What's up when BillPay writes "waiting" instead of transaction number?

david.taber

New issue with Quicken Deluxe 2020 Version 5.18.2 (Build 518.35919.100), fully updated, running on 2017 21" iMac with fully updated Mac OS Catalina 10.5.6. Tried to pay two bills through direct connect to Regions Bank last Thursday. Instead of processing normally and writing a "check" number for the transaction in the proper column in the register, "Waiting" appeared instead and a dialogue box like the one I have attached. Issue has not changed over several days, pressing "Continue" several times, several program restarts and re-account updates, disconnecting and reconnecting link to Regions. Monday a Regions banker (not IT person) was unaware of any problems on their end and referred me to Quicken, offering a later three-way conversation with her and Regions IT if Quicken had no solution. Quicken rep last night said that if I was using direct connect it certainly had to be a Regions problem, not a Quicken one. Any insights before I go back to Regions, hat in hand? Thanks very much.

david.taber

It was a software issue after all. The "nuclear option" of uninstalling and reinstalling the program solved it.

Quicken Hugh

Hello @david.taber,
Sorry to hear that you are having a spot of difficulty with the Regions Bank Bill Pay system. Yes, the expected response from Regions Bank is that you will get a check number to show up in your Qdata file check account register. 
Without checking thoroughly on the Quicken side of the equation, I personally wouldn't say it is "certainly" a Regions Bank Direct Connect problem. (It's not clear how deeply the Quicken side of things have been check as of yet. But from the available information, nothing jumps out at me as being problematic on the Quicken side of things.) Most often the type of issue you have described will have to be resolved on the bank's IT side of the equation, that is true.
In all other regards when you run a One Step Update, are your Regions Bank accounts updating? Do you get any error messages at all? (If so, what does the error message say?) 
As you have described it, the Quicken side is working properly. When you call Regions back, ask to escalate to the IT Dept (as the IT Guy will have much more access to the back-end systems to see what's going on, and the ability to fix it). It sounds like the transactions may not yet have fully processed at the bank (?), and they have not yet released the check number to Quicken.

david.taber

Thank you very much, Hugh. The Regions accounts update just fine. In the "account status" window that opens after an update there's a green light by each one (including the Regions) and each one's note reads "last connection successful." To be on the safe side, though, I'm assuming that the problematic transactions are not in fact going to be fully processed, and if I don't resolve this in a few days I will write and mail checks physically.

david.taber

As it turns out, the accounts I spoke of are not updating as I would expect. So I had the idea of deleting the accounts from the particular bank, quitting and restarting the program, then adding the accounts back to see if that changed anything. Catch-22 message appears: can't delete account while payments are pending. Anyone have any more thoughts? Thank you.

david.taber

It was a software issue after all. The "nuclear option" of uninstalling and reinstalling the program solved it.