Broken feature from QM2007: linked transfers with splits are separated in destination account

tlauducc

Why was this discussion closed? https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7878420/transfers-from-one-account-to-another-with-split-transactions

I have the same issue and it was not resolved in that discussion. It's about functionality from Quicken Mac 2007 that no longer works in Quicken Mac 2020.

See here for the definition of a linked transfer: https://www.quicken.com/support/transfers-quicken-mac

Issue: a linked transfer with multiple split lines going to the same account will show up as separate individual transactions in the destination account (it should be a single transaction in both accounts). Therefore, the destination account will not reconcile, because the bank downloads show one transfer for the sum of the multiple individual transactions QM2020 creates. In QM2007 the destination account would correctly have a single transaction that matched the bank-downloaded transaction. You could not access the split details in the destination account register, but that was better than QM2020 creating fake transactions that don't match the bank statements.

Use case: I used to let my mortgage lender escrow my property taxes and insurance. Now I self-escrow them. Every month I transfer $600 from my primary checking to a special savings account dedicated to escrow. $500 is for my property tax and $100 is for homeowners insurance. I want to track each escrow category separately, so I use two split lines in the transfer. This QM2020 bug means one of the two accounts won't reconcile properly; i.e. if I record the $600 split transaction in the savings account, then the checking account will have two separate transactions (one for $500 and another for $100) that do not match my bank's downloaded transactions.

The only workaround I can think of is to do two separate bank transfers every month so they're actually two separate transactions in both Quicken and my bank. But I'd rather not incur extra effort/transactions just to avoid this bug. Are there other workarounds I'm not thinking of? How do we get this bug fixed? Is there a feature request I can +1?

jacobs

@tlauducc  Interesting… I guess I hadn't done such a transaction, and I was unaware Quicken Mac did it this way. This doesn't seem to be a bug; it seems it was intentionally designed to function the way it is. (I don't know the reason why; I'm just saying it seems to be a deliberate change.) But I can see why you find it less optimal than the way it worked in Quicken 2007.

Still "thinking out loud" about this: what is the value to you of having this as a single transaction in each account, with both ends showing the split? You couldn't easily total your cumulative balance for insurance versus property taxes, right? So what do you gain by creating the split?

I can think of three possible workarounds which might work for you, depending what you're trying to accomplish...

1) Can you do the transaction in reverse? In other words, if you create the transaction in your checking account with a split of transfers to the escrow account, you'll have the single entry in your checking account to reconcile with your bank statement, and you'll have the two entries in your escrow account, which will be easy to identify and reconcile (even if your escrow account in the real world only shows one deposit transaction).

2) If you created different tags to apply to the two splits, then you could create a report in your escrow account by tag, if you wanted to see the two components separately -- if the point of doing the split is to be able to see these amounts separately somewhere.

3) Conversely, since you want to see only one transaction in each account, perhaps you could just do it as a single transaction with no split, and document the property tax and insurance amount in the memo field if you wish so you have a record of it.

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I'm not aware of there being an existing Idea thread for a request to change this behavior. (I'm guessing most people create a split transfer to the same account rarely or never.) But you do a good job above explaining the use case, so you might want to create a new Idea post in the Product Ideas-Quicken for Mac > Manage Accounts and Transactions category to request that split transfer not be split, including your example to provide the why.

tlauducc

@jacobs thank you for your thoughtful response. At your suggestion I created this product idea: https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7884637/linked-transfers-with-splits-keep-as-single-transaction-in-destination-account-do-not-separate

Please check if I got the category wrong -- "Manage Accounts & Transactions" was under "Quicken Windows," so I made it under the generic "Quick for Mac" category. Long-time user (2001-ish), first-time contributor, so I'm new at this.

To answer your questions and see if it prompts more conversation:

"what is the value of having a single transaction in each account?"
A) Habit. I've been doing it for over a decade for multiple use cases and it's familiar to me. I finally upgraded from QM2007 in spring 2020 when transaction downloads broke, and this is one of the most impactful functionality changes I've encountered.
B) Simplicity. Maybe I need to open my mind to changing my ways, but it seems simpler for a few reasons. Scheduling & executing transfers takes time & effort, and the split approach minimizes transfer effort. It also keeps the register cleaner & more compact (another of my use cases has several split lines where this has more of an impact). I use reporting on memo or tag to track cumulative balances (but yes, I admit I could do this more simply if the transfers were separate transactions)
C) Cost. My bank (USAA) allows only 6 withdrawals per month from a savings account before charging a $10 per transaction fee [see link at bottom]. Not applicable in this case since it's a deposit, but would matter if the transfer was going the opposite direction.

"workaround 1) reverse the transaction"
Yes, it might help a little to move the reconciling problem to the account that has fewer transactions to keep track of. Interestingly, I got here because of working around QM2007 functionality! I started recording the split transfer in the escrow account because I wanted to do the reporting in the escrow account (so it would catch all deposits regardless of which account the deposit came from) and QM2007 forced me because it didn't show split details in the destination account. Now I'm considering the opposite to workaround QM2020 functionality! Maybe that's just a sign I'm doing something I shouldn't be doing...

"workaround 2) tag the splits"
I'm doing this via memo now because that's all that was available in QM2007. I'll consider the tag approach. My only hesitation is that tags have to be pre-defined instead of allowing free text entry that will report as long as the keyword is in there somewhere

"workaround 3) memo the splits"
As stated, this is what I do today. But it gets at my other major functionality change impact from QM2007 to QM2020: it does not seem possible to report on memo text. I hope this feature is coming but couldn't find it the last time I checked.

Additional use case: the other way I use split linked transfers is for regular monthly savings. We save each month toward a few specific goals (flights over the holidays, vacation fund, emergency fund, home repairs fund, etc.). I use splits to track & report each bucket separately but prefer the register to have a single "monthly savings transfer" from checking to savings each month. It'd be more of a headache to schedule & adjust several monthly transfers than to schedule one transfer and simply change the amount as needed.


[link: USAA transfer fee after 6 withdrawals from savings] https://content.usaa.com/mcontent/static_assets/Media/bank_account_service_fee_schedule.pdf?cacheid=831718605_p#:~:text=EXCESSIVE%20SAVINGS%20ACCOUNT%20WITHDRAWAL%20FEES,notify%20you%20of%20excessive%20withdrawals.

jacobs

@tlauducc  Thanks for taking time to lay out the use cases for this possible change in functionality and submitting it in a separate Idea post.

[EDIT: my original reply here was posted as response to a question in a different thread, and has now been moved to the right place. See below for the correct response to the post above. ]

jacobs

tlauducc said:

"workaround 3) memo the splits"
As stated, this is what I do today. But it gets at my other major functionality change impact from QM2007 to QM2020: it does not seem possible to report on memo text. I hope this feature is coming but couldn't find it the last time I checked.

Yes and no.

In modern Quicken Mac, the developers' expectation was to replace some things we used to in Quicken 2007 do via Quick Reports with powerful Search functionality. So if you would do a Quick Report on certain text in the memo field before, you can do the same thing using Search now. Select the account, or account group (like Cash or Banking, up to All Transactions if you wish to search all accounts, including hidden accounts) you want to search in, then type the text you want to search for in the Search box, and the register will show the matching transactions. You can print this report or report it if you need to.

Search by default shows "Search all visible columns", so you need to make sure your Memo/Notes column is visible to be able to search it; you can also limit the search to just the Memo/Notes column if you wish, by clicking on the tiny down arrow next to the magnifying glass in the Search box, and selecting Memo/Notes from he dropped-down menu.

Also note that you can include the Memo/Notes field in any of the Quicken Reports by clicking the View button in the report header, selecting Columns, and adding or removing whatever columns you want. So you can have this field show up in your transaction reports.

That all said, in some instances, it would still be desirable to be able to construct a Report on specified criteria for the Memo field along with all the other filters we can select in reports. (For instance, maybe you want to search for selected text in the Memo field, but only in a few selected accounts; that's difficult to do currently.) Please take a moment to visit and vote for the Idea thread for adding Memo/Notes keyword criteria to reports. (There are also some other threads on this forum where users discuss other workarounds for searching for text here and here.)