How to delete PDF copy of old bills

jrich75

It seems this should have been answered before but I couldn't find it in help and searching the community returned over 100 pages of comments for "delete pdf bill" so I'm hoping someone can direct me to the answer.

I have a separate system for keeping pdf copies of bills and would like to delete the older pdf bills from my quicken data file.  I do not see the delete option in the bills tab, on the manage online billers list or in the list of pdf bills for a specific biller.  The pdf column in my monthly bills & deposit reminders is blank for all billers.  So, is there a way to delete old pdfs from the quicken data file?

Alternately, is there a way to keep quicken from retrieving and saving the detailed bills from online billers?

Chris_QPW

There isn't any way to deleted/control the PDF bills that the online bills fetch other than delete the online bill.

jrich75

>jrfaris said:

>It seems this should have been answered before but I couldn't find it 

Well, that's not good.  Has this come up as a suggestion or has quicken ever responded to the community?  

I have always limited the number of images or attachments I bring into quicken to help keep the size of the data file down.  These PDF files can be up to 1 MB each.   And it seems quicken is not particularly efficient in processing them.  A recent Discover Card bill downloaded through Quicken was 1.24 MB which was more than double the size of the direct download from Discover.  This may be a good reason for me to eliminate the already troublesome online bill feature altogether.  Of course that could also affect my ability to use Quick Pay.  Seems the hole is getting deeper.

Chris_QPW

I think I have seen it mentioned once or twice, but probably not enough for Quicken Inc to take any notice of it.  They do take suggestions by people submitting/voting on "Ideas".

https://community.quicken.com/categories/product-ideas (Scroll to the bottom for the button).

And yes I believe that the new Bill Manager is dependent on the bill being an online bill.

As understand it first they started using the bill presentment part of this third party, which has been the "online bills/presentment" used for several years, and now with Quicken Bill Pay going away they decided to expand that include the bill pay that third party provides, and that is why the connection is done this way.

Personally I don't pay bill through a bill paying system.  I did try to use the bill presentment system for quite awhile, but the problems with even that part of it were just too much for me and I gave it up and went back to regular reminders.

For paying bills have them all setup automatic withdraws from my credit card (preferred because of the 20 or more days float and I get cash back) or directly from my checking account for the few that have to be that way.  I have been doing it that way for over 30 years without a problem.  The only time it becomes a pain is if the credit card has to be replaced.  And managing cash flow is a lot easier since mostly all I have to do is make sure there is enough money in my checking account before the credit card comes due.

If I was going to use a bill pay system I would most likely just use the one on my financial institution's website.  Or maybe switch to a financial institution provides the direct connection to their bill pay system through Quicken.

At this point there is no way I would depend on the new Bill Manager system.

jrich75

Thanks for the prompt and detailed reply.  I appreciate the suggestions. 

I have always had an aversion to giving bank account debit authorization to a lot of different billers.  I liked that with BillPay you could have only one entity making the debits.  But with the Quick Pay method that is no longer the case since they seem to process payments through the billers' online payment systems. So, giving up Quick Pay capability by deleting Online Billers may be an acceptable trade-off for me.

I have also liked that I can easily pay a specific billing from Quicken using any of my payment accounts. That reduces the need for funds transfers to cover large purchases. Going with a single FI for direct bill payment of all bills was not so attractive.  But it may be my best option given the recent changes to Quicken.

Anyway, my Premier subscription runs through the end of the year so I'll continue following the Bill Manger developments. Hopefully they will make substantial actual improvements by then.  If not, I will likely drop back to a Deluxe subscription next year and plan to pay bills directly from my FIs.