Audible bills using European date format in error

bigby65@

After adding my Audible account to online billing, I've discovered that Quicken is retrieving the next billing date from that account in the European format (dd/mm/yyyy) rather than in the US format (mm/dd/yyyy). This only happens with this biller. For instance, my next bill is actually due on 07/11/2020 (July 11, 2020) but it is showing as 11/07/2020 (November 7, 2020) as shown in the attached image.

bigby65@

Apparently there was an issue with Audible's systems. When I did the "Update Bills" with the Online Update, it is now showing the bill with the correct date.

Frankx

Hi @bigby65@

I just looked at your attachment and it seems as though all your bills are due in November - not just Audible!

Can that be correct?  Maybe you changed the date format yourself, somehow?

Frankx

NotACPA

Extending @Frankx's remark, look at your Windows date settings.  That where Q gets the format for the dates that Q displays.

bigby65@

I'm not an idiot!!! Of course all the bills on the screenshot show as November!!! How else am I going to show the bill with the actual problem?? How about answering the actual question instead of nitpicking an image? Don't automatically assume someone has never used the app or a computer before!!! I know how to set up date formats!!! The problem is with Quicken not me!!!! This is the only online bill that has the problem!!!

Chris_QPW

@bigby65@  I suggest that you contact Quicken support.  This is most likely a problem with what the third party billing service is picking up, and the only people that can forward problems to the third party billing service is Quicken support.
Contact Quicken Support

And for what it is worth your post is very confusing because you talk about European dates and such such and in your screenshot there isn't any way to see this.  We have no idea when your bill is due and so showing it with other bills due in November there isn't anything that suggests it is wrong.

Frankx

Well, no one suggested anything of the sort.

You said "...Quicken is retrieving the next billing date from that account [Audible] in the European format..." and also that "This only happens with this biller."

The point  I was trying to make is that (based solely on the information you provided) your Audible bill is not the only bill that is apparently in the "european format" (in spite of your saying "This only happens with this biller") and that this fact points not to "this biller" but to a broader problem.  I didn't assume anything - just stated the "facts" based on the information that you provided.

Furthermore that same information strongly suggests that somehow (but I may be wrong about this so I am not assuming...) the date format being used by Windows (because Quicken itself doesn't control how dates are displayed but follows Windows formatting) is set to the "European format" in your words.

If you want to check this you can go to the Windows Control Panel > Clock and Region > Region to potentially change the "short date" format back to: M/d/yyyy.

BTW - we are fellow users of Quicken.  The vast number of people who try to answer questions in the Community are not Quicken employees; we are volunteers trying to help other users.  Just so you know...

Frankx

Chris_QPW

@Frankx The problem is that the screenshot are "misleading".

There isn't anything on the the screenshot that is "wrong" as far as any date format or such.

No where will you find a date that is DD-MM-YYYY.

What @bigby65@  as saying is that he knows that the next bill date for the Audible to be 7/11/2020.  And as such you would find that bill with the July bills.   But instead he is finding the bill in the November bills. On the 7th.

This implies that the date retrieved being sent to Quicken is 11-07-2020, and of course Quicken is taken that to be November 7, 2020.  Most likely whatever is "screen scraping" the Audible site is expecting the dates to be in the US format of MM-DD-YYYY instead they are in DD-MM-YYYY format.

bigby65@

@Chris_QPW

Thank you. That is EXACTLY what I am saying. If you had ever tried to set up a meeting date with a someone in a European country, you would understand what "European date format" is, i.e. Nov 7 = 07/11. I entered 2 online bills one after the other and only the Audible biller is doing this. I will try contacting Quicken Support again.

Frankx

@bigby65@,

Are you using Quicken's new "Bill Manager" service, the soon-to-be-retired "Bill Pay" or are you downloading your Audible invoice in some other way?

I ask this because I find it hard to believe that a company headquartered in Newark, NJ and listed on Nasdaq, would be providing its billing data to US customers in a "European" format.  Just saying...

Frankx

cc:@Chris_QPW

bigby65@

Apparently there was an issue with Audible's systems. When I did the "Update Bills" with the Online Update, it is now showing the bill with the correct date.

Chris_QPW

@Frankx The screenshot is from the "Online Bills", which is the "Bill Presentment" that was recently expanded to also pay bills through and is now called the "Bill Manager".

In truth the "European" date is a speculation on what is going on, but given what is happening it seems like a good possibility to me, but in truth it doesn't really matter.

What you have is the third party service (the service behind "Online Bills/Bill Manager" sending the wrong date to Quicken.  Why they picked up the wrong date, only they can figure that out and fix it.

Frankx

@Chris_QPW,

Just curious - you've been actively engaged with Quicken and this forum for a very long time - how many times have you seen, or even heard of, this behavior - a major US corporation (part of an IT company Amazon) that sends out bills using "European date" formatting?

Frankx

Chris_QPW

@Frankx this exact situation?  Never, in other cases, lots of times.

@bigby65@ might have called it European date" formatting formatting, but in truth that isn't really what it is.  No more than saying that using a 24 hour clock or Celsius is "European".  Different formats are popular with given countries and such, but they don't "own them".  As a programmer I'm quite fond of YYYYMMDD.  Why?
Because it sorts really nicely.  Celsius is in fact used in almost every country including the US if you know where to look.  You aren't going to find any scientific experiments in Fahrenheit. 

When do you see such problems then?
When there isn't a "standard".

When you look at a QFX file you will see the date/time are standardized (my favorite format, Surprise!, it was created by a programmer).
<DTSTART>20100821120000[0:GMT]

And as such you wouldn't ever expect a problem like above to happen when dealing with OFX/QFX data.

Now take QIF format there isn't a standard.
So different programs/countries and such have different date formats, which has caused problems in the past:
MM/DD/YY
MM/DD/YYYY
MM/DD'YY
DD/MM/YY
DD/MM/YYYY
...

So where does this play into this problem?
Simple just like Express Web Connect has no standard in how the financial institution will give the data to Intuit, it is just an "agreement".  There isn't a standard on how the third party bill service will get the data from all these billers.  So it VERY possible that there can be confusion on what the date format is for a given biller.

Frankx

Thanks for your thoughts and opinions. 

Just for the record - I used the "European date" above a few times in quotes only because the OP used that terminology, not that I would use it myself.  I am not a programmer but I do have a real appreciation for standards.  I am just perhaps a little more skeptical than you are, especially when someone uses an attack to try to support an argument that was, in my view, very thin.

Have a great evening.