Quicken for Mac v5.18 Released

Quicken Marcus

RickO said:

By the nature of the connections, when you update any one Quicken Connect account, all Quicken Connect accounts update. When you update one Direct Connect account, all Direct Connect accounts  at that same financial institution update. It's baked into the connection technology and cannot be changes. Been that way pretty much forever.

This is correct. It's a limitation of the technology we use.  We have more direct control over DIrect Connect accounts and can do an update just on a selected account.  We don't have that flexibility with Quicken Connect accounts. The "Update Selected Online Accounts" should be grayed out and disabled if you're on a Quicken Connect account.

Quicken Marcus

jacobs said:

I think this could be okay, but it has to be consistent, and a few things would help that…

A "reset" or "return to default", and possibly "revert changes" for all the default reports. 

Agree, we haven't implemented the logic to make it work consistently yet. There is a Reset to Default menu item under Columns so you can get back to the canned report columns pretty easily. I should also mention that this means it will go back to the canned report and not the previously saved report's settings.

I see your point about the Expand and Collapse settings and how some wouldn't want those automatically saved.  We'll have to give that more thought.  Also, your point about the Save button being grayed out does limit what one can do. 

By the way, if one wants to create a report from an existing report, they should use Duplicate Report for now. This functions as our Save As.

Rick2022

Quicken Marcus said:

RickO said:

By the nature of the connections, when you update any one Quicken Connect account, all Quicken Connect accounts update. When you update one Direct Connect account, all Direct Connect accounts  at that same financial institution update. It's baked into the connection technology and cannot be changes. Been that way pretty much forever.

This is correct. It's a limitation of the technology we use.  We have more direct control over DIrect Connect accounts and can do an update just on a selected account.  We don't have that flexibility with Quicken Connect accounts. The "Update Selected Online Accounts" should be grayed out and disabled if you're on a Quicken Connect account.

The account where I saw this was my wife's Discover account.  My Discover account also updated.  Other accounts may have been checked but there wasn't any new transactions brought into those accounts so I don't know if all accounts updated or not.  

I don't know if the 2 Discover accounts are Direct Connect or Quicken Connect but if Direct Connect, only my wife's account should have updated per your statement and if Quicken Connect, the Update Selected Account should have been grayed out.  

So either I should have gotten 1 account to update or not have the choice to update only 1 account.  Something isn't right.

caram

The register is exhibiting some strange behavior that I do not quite understand. I'm entering a transaction that has 14 matches (cf. image 1). That's quite a lot and I started paying attention.

I looked at the Payees & Rules window and there are 5 Payees (image 2) and 5 Rules (image 3).

I deleted the 5 Payees and now there are no matches in the register, which sounds OK. I then undeleted the 5 Payees (thank you QM!) and deleted the 5 Rules, but the register still has 10 matches (image 4).

It looks as if there were rules behind the scenes that I could not see. Or am I missing something obvious?

UPDATE

Could it be that the register is also looking at Scheduled Transactions?

Rick2022

caram
I've noticed that even with 1 payee and 1 rule there are 2 in the list.  I think if you chose the 1st (which doesn't have a matching category), it's easier to select a new category (and create a new rule).  

So you have
Payee
Payee Category

Here is an example dropdown list using Amazon as payee: 1 payee and 4 choices
Amazon
Amazon
     Household:electronics
Amazon
     Clothing
Amazon
     Miscellaneous

s2kdriver

Another great new release for reporting and budgeting features. However, I would like to report a possible new defect in 5.18.X regarding missing online quotes for certain securities, and perhaps a related price lookup issue in the securities window.

I own several "Split Shares" units which are issued as pairs (standard share and split share) in the form of "TSE:XXX" and "TSE:XXX-A". I own the split shares (i.e. "TSE:XXX-A". Quicken 5.17 and earlier handled this correctly and found the securities at investing.quicken.com (via "Security Overview" in the portfolio view) and produced online quotes properly for them. Quicken 5.18 seems to find the split shares at investing.quicken.com (via portfolio view), but no longer automatically updates quotes for them. See the attached screen grabs from QM 5.17.6 and 5.18.2 produced just this morning (Oct 1 at 11:36 AM & 11:39 AM). QM 5.17.6 is showing active quotes but QM 5.18.2 is not. Both tests were done starting from the same file (a 5.17.6 file from Sept 25).

In a related issue, I seem to have lost the ability to rebuild quote history for these securities, as QM seems to want to convert the split share to the standard share during the quote rebuild process (i.e. changes "TSE:XXX-A" to "TSE:XXX" while getting quotes). This generates a set of incorrect quotes and modifies my holdings to the incorrect units. This problem may predate QM 5.18 and may be present in QM 5.17 as well.

Note that for normal securities (e.g. "ZZZ" or "TSE:YYY" - i.e. non-split shares), my online quotes are functioning properly in 5.18. The only area I am facing problems is with my split shares (i.e. units named "XXX-A", "XXX-B", etc).

I wondering whether there is some underlying issue regarding QM's matching of online quotes to incorrect ticker names when dealing with closely named & related units (e.g. standard shares & split shares, perhaps other examples).

***Additional Thought*** I have previously had trouble with security quotes when the same Security Name has multiple underlying ticker symbol options, of which split shares is just one example. Could the problem be more general in terms of getting correct quotes for a given Security Name and specific ticker symbol when there is more than one ticker available?

I anyone else seeing issues with automated online quotes or rebuilding quote history?

Quicken Marcus

caram said:

The register is exhibiting some strange behavior that I do not quite understand. I'm entering a transaction that has 14 matches (cf. image 1). That's quite a lot and I started paying attention.

I looked at the Payees & Rules window and there are 5 Payees (image 2) and 5 Rules (image 3).

I deleted the 5 Payees and now there are no matches in the register, which sounds OK. I then undeleted the 5 Payees (thank you QM!) and deleted the 5 Rules, but the register still has 10 matches (image 4).

It looks as if there were rules behind the scenes that I could not see. Or am I missing something obvious?

UPDATE

Could it be that the register is also looking at Scheduled Transactions?

Caram, yes we also display schedule transactions.  The thinking is that if you've created a scheduled transaction, it's probably a payee category pair that you would use often and should be an option even if you don't explicitly create a rule. Let us know if it was just unexpected or it wasn't working the way you wanted.

Quicken Marcus

s2kdriver said:

I own several "Split Shares" units which are issued as pairs (standard share and split share) in the form of "TSE:XXX" and "TSE:XXX-A". I own the split shares (i.e. "TSE:XXX-A". Quicken 5.17 and earlier handled this correctly and found the securities at investing.quicken.com (via "Security Overview" in the portfolio view) and produced online quotes properly for them. Quicken 5.18 seems to find the split shares at investing.quicken.com (via portfolio view), but no longer automatically updates quotes for them. See the attached screen grabs from QM 5.17.6 and 5.18.2 produced just this morning (Oct 1 at 11:36 AM & 11:39 AM). QM 5.17.6 is showing active quotes but QM 5.18.2 is not. Both tests were done starting from the same file (a 5.17.6 file from Sept 25).

s2kdriver, I've reached out to you directly via the forum messaging system. We'll have to do a little more research.  I know we've been working on some issues with quotes so a bug fix may have inadvertently broke your situation.  I don't know if those changes made it into 5.18 or are in the next release so not sure. I don't know if we have this concept of split shares in the states where a new security is created.  We obviously have stock splits but the symbols never change so our US-centric team may not be testing for this situation. In any case, we'll need to investigate what might be happening here. 

s2kdriver

> @Quicken Marcus said:
> (Quote)
> s2kdriver, I've reached out to you directly via the forum messaging system. We'll have to do a little more research.  I know we've been working on some issues with quotes so a bug fix may have inadvertently broke your situation.  I don't know if those changes made it into 5.18 or are in the next release so not sure. I don't know if we have this concept of split shares in the states where a new security is created.  We obviously have stock splits but the symbols never change so our US-centric team may not be testing for this situation. In any case, we'll need to investigate what might be happening here. 

Hi Marcus, thanks for your response. You can think of split shares as a type of preferred share. Preferred shares may be more familiar and are certainly present on US exchanges. For instance, MetLife offers MET (the common share) and MET-A (the preferred share) on the NYSE. They are separate and priced independently. To see one of the problems I am facing try manually adding MetLife preferred shares (MET-A) to your securities list in the securities window. Starting by adding a security via the "+" button, type MetLife in the security name field and then select MET-A (not MET) from the drop-down that appears. Even with QM 5.17.6, this is problematic and the securities window incorrectly populates with MET (and MET quotes) vs MET-A. Even if you go back and reedit the ticker to MET-A there are still issues. For instance, if you then try to rebuild your price history for MET-A (vs MET), QM 5.17.6 again resets your security to the common share (MET) and adds quotes history for MET vs. MET-A. Unless I misunderstand the functionality of the securities window, there may be a defect here. It's not behaving as I would expect.

I wonder if the above problems are somehow made worse in QM 5.18.X and preferred share quotes (in my case split share quotes) are not being updated even if they are correctly registered in the securities list. I am speculating here, but something seems wrong with the underlying behaviour in the securities window with its automatic reselection of the common share even when you have manually picked the preferred share.

I would be happy to provide further information as you have requested in your direct request. However, the above test with MET and MET-A should be easy for you to replicate without diving into Canadian securities.

jmine83

> @Quicken Marcus said:
> (Quote)
> The way Quicken Windows and Quicken Mac, in the not too distant future, will handle complex loan payments is there will be a special "loan" payment option. This way you can budget the full payment but continue to have a split where the principal is a transfer to the loan account and interest and other costs are tracked as category expenses.  We realize this is one of the top reasons customers have expressed they wanted the ability to budget transfers but it's actually more complicated because of the split. This is a top feature priority.
>
> Great discussion about wanting to see a mortgage payment with a complex split in other areas of the product. I don't have an answer for you now but we'll give this more thought.

Thank you!! Glad to hear Quicken has finally made a significant leap towards the Transfers in Budgets feature.

As other users have similarly commented, as an example, I need to see that "TO Car Loan" is an alias to expense category "Car:Payment:Principal". Thus providing a way to link "Car:Payment:Principal" to "TO Car Loan" where the text label "TO Car Loan" appears hidden on the read-only view of the budget.

dioxide45

> @caram said:
> The register is exhibiting some strange behavior that I do not quite understand. I'm entering a transaction that has 14 matches (cf. image 1). That's quite a lot and I started paying attention.
>
> I looked at the Payees & Rules window and there are 5 Payees (image 2) and 5 Rules (image 3).
>
> I deleted the 5 Payees and now there are no matches in the register, which sounds OK. I then undeleted the 5 Payees (thank you QM!) and deleted the 5 Rules, but the register still has 10 matches (image 4).
>
> It looks as if there were rules behind the scenes that I could not see. Or am I missing something obvious?
>
> UPDATE
>
> Could it be that the register is also looking at Scheduled Transactions?

I am also noticing issues with Quick Fill Rules. When I start typing in the Payee name in the register, the list of rules comes up. But when I click on the rule where a transfer is involved. The transfer information doesn't populate into the category and I have to manually set the account to transfer to. It does seem to work if the category is an actual spending category, but it doesn't work for rules where it is a transfer.

jacobs

@dioxide45  Make sure you have the Transfer column visible. I think you will see that the QuickFill auto-fill populates the Transfer column upon initial entry; then when you Save the transaction, it will copy over to the Category column as well.

dioxide45

> @jacobs said:
> @dioxide45  Make sure you have the Transfer column visible. I think you will see that the QuickFill auto-fill populates the Transfer column upon initial entry; then when you Save the transaction, it will copy over to the Category column as well.

That didn't seem to work. I added the transfer column, and when I started to add a new transaction and selected the rule, the transfer column populated with the transfer account. But when I saved the transaction, the transfer column went blank and the category indicates "Uncategorized"

jacobs

@diaxide45  Did you actually click on the item in the Best Matches list which included the transfer? And you entered the amount. And when you clicked Save, it lost the Transfer data? It sounds like you didn't select the matching transaction. I've just tried it a dozen times, and it always works as expected for me.

ken deemer

It's great to see so many releases. But when does Quicken plan to focus attention on the Budget module? As it stands it is basically useless outside of 12 days of the year - the last day of the month. Why is it so difficult to allow the budget for a date range like all of the other reports?

Shing

> @ken deemer said:
> It's great to see so many releases. But when does Quicken plan to focus attention on the Budget module? As it stands it is basically useless outside of 12 days of the year - the last day of the month. Why is it so difficult to allow the budget for a date range like all of the other reports?

It would be nice to have a couple more options besides Budget Year-To-Date and Entire Budget Year. How about Budget Through Last Month and Budge Through This Month? Obviously having the flexibility to choose a date range is great as well but I would think a couple more drop down options would satisfy most people.

John V

The Quicken for MAC 2020 web page lists the ability to set up savings goals but I cannot find any information on how to do this. This is a feature that I was waiting for. See attached screenshot under DELUX, last feature in list.

Scott Rose

There is a new bug in Quicken Mac 5.18.2:

QuickFill no longer works at all for transfers.  

If you have a QuickFill Rule where the category is set to Transfer to another account (in other words, the category name is "Transfer:[Account Name]"), the transfer category will no longer automatically QuickFill on any new transactions.  

This was working fine in 5.17, but now it is broken. I am currently running 5.18.2.

How can I officially file this as a bug with the Quicken Mac team? 

caram

There is display/pixel related bug when Tags are present.

Steps to reproduce:
1. In the register, filter to display consecutive lines with tags.
2. Select a transaction
3. Move down a few transactions using the down-arrow
4. A remnant horizontal line is present above each Tag that you have just gone through by moving down

Reproducible: always.
System: MacBook Pro 13 inch 2018, Intel Iris Plus Graphics

Screenshot attached.

jacobs

@caram  I can reproduce the issue you describe, but… the lines clear themselves as soon as I stop doing something for a second. That is, if I have a register full of transactions with Tags, after selecting one and using arrow down 5 times, I see the stray horizontal rule below the tag field on those 4 transactions above, but as soon as I take my hand off the keyboard for a second (or click on anything else), the screen refreshes such that the lines disappear. 

I'd also add to the note that this occurs only if the Row Height (in View > Register Text & Row Settings) is set to Tiny. If the Row Height is any of the other three heights, this horizontal rule does not appear. 

leona.bertagnolli

Have version 5.18.2, running on older Mac. Tried old report and was clearly missing two months of transactions, contacted support and exported all the data and re-loaded. Didn't help. Have checked my dates, that all Payees are checked marked and went to new report in Reports: Create Transaction report (as someone commented to do). Nothing worked.

caram

> @jacobs said:
> the lines clear themselves as soon as I stop doing something for a second.

Indeed. But if you maintain pressure on the keyboard and move up and down repeatedly, multiple shadow lines will become visible and you can even take a screenshot (see attached).

> I'd also add to the note that this occurs only if the Row Height [...]
> is set to Tiny.

It's my setting indeed.

caram

I have a bug where the category for a transaction is not set when the QuickFill rule is a transfer.

Steps to reproduce:
1. Create QuickFill transaction like screenshot 1
2. In the register, enter a new transaction corresponding to the rule above. The transfer is pre-filled, but not the category (screenshot 2)
3. Press <Enter>. The category is set to Uncategorized and the Transfer is blank (screenshot 3)

Expected result:
- The category and transfer should both be set. This is how it used to work a couple of releases ago.

RickO

caram said:

I have a bug where the category for a transaction is not set when the QuickFill rule is a transfer. 

See this: https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7876864/payee-quickfill-problem-if-hidden-or-transaction-is-a-transfer-q-mac/p1

arborsouth

Since the release of 5.18.2 for Mac, we are having issues opening our file. We access it from two different computers (mine and my office manager) via Dropbox. It has now gotten to the point that it won't open at all, nor will the backup open. Both computers are Macs, both running Catalina 10.15.7. One is an iMac and one is a McBook Air.

What we notice is each time one of us opens the file, it appears the backup resides on our individual computer. Then when the other person tries to open the file, it says it "may already be open on a different computer."

It also sometimes drops data when one of us enters.

Everything in our office is on Dropbox (which was a blessing when COVID hit and we worked from home for the summer).

How can we get this resolved?

jacobs

@arborsouth  Unfortunately, Quicken does not support hosting your live data file on Dropbox or other cloud services. It may appear to work okay for awhile, sometimes a long while, until it suddenly doesn't. There are a number of possible impacts from running directly from Dropbox, the worst of which is that you get locked out of your file entirely.

The safe way to use two computers via Dropbox is:

1. Put your Quicken data file on your local hard drive. Use it from there.
2. When you are done using Quicken, move a safe copy of your file to Dropbox. What's "safe"? You can either use the internal command to create a backup straight to Dropbox, or you can quit Quicken, click on the data file on your hard drive, do File > Compress in the Finder to make a .zip file, and copy that to Dropbox.
3. Whoever wants to use Quicken next must begin by copying the .quickenbackup or .zip file from Dropbox to your local computer; double-click it to launch Quicken and use that file locally.
4. Repeat steps 2-4 every time.

It may sound a bit cumbersome, but once you get it set up, you'll see it will add just a few seconds to the start and end of each Quicken session. Working on the file locally at all times prevents problems with trying to use the database remotely. And always starting from the backup file stored on Dropbox, and replacing it there at the end of your work session, insures that each user is always using the latest data file.

So I would start by moving your data file to a local machine, and seeing if Quicken is behaving normally. If yes, you're in luck that there's no lasting damage or file error permissions, and following the procedure above should keep you working cleanly going forward.

arborsouth

@jacobs thanks. Yes, that sounds very cumbersome. I'll give it a try, but it seems like it wouldn't be difficult for Quicken to have an option of where you wanted the backup file to reside and be able to have that on Dropbox as well.

When our state shut down all businesses in March for COVID, Dropbox saved our business. We sent everyone home and didn't miss beat.

RickO

@arborsouth  I agree with all that Jacobs said. 

Yes, you can set Quicken to auto-save a backup to a specific folder whenever you quit and you can tell it how many backups to keep. You will find the setting at menu Quicken > Preferences > General > File Backup. Click the "Backup Folder..." button to set the location. The location can be a different folder path on different computers (both of which would point to the same shared Dropbox folder). 

Then each of you only needs to restore the latest backup, do your work, and then quit. You just need to make sure you don't both work at the same time else whoever's changes were backed up last would be the only changes retained by the procedure.

caram

Bills & Income > + (bug)

Steps to reproduce:
1. Move to Bills & Income
2. Type something in the search box
3. Press + to create a new scheduled transaction
4. The usual Transaction Details dialog never appears. Instead, a new blank uncategorized transaction has been created (and you don't even see it, since you're in filter mode)

Tom Bonner

When I entered a bond purchase today using the BUY BONDS function, I entered the accrued interest and adjusted total cost of the transaction was indicated. After saving the transaction, there was no Miscellaneous Expense transaction generated to account for the accrued interest and when I looked at the transaction again the accrued interest entry had disappeared. Repeated tries to add the accrued interest failed to stick.

Looking back at the last similar transaction on 11/26/2019. The accrued interest was no longer shown in the Buy Bonds transaction but the miscellaneous expense was present.