, Income and Transfers".

From the Bills and Income tab, you will now see Bills, Income and Transfers listed as a selection. This looks almost like what you had before, with some added icons for each bill.

You can select Projected Balances from the top of that screen, and you'll get close to what you had before, plus a graph at the top.

What I did was to add a new View on my Quicken Windows Home page. I selected Bills and Income from the list. That is EXACTLY what you used in Quicken 2017.

Bob.

Thanks Tom. Already have Bills and Income on my Home screen. And if not identical, incredibly similar. However it does function differently. It shows 0.00 for Upcoming Bills rather than the placeholders I set in 2017 for one example.

You said:
"From the Bills and Income tab, you will now see Bills, Income and Transfers listed as a selection. This looks almost like what you had before, with some added icons for each bill. "

Not sure what this does for me. Could you post a screenshot or a pointer to one?

Thanks again for posting.

~Bob

Bob.

Tom, I see the Combine Bills, Income and Transfers is reversible so tried it. Not much different then the view I already had with the sole exception of adding a scheduled monthly income. Bills look identical with identical options in the drop down menu.

Bob.

Tried Refresh from Biller on my test computer and it did not bring in that bill which is available on the billers site. So another point of information. Could be this one bill, could be more. Will not know for another week or so as nothing else yet available for this month.

jrich75

> @Bob. said:
> Thanks Tom. Already have Bills and Income on my Home screen. And if not identical, incredibly similar. However it does function differently. It shows 0.00 for Upcoming Bills rather than the placeholders I set in 2017 for one example.
> ~Bob

I have also used the Bills & Income reminder table as my home screen for may years. I have tried using the new Bills & Income tab since the Bill Manager announcement came out. As far as I can see, it provides no useful benefit and lots of confusion for many users. Setting the bill to $0 when it is paid makes the various views useless for balance tracking and estimating future expenditures. I just went back and unlinked all reminders so that I could again use the bill estimating feature they provide. The receipt of on-line bill amounts is so erratic that more than half my monthly bills are either not included at the appropriate date or are set to zero with no future date (awaiting next bill). I just don't see this type of bill presentation as useful.

I'm thankful that traditional Bill Pay use has been extended through August but am also concerned that the Bill Manager update for scheduling is this planned
for "summer". There seems to be no effort being made using interim updates (a purported subscription benefit) to correct the numerous deficiencies being reported wrt general Bill Manager functionality. Sorry for the rant but it certainly looks like another bill pay train wreck is coming in July-August.

Bob.

jrfaris said:

I have also used the Bills & Income reminder table as my home screen for may years. I have tried using the new Bills & Income tab since the Bill Manager announcement came out. As far as I can see, it provides no useful benefit and lots of confusion for many users. Setting the bill to $0 when it is paid makes the various views useless for balance tracking and estimating future expenditures. I just went back and unlinked all reminders so that I could again use the bill estimating feature they provide. The receipt of on-line bill amounts is so erratic that more than half my monthly bills are either not included at the appropriate date or are set to zero with no future date (awaiting next bill). I just don't see this type of bill presentation as useful.

Got to agree. I try hard to understand what they were thinking with some of these changes that throw away useful features. And unless there is a very hidden document that says we changed this because of that that I cannot find, may never know. And the issues ALWAYS seem to be in Online Bills and Reminders. How many threads on this breaking???

Afternoon aside: OL-327-B error from Fidelity. Successful update from them yesterday on May 1, today it errors with  "Out of Date Range". Not a lot here for that error.

~Bob

Bob.

Could use some help!

Read a lot on the Fidelity OL-327-B error and learned how to reset DSTART. Worked perfectly for Fidelity and that is all I changed, but after an update I see this in Bills and Income:



So what does this mean now? Was not like this before the only change I made which was to Fidelity. Trying again does nothing. Does not appear I can delete and re-enteer these bills. How do I fix?

Bob.

It gets stranger. I rolled back to pre DSTART changes in Fidelity after getting a new error form Fidelity. Then after an update this morning:




How can you NOT support AT&T???

Going to try the removes and updates. At this point Quicken 2020 is such a cluster worth trying.

Bob.

I tried removing the two. Looked like it worked, but they are not removed. Cannot progress further.

Bob.

Closed, reopened. Tried again. No change Bills remain. Anyone else seeing this?????

Bob.

Tried unlinking and removing those two bills. No luck.

jrich75

I have experienced the "Needs Attention" notice for a couple billers. I could never clear it for Capital One credit. I finally just deleted it as an online biller and track it manually (there is actually an alert that's still open from last December that says something like: don't set up Capital One on-line bills right now. Not sure if there as a standard fix other than removing from OL Bills.

I have not experienced the update requirement as yet. There is an alert for it:

https://www.quicken.com/support/message-when-using-online-bills-important-upgrade-required-online-bills

Hope it is of some help.

Bob.

Thanks. Will try their fix. What a mess this all is.

Bob.

Well, the supervalidate found just a little. One category. One reminder removed but I could not find it. It seemed to have fixed the above upgrade notice, but we will see if it comes back. Odd, too, that this happens a week after upgrade rather than right after.

So it brought me back to the two errors 7 posts back:



Support call tomorrow. Fidelity doesn't work, two wonky Bills and nothing seems to be getting picked up scraping billers. Maybe more. Too burned out tho think.

Bob.

ARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Performed the super validate as mentioned. Closed and reopened Quicken and the Update error was back. Did super validate AGAIN. Same, seems to fix, then close and reopen and same UPDATE message!!!!

Minimal errors from log:

QDF:
Validating your data.
Repaired your data file by removing a damaged category. Please check your category list for missing categories by going to Tools>Category List.
Quicken found a damaged scheduled reminder and removed it.  Please check your scheduled reminders by going to Tools>Manage Bills and Income Reminders.

QEL:
No read errors.

QEL:
All internal consistency checks passed.
Reset migration status for online bill.
Reset migration status for online bill.
No out-of-range security references found.

Super validation has completed.

Could not find the category removed. And as to Reminders, it added 4 reminders to my cash account which I have never had ANY for that account and I removed those four.

Cannot believe how many issues since the update.

~Bob

Bob.

Finding more threads on this. Reading a lot. This is fatal. Really.

Latest I have tried is rolling back to before the errors with already added or update required, then validating. Closed / opened and looks ok. Have not yet had the gumnption to try a One Step Update. Read More First.

But i have so many saved backups I am going nuts. From 2017, right after 2020 upgrade and before each set of issues.

This is no fun. How could this get past Beta testers?

Bob.

Gets weirder

Posted in another thread as well but want to keep this all here on The Further Adventures of Updating Quicken 2017:


Whoa!!!! Let me start here:
Restored from before any Biller Update notifications. Ran Super Validate. Closed and re-opened Quicken.

Went to Billers. Ran Validate Online Billers and got this!!!!!



What is happening? Will try to recreate these, but if that does not work, then what?
Will be back.

~Bob

jrich75

Hope you have someone good when you contact support. How many more super-validates will you be asked to do?
I feel you pain....

Bob.

Thanks.

Just added back these billers. All look OK, only one "Awaiting next bill" Backed up, closed. Now going to update, validate bills again, pay some bills wiith crossed fingers. Anything could happen.

Bob.

Validated again and found two more Billers to add back. Closed. Opened. One Step Update. Looking good. Validated again. This time found 1 more. Did the same.

Next validate all were good! I wonder what happened?????

Bills and income looks reasonably like expected. I have pdf statements finally.

I have one Bill that "needs attention" and I think that will resolve with the next time there is a scrape. Hopefully.

No Bill yet shows a "Last Payment" and I hope that will change in 4 or 5 days. Hopefully.

And last I cn no longer connect to Fidelity. Big error is the OL-327-B which I understand Fidelity can fix and I will call them before they have a chance to get coffee tomorrow. If they cannot, will call Quicken Support.

But I am encouraged. No idea how i got into this mess. Was lucky to out think it and restore, Super Validate / Close / Open / Validate Bills and get it to at least look healthy. Knock on wood let that continue to be.

~Bob

Bob.

Question:

I show nothing in the Last Payment column on Bills and Income, BUT if I hover a Bill, it shows me the last payment.

When does that column populate for you?

When you send a bill to be paid?
When the bill clears the account that was paid?
Other?

Thanks. Just one of the remaining glitches as I continue to work through all this.

Bob.

Just to correct, the "one awaiting next bill" above should have been "needs attention". This is the biller that emailed I have a bill due and used to scrape in 2017, but has not yet been able to scrape the bill into Quicken 2020. I may try removing and re-entering.

jrich75

Hopefully someone actively using Bill Manager will reply to some of these questions. There are also other threads discussing last paid column behavior.

As I said earlier, I no longer have my reminders linked to e-bills. For me, when I had links, only a few ever showed a last paid date and amount which I believe populated a day or so after I made the a payment, if I used the Bills Tab action menus to do so. Some never showed a last payment. I do have the Recent Payments column open on the right hand side of that tab which shows the last 30 days of payments. Since I unlinked my reminders, my last paid column for those few billers shows "Entered and the CURRENT DATE". I've reverted to using traditional bill pay and the Bills & Income Reminders list to make payments until there is significant improvement in Bill Manager functionality.

Bob.

Monday Update:

Utilities changed their web portal requiring me to change my login! I had no idea. Even after that and changing details in Quicken, I get Biller Added, awaiting next bill. I do belive they are not populating whatever file Quicken scrubs to get my bill. I reported that to them.

Called Fidelity. They do not have this error (OL-327-B) in their database!!! Escalated and grabbed two log files from me. Unfortunately they think will take a week to reply.

So, I think those are both biller issues, and hope to be able to confirm that.

And will look for more info on Last Paid Column, but did not find much on previous searches.

jrich75

> @Bob. said:
> Utilities changes their web portal requiring me to change my login! I had no idea. Even after that and changing details in Quicken, I get Biller Added, awaiting next bill. I do believe they are not populating whatever file Quicken scrubs to get my bill. I reported that to them.

Just a word of caution. Utilities sometimes charge a fee for certain types of online payments. Mine does and when I tried using Quick Pay, I got a notice that there would be an extra $2 processing fee for the payment. This was never the case with traditional Bill Pay. I cancelled out and paid another way. Hopefully Quicken will find a way to avoid such fees (other than Check Pay) when Bill Manager is updated.

Bob.

OK, another question:

I have two bills paid in Quicken 2017. One has cleared the biller, one in a day or two. Both cleared the checking account.

Both show as due as well as paid in Reminders. Both show as due even though paid in Bills and Income tab.

Seems I could do one of three things and not sure which is best and how they differ:
1. Ignore
2. Mark as paid
3. Enter

I'm thinking Enter could show as paid twice even though I am not sending the payment again to the bank, so likely not it. But how would Ignore be different than Mark as Paid?

The goal is to leave the cleared payments as they are real and have these "due" no longer show until due again in June.

I did try editing This and Future Instances of the Reminder to June, but One Step Update changes them back to May. Frustrating.


~Bob

Bob.

Waaay back in my second post above I said:

"2. In recreating the Reminders, SOME (more than one) NEW Reminders would prepopulate the bill amount with a payment amount that had not been used for over a year. Not the most recent amounts, but older amounts that had been updated to a more current amount long ago in Quicken 2017."

Found out why and likely a bug. The amount was picked up from the Memorized Billers and that biller (none actually) are locked. So when a billing amount changes, the amount in the memorized biller is not updated. Creating a new reminder uses the obsolete amount.

~Bob

Bob.

I believe I have fixed the Fidelity OL-327-B error "Invalid Date Range". I used the "hidden" key strokes in Online Billers / Contacts to reset the DSTART for all Fidelity accounts to 5/1/2020. No more errors. Will feel more confident it is done in a day or two.

For now this leaves Palo Alto Utilities no being able to retrieve bill information for the current bill. Their IT has not replied yet id anyone @Quicken can contact them to solve the error.. Would be great to have 2020 working.

And, BTW, first bill paid through Quicken 2020 just cleared the account and bank. Did NOT populate the Last Payment column. Nothing ever appears there.