Quicken Bill Manager + Direct Connect are a good strategy

ww.finance

Hello, I'm looking for confirmation that my approach is good, and that I'm not missing anything key. I am using the most recent version of Quicken for Windows.

Some, but not all, of my payees are available via the new Quicken Bill Manager (QBM). I will use QBM to pay these bills. QBM also happily connects with my Schwab Checking account, which Quicken Bill Pay would not do, so that's a big improvement.

Other companies that send me bills are not available through QBM. For these payments, I have been using the bill payment option available through my bank. But my local bank just enabled Direct Connect! So now I believe that I can pay these bills through the Online Center within Quicken. It's even pulled in my list of payees from my bank to make my life easier.

In summary I'll be using QBM with my Schwab account to pay most bills, and Online Center with my local bank via Direct Connect to pay those not available through QBM. Is this a sound strategy or am I missing something? It's been a whirlwind of a year to learn to pay bills online and I want some confirmation that my approach is good. Thank you very much!

Frankx

Hi @ww.finance,

That does sound like an approach that will work.  The only question I have is whether you have actually determined whether your "local bank" has the bill payment feature through Quicken as part of the services it offers.  Not all banks do, and the fact that your connection with your local bank is "direct connect" foes not mean that the bank will make bill payments.

If you hven't already, you should check with your bank to determine whether they actually offer the service, and if so make sure that you have properly "enrolled" for that service.

Good luck!

Frankx

Sherlock

If your local bank support online bill payment using the Direct Connect connection method, your strategy is sound.  

One way to determine the financial institutions that support online bill payment is to examine the entry in the FIDIR.TXT file Quicken maintains within in the hidden \ProgramData\Quicken\Inet\Common\LocalWeb\2019 folder.  Financial institutions with support for online bill payment will include PAYMENT.

Frankx

Hi @ww.finance,

That does sound like an approach that will work.  The only question I have is whether you have actually determined whether your "local bank" has the bill payment feature through Quicken as part of the services it offers.  Not all banks do, and the fact that your connection with your local bank is "direct connect" foes not mean that the bank will make bill payments.

If you hven't already, you should check with your bank to determine whether they actually offer the service, and if so make sure that you have properly "enrolled" for that service.

Good luck!

Frankx

Sherlock

If your local bank support online bill payment using the Direct Connect connection method, your strategy is sound.  

One way to determine the financial institutions that support online bill payment is to examine the entry in the FIDIR.TXT file Quicken maintains within in the hidden \ProgramData\Quicken\Inet\Common\LocalWeb\2019 folder.  Financial institutions with support for online bill payment will include PAYMENT.

ww.finance

Great tips! I found the file in C:\ProgramData\Quicken\Inet\Common\Localweb\Banklist\2019 and indeed my bank is listed with PAYMENT. Very exciting, and thanks for your confirmation. I did a sample transaction and I'll see tomorrow if it went through. The tech support at the bank had no idea what I was talking about, so I'm doing it myself. There isn't an enrollment, I think it is just included for free.

In case anyone searches and this response is helpful, my bank is the Community Bank, N.A. (cbna.com), based in upstate New York, but I'm in Vermont.

In my ideal world, QBM will eventually encompass all of the payees that Quicken Bill Pay and my bank do. QBM continues to improve, so hopefully it will get there some day!

Frankx

Hi again @ww.finance,

Happy to have helped.  Also nice to have a Quicken optimist in our Community!!!

Frankx

ww.finance

update:
I've set up my wife as a new payee and tried to send her a payment. I can see it pending on my bank's bill pay web page, so it seems like it is in process, but slow. I wish that I had detailed documentation about how this works and what I should expect. Has anyone ever seen such a document? I've looked around but can't find it.

Dave Hutchison

Am confused My bank is listed in the fidir.txt file. My problem is I will enter via my banks bill pay (since given up on new Quicken) for a future date but confused how without a manual entry include it in my Quicken register with the date it will be paid - without just doing a manual transaction and half the time it seems will not match. So when its paid so have to watch carefully for double entries when paid by my bank and shows up in Quicken. I may be missing something.

I have used Quicken for 20+ years always using their old bill pay but have given up on the new - it is just too complicated and I have a CPA background!

ww.finance

Dave, sorry to be so slow on this response... just found it in my email!
You are encountering the same annoying issue I've had for a while. You are exactly right, you trigger the payment through the bank then enter it a second time into Quicken and hope that they auto-match. It worked for me for years but the double entry was very annoying.

My bank just went to Direct Connect, so now I can enter the payment through Quicken's Online Center, and then when I do an online sync it sends the payment to my bank's bill pay screen. It's quite slick, but still has issues. For instance, you have to select which day you want it to process, not the day it is due. And if I were to go make a payment today, when the bank is closed, it would not process at the bank, but would be placed in to the register. At least that is how it appears to work.

I do think that Quicken Bill Manager is a good tool and has come a long way in the last few months. However, I had to set up many of my payees as checks rather than electronic, because they are not in the list of payees. I don't know why QBM's payee list is shorter than Quicken Bill Pay (RIP) or my bank, and it's annoying. I have also had issues with payees just disappearing from the list, sometimes taking their scheduled payment. I missed a Comcast payment as a result, nothing major, but annoying. Sorry to be so long-winded!