Bill Manager

TGH

Am I the only one less then enthused about the new Bill Manager? I’ve been trying to figure it out since the change was announced several months ago but it still has me baffled.

About a six weeks ago I linked a credit card in Quicken to the issuing bank. I’ve ran One-step at least once a week since then, but nothing has ever seemed to happen with the account – no transactions downloaded or notifications of a new bill.

Today I decided to link a 2nd credit card from the same issuing bank. Each credit card has a different username and password associated with the card. After linking the second credit card I ran One-Step. As far as I can determine no transactions were downloaded but Bill Manager then reported the exact amount (to the penny) was due in each account.

Compared to Bill Pay the new Bill Manager seems to be needlessly complicated.

At this point I think I’ll go back to paying my bills directly through my local banks website and not use Bill Manager.

I’ve been a loyal Quicken user for decades starting before Quicken even worked with a mouse but this revision has me scratching my head.

Chris_QPW

It seems to me that you are a bit confused on what is what.

There are currently three ways to pay bills with Quicken (with Quicken Bill Pay to go way shortly).

1. Paying bills through your financial institution's website.  The connection method has to be Direct Connect and it also has to support paying bills through Quicken.
2. Quicken Bill Pay.
3. Quicken Bill Manager.

In the case of #1 and #2 above when you create/setup the account in Quicken there is two sections on the Online Service tab in the account details.  One is for about downloading transactions, and the other is for bill pay.  That is where you set those up.

In the case of Quicken Bill Manager you use the Bill Dashboard to setup/use it.

Downloading of transactions isn't dependent on these bill paying systems at all.  That is all based on the connection type like Direct Connect/Express Web Connect.  And in fact when you first setup the account and connected to your financial institution you should have got about 3 months or transactions.  Note if you do Ctrl+A you can look the Transaction Download column to see the connection type.  If no transactions are being downloaded then this a separate problem from using the Quicken Bill Manager. and you should give the details like what financial institution name it is connected to and any errors you are getting.

Quicken Bill Manager on the other hand is based on "Online Bill/presentment" principal.  As in you go to the Bills tab and add an online bill which will also ask for your username and password to connect because  it is doing its own connection to the financial institution, but not for transactions, it is for getting the bill and for allowing you to pay it through the Quicken Bill Manager.  And the Online Bills can also be linked to reminders.