Reconcile loan with bank

ec1060

I have a bank account with Bank of America. Quicken will connect to my account and download all of my transactions. I make a monthly loan payment of $102.

Separately, also in Quicken I have my loan. I set this up manually.

How do I 'connect' the payment I make from my B of A account with the loan?

Quicken will auto download my B of A transactions. I see the loan payment there, but if I switch over to loan itself in Quicken, the transaction does not appear. So I thought I would just manually add the payment to the register. For 'Payee' I select the name of the loan. For 'Category' I select Bank of America. I save the transaction here.

Now when I switch back to look at my B of A log, the loan payment is there twice.

I don't expect Quicken to make this automatic but I must be missing something - how do I link the transaction that is auto downloaded from B of A to the Loan in Quicken?

Tom Young

"How do I 'connect' the payment I make from my B of A account with the loan?"

Typically the easiest and best way is to use Quicken's loan "wizard" to set up the loan.  (The wizard only really works well with some sort of "normal" amortizing loan like a mortgage.)  Quicken creates an amortization schedule and a reminder for the regular payment.  If you have Quicken enter the reminder into your checking register some days in advance of the regular payment then shortly after the payment date the checking download from BoA will find a match and your loan balance will be correctly stated because Quicken made a balanced entry, offsetting the decrease in cash by recognizing an interest expense and a reduction of the loan's principal.

If the wizard doesn't work for you like, maybe, for a car loan, then simply create a reminder on your own, splitting the cash reduction between principal and interest using a "guestimate" and having Quicken make the entry some number of days before the payment is due.  Again the checking download from BoA will find a match, and when you get your monthly loan statement simply step back into the BoA checking Account and correct your guestimate split.  That will get your loan principal balance in Quicken correctly stated.  

Sherlock

When we enter a loan payment, we should use the loan's payment reminder or memorized payee.  One way to do this is to open the loan, press Ctrl + Shift + N, and select Enter Loan Payment

The imported transaction should match the entered loan payment transaction.

Frankx

Hi @ec1060,

You don't need to make that manual transaction - that is the one where - you said:

So I thought I would just manually add the payment to the register. For 'Payee' I select the name of the loan. For 'Category' I select Bank of America. I save the transaction here.

So you need to delete that one, because it is why you are seeing the two payments in the BOA bank account register in Quicken.

What you need to do is assign the "downloaded payment transaction" from the bank to the proper "Category" in Quicken.  I can't tell, from what you say above, where it is going currently, but you need to go to each of those monthly transactions in your BOA account in Quicken and change the "Category" field to [insert the name of the Loan account in Quicken here]. This will cause the downloaded payment transaction to be applied to the loan.

Let me know if you have any followup questions.

Frankx 

Tom Young

"How do I 'connect' the payment I make from my B of A account with the loan?"

Typically the easiest and best way is to use Quicken's loan "wizard" to set up the loan.  (The wizard only really works well with some sort of "normal" amortizing loan like a mortgage.)  Quicken creates an amortization schedule and a reminder for the regular payment.  If you have Quicken enter the reminder into your checking register some days in advance of the regular payment then shortly after the payment date the checking download from BoA will find a match and your loan balance will be correctly stated because Quicken made a balanced entry, offsetting the decrease in cash by recognizing an interest expense and a reduction of the loan's principal.

If the wizard doesn't work for you like, maybe, for a car loan, then simply create a reminder on your own, splitting the cash reduction between principal and interest using a "guestimate" and having Quicken make the entry some number of days before the payment is due.  Again the checking download from BoA will find a match, and when you get your monthly loan statement simply step back into the BoA checking Account and correct your guestimate split.  That will get your loan principal balance in Quicken correctly stated.