Can I include the Downloaded Memo in my reports?

El Hilliard

I display the Downloaded Payee and Memo fields in my registers. I generally use the Memo field to add notes to the transactions so the Downloaded Memo that is loaded to the Memo field in some registers gets replaced. It is very inconvenient to go back to the register to see those fields for a specific transaction in a report when I question if it was categorized correctly. Is there any way to include these fields in reports?

Tom Young

I'm not following along with you here.

"Memos" are transaction level entries so any report that produces a transaction by transaction list will show that memo as it currently exists in your file.  If you haven't changed the memo from whatever came with the download, that's what you'll see, and if you have manually changed that memo, then that's what you'll see.  If you've changed the downloaded memo then the only way I know of to see what the downloaded memo said would be to dig through the OFX log.

Any report that uses summarized information, e.g., an Income and Expense by Category report, can't show memo information, so you're forced to "click through" a summary number to the transactions that make up that figure, and on that report you'll see, again, memo fields that reflect how your file looks at that moment. 

Boatnmaniac

Hi El Hilliard.  You can customize your Banking accounts registers to include the Notes column.  You can enter your personal notes/comments there leaving the Memo field available for the financial institution's downloaded information.  If you don't see your Notes column in the register, click on the lower of the two right Gear icons and check the Notes box.

Beginning with QW R27.20 we can now generate Banking Transaction reports showing the Notes column.  If your Quicken revision is lower than R27.20 you will need to update it.  (You can check your revision at Help > About Quicken.)

If you are not seeing the Notes column in your report, click on the Customize Report gear icon at the top right of the report and under Show Columns on the Display tab, check the box for Notes.  (If you do not see Notes there, click on Reset Columns and then you should see it.)  You can also change the order of the columns in your reports in Show Columns if you wish.

Once you are done, your reports will now show both your Notes and the downloaded information in the Memo field.

El Hilliard

I added the Notes field, however it will not meet my requirements because the Notes field does not appear in the Memorized Payees and in fact Quicken directs the user to enter the extra information in the Memo field. So you can see that Quicken expects the user to overwrite the data in the Memo field. Also, the Notes field does not appear in the Find/Replace screen either. I have over 8k transactions in Quicken. I would not be able to change to using the Notes field because I could not move my existing Memo data to the Notes field. Therefore my reports would be confusing with my notes in the Notes field for records after I made the change, but in the Memo field for records created before the change.

El Hilliard

Ideally, Quicken would be modified to expect the user to add their notes in the Notes field and the Memorized Payees would allow the user to create a standard Note instead of a standard Memo, especially in the Split screen. In addition, Notes should be a field that can be updated in Find/Replace.
Right now, as I said, Quicken expects the user to use the Memo field for transaction notes so the Downloaded Memo in the Memo field will be overwritten with any notes the user needs to attach to their transactions except in split transactions which appear to have a different Memo field from the Memo field that is loaded with the Downloaded Memo field.

Tom Young

"Quicken expects the user to use the Memo field for transaction notes so the Downloaded Memo in the Memo field will be overwritten with any notes the user needs to attach to their transactions except in split transactions which appear to have a different Memo field from the Memo field that is loaded with the Downloaded Memo field."

I'd say Quicken doesn't "expect" anything as far as the memo field goes.  It's up to you if you use it or not, leave it "as is" if you're accepting downloaded transactions, or edit it.

You can have the best of both worlds by "splitting" every single transaction, even if the transaction all goes to one Category.  In the "split" you'd enter whatever you want in the memo field(s) and that memo will show up on reports that show transaction detail.  But if you click on the transaction within the report you'll be taken back to the register where the transaction was entered and the memo that was downloaded, (or your overwrite of the memo at the "register" level) would also be there.