Bank account loses Bill Pay option

Question

I have been using Quicken with my Bank of America checking account to pay bills for years, entering the payment into Quicken and having it send it to the bank. This worked for years with Quicken 2007, now on Q Deluxe 2020 v5.18.2 the 'Bill Pay' option disappears from the Details menu on new transactions with regularity, leaving only 'Print Check'. Until I edit the account and do the Change Connection Type command, simply re-selecting 'Direct Connect' and entering bank login details. This lets me enter new transactions with the Bill Pay option which I can then send to the bank within Quicken. Come back a couple days later, and New Transactions no longer have the Bill Pay option, only Print Check. What's up? Something has been broken in a feature I use A LOT. Hmm, I haven't even quit Quicken, and the Bill Pay option has disappeared from Edit Details, just a few minutes after I re-connected the account and entered AND SENT a bill pay transaction. Do I have to re-connect the account for every bill to be paid? That would be bad news indeed.

jacobs · Answer

The Net Worth report is a balance sheet report by another name: it shows you the value of each of your accounts as of a specified date.

(Sorry, can't help with the other issue. ;)  )

Quicken_Tyka · Answer

Hello @mcasteel Thank you for the response, although I am sorry to hear that the trouble continues to persist and you have not received a follow-up response.

If at any time you interested in pursuing this issue further would recommend contacting support directly for advanced troubleshooting steps.

https://www.quicken.com/support#contact-support

Quicken Care has the ability to initiate a screen share to view the issue in real-time to review and research this further.

Thank you,

-Quicken Tyka

mcasteel · Answer

Tried this. (1) removing Direct Connect download setting from original checking account, creating new test account, setting up for Direct Connect, I was able to create more than one transaction for bank payment...EXCEPT both test transactions (I used Pay Now) went into Waiting state and Quicken failed to record a bank acknowledgment of them. They were visible as pending payments at the bank. Unable to delete the transactions OR the test account due to 'pending' bank stuff, I had to discard the file and restore from backup, and delete the test bill pays at the bank's website since Quicken wouldn't delete or cancel them.

(2) In the restored file, I disconnected and reconnected the 'old' account, and found that I could enter more than one Bill Pay transaction in a row...UNTIL I did a 'update all online accounts' and said 'continue' to post the pending bill pay transactions. It then properly posted them, received the bank acknowledgment and gave them the fake check numbers (instead of leaving them 'waiting' like the transactions in the test account). BUT, a New Transaction subsequently was missing the Bill Pay option in Details, requiring another disconnect/reconnect for Direct Connect to reinstate the Bill Pay option.

AND, I keep getting 'invalid URL' errors listed in the Account Status window, even for the checking account which just posted two new bill payments.

I guess I have to start looking into alternatives to Quicken, since it has apparently been broken for a key feature I use all the time (mind you, I miss the ability to get a Balance Sheet report). This is my data file from 2002, though I have been using Quicken even longer, it's just that in 2002 I did an archive to cut the file down, which was an option in Quicken at the time.