Bank download vs Mortgage: Duplicate Transactions

jefflayton

Hello all: I have a rental property & recently set up the Asset and the Mortgage in Quicken Property & Debt. Now I'm getting duplicate Payment transactions in the register in the future.

This mortgage holder does not have auto-debit feature. Instead, I set up a repeating payment at my bank (Chase), who *mails a check* 6-7 days before the payment is due on the 1st. Quicken sees this scheduled payment when connecting, and downloads it into my register with the little lightning bolt.

However, after setting up the mortgage, Quicken also enters the payment in the register as I have set it to automatically enter 90 days in advance. This transaction has the auto-calculated split showing different splits each month as principal amount goes up and interest paid goes down - this is awesome. But it also means I have two payments showing.

In my attempts to correct this, I simply deleted the bank-downloaded transaction from the Bills & Income reminders....but then Quicken connected to my bank and deleted the scheduled payment! Had to re-institute that.

Once the payment processes, I can match the bank transaction to the Quicken-entered split transaction & manually delete the other one, but I'd rather have Quicken download the planned payment & match it to the Quicken-generated transaction with the cool splits.

I don't have this issue on my primary mortgage as the mortgage holder has auto-debit, so the only payment entry is the Quicken generated one.

Any ideas how to get only one scheduled payment in my register in this situation?

thanks

Jeff Layton
Erie, CO

Boatnmaniac

Hi, @jefflayton .  Yeah, that's a frustrating situation.  Unfortunately, you can't do within your checking account or within your mortgage account what you want to do.

What I've done for similar situations is:

• Create a new manual Cash Account.  You can name it whatever you like, maybe something like "Cash Acct-Mortgage".
• Change the category for your bank check transaction to a transfer into the [Cash Account].
• Change your mortgage loan Bill Reminder to be paid from the Cash Account instead of from your checking account.
• These two transactions will end up canceling each other out in the ending balance of the the Cash Account and your principal/interest splits in your mortgage account will remain intact.
  

This has worked well for me and others have said the same.  It's not ideal but it comes about as close to it as you can get for the type of situation you have.

jefflayton

Thanks @Boatnmaniac - appreciate the response. One question though, on your 2nd bullet:
The bank check transaction is a debit from my account. If I change the category so it deposits into the [Cash Account], it flips from a checking account debit to a cash account deposit. Is that it?
Such trickery!

I'd love to get Quicken to incorporate a fix for this without that trickery - I already have enough accounts to track. I should get some credit since I started using Quicken v1.0 for DOS on my '286 in 1988!

Boatnmaniac

@jefflayton - Wow!  1988!  You're one of the "Wise Ancients!" 

The transaction will still show in your checking account as a debit.  But instead of the debit payment going against an expense category, it will go to the Cash Account.  The thing about transfers like this is that the money flowing into the Cash Account is not viewed by Quicken as income or expense or anything except a transfer.  It takes the money out of your checking account and deposits it into your Cash Account so a net/net transaction.  It's like moving some cash from your left pocket into your right pocket.

However, I think I misread your original post to say that you enter a Bill Reminder into your checking account and also enter a Loan Reminder into your checking account.  Quicken does not allow for merging of different reminders into one reminder.  But now I understand that your Loan Reminder is entered into your checking account and that the check transaction is simply downloaded from your bank.  Is this correct?

If so, then as long as you don't have your bank transactions automatically entered and instead manually Accept them before they are entered, you should be able to Match the check transaction to the Loan Reminder transaction before you Accept it.  Here is what I did in a test file with a credit card but it works the same way with checking accounts.:

• Entered a Bill Reminder (top yellow highlighted transaction)
• Downloaded the bill transaction from the credit card company (bottom yellow highlighted line)
• If Quicken matches the bill transaction to the Bill Reminder transaction, click on Accept (both circled in red).
• If Quicken does not match the bill transaction to the Bill Reminder transaction, click on Edit (circled in blue) and click on Match Manually.  Then you can select the transaction in your register to match it to and click on Accept Match.

Going this route, you can forget about the Cash Account because this will do what you want to do.  NOTE: If your bank downloads the check transaction when it is mailed out instead of the paid date, the dates of your check payment and your Loan Reminder will not match.  Make sure that the final result in your check register shows the date the Mortgage payment was received by the lender.  If you don't do this, Quicken will recalculate your principal and interest split which will affect your mortgage balance.

jefflayton

@Boatnmaniac - thanks for the detailed & thoughtful reply. Work got away from me for a few days, so my apologies on the delayed response.

You are correct in this statement: "But now I understand that your Loan Reminder is entered into your checking account and that the check transaction is simply downloaded from your bank. Is this correct?"

Yes, that's exactly what happens. I'd love to show you, but don't see how to post an image like you did?

Anyway, I do know the manually matched transaction trick you suggest & have used it before. Good suggestion. However, this one appears a little different.

When I download *transactions* from my bank, they work just as you describe, and I can manually match them. But this download of a *scheduled payment* is a little different. I will need to double-check again the beginning of July (when Quicken will download the end of July / August 1st payment), but as I recall, this downloaded scheduled payment drops straight into the register as a scheduled transaction with a little lightning bolt in the Check# column.

My mortgage loan payment reminders are set to automatically enter in the register 90 days in advance, which they do correctly, and the Check# column says "Sched". This is good as far as I can tell.

With the *scheduled payment* dropping into the register, and the *mortgage loan payment reminder* auto-entering as I requested, what I'm left with is a duplicate debit for the next payment. Subsequent payments are not duplicated until I get within 30 days of that transaction, when the bank drops the new scheduled payment into the register & we start over for the next 30 days.

I did call Quicken tech support and they did not have a solution, but instead pointed me here. As I'm growing my rental portfolio this year, this problem will be impossible to manage once the number of recurrences grow. If only I could just delete the scheduled payment without it commanding the bank to stop sending it!

Any additional thoughts with this additional detail?

Boatnmaniac

@jefflayton - No need to apologize.  I figured you would reply if and when you wanted to so no worries.

Regarding how to insert an image into a post:  You have to acquire 50 points doing activities in Community before you can insert an image...things like posting a question, replying to someone, liking a post, etc.  Just about any activity in Community will add points to your profile.  Currently, your profile shows you have 7 points so you have a ways to go before you can do that.

However, you can attach files now.  Files can be clicked on by others so the image comes up. 

When you are making a post there is a menu bar above the post entry box. 

• If you want to attach a file click on the icon circled in red. 
  
• When you get enough points, you can insert an image by clicking on the icon circled in blue.

Now, on to your issue:  That lightning bolt tells me that you sent a Bill Pay command from Quicken to the bank directing the bank to make payment to the mortgage company.  That bolt is confirmation from your bank that they have scheduled the payment and it links their payment record to the transaction in your account register that Quicken (not the bank) placed there. 

But these bolts are only entered into the checking account register if the bill pay command was generated by Quicken and then sent to the bank via OSU or Update Now.  Conversely, if you set up the bill pay from within your bank online account, there would be no bolt.  It would simply download like any other payment transaction.

This tells me that you have a Bill Reminder or Bill Pay set up in Quicken to direct your bank to pay your mortgage.  And that then puts your checking account in a quandary where you have two separate Reminders in your register and separate Reminders cannot be merged or matched to each other.

So, as I see it, you have one of two options: 

1. Use the separate Cash Account suggestion of my 1st reply above, or
   
2. Delete your Bill Reminder or Bill Pay in Quicken.  Set up your recurring automatic bill pay from within your online account at your bank.  When the bill is paid, the bank will download the transaction (without the bolt) and you will then be able to match it with your Mortgage Loan Reminder register entry.

I hope this all make sense to you.  Let me know if you have any questions.