QMac automatically enters and clears downloaded transactions. [Edited]

garry4

In Windows if a downloaded transaction can't be matched against the register it gets flagged for review. Over the years I have twice caught fraudulent transactions because of this. Quicken Mac, OTOH, blithely adds any and all transactions to the register, guesses at a category (usually incorrectly) AND marks it as cleared!?! Cleared? Really? Fraud is a thing of the past? Who knew?

As far as I can find there's no way to turn this "feature" off. Am I missing something? And if I'm not missing something are there plans to fix it?

RickO

@garry4

When working in QWin, you review new transactions in a separate review window. In QMac, what if you invoke the filter Status > Not Reviewed and consider this configuration to be that separate review window? Then review each transaction and mark reviewed making them disappear from this view (as I think they do when you accept them in QWin, yes?). When you've reviewed everything, clear the Status filter which would be the equivalent of returning to the register in QWin. 

BTW, If you do find a blue dot icon that is valid but just didn't match to the manual transaction (maybe the amount was a little off, for example), you can drag and drop one onto the other to force them to match.

Oh, and I don't recall where the Status column is by default. I always have mine on the very far left to make it more noticeable. I put the Clr column next to that. And if you like, you can widen the Clr column just a bit to separate the two.

smayer97

Meanwhile, you can add your VOTE to Restore Transactions Downloading Acceptance and Matching workflow.

First, click on the underlined link above to go there, then click the little grey triangle under the VOTE count at the top of page 1 in the blue banner, so your vote will count for THIS feature and increase its visibility to the developers by seeking to have the features you need or desire end up in the latest version (it may take a moment for your vote to register).
(If the triangle is black, your vote has already been counted.)

Your VOTES matter!

Quicken Julio

Hi @garry4,

Thanks for taking the time to post to our Community.

Quicken only downloads transactions that have cleared with your financial institution.

Feel free to visit the Quicken Windows Help Dashboard for this information. For your convenience, I've provided an excerpt below:

"... You downloaded this transaction into Quicken from your financial institution and accepted it into your register (it was marked as cleared on your financial institution website)."

Please feel free to respond to this thread with any additional questions or concerns.

RickO

There have been many requests for QMac to have a separate downloaded transaction acceptance process like QWin. It doesn't look like that's going to happen.

So what do you do? Make sure the Status column is showing in the register (that's the one labeled with a black dot). In this column, if you see a transaction with a blue dot, that is one that was downloaded but did not match. Those are the ones to pay special attention to for possible fraud.

As you review each transaction, click the status column and then "Reviewed" to clear the dot (or blue pencil or envelop). An empty status column on a transaction will be your indication that you've reviewed the transaction and it is good to go. If you want a more prominent indication, turn on the Match Status column. This will say either Matched (auto), Matched (manual) or Downloaded. 

If you want to see only non-reviewed transactions, or the most recently downloaded, there are filters for this under the Status filter at the top.

As for marking it as cleared, this is appropriate because as far as the bank is concerned, the transaction has cleared. That column is an indication of the transaction's status at the bank, and should be kept in sync with the bank's records.

This is a different workflow than in QWin, but it is essentially functionally equivalent once you get used to it.

garry4

Rick O--Thank you for a helpful response. It's been about six weeks since I converted from QWin to Mac and the blue dot thing just hasn't worked for me. I've turned on the matched status column. Now I need some transactions to download to test it out.

Is there a way to stop Quicken Mac from automatically categorizing downloaded transactions? As far as I can tell this is another "helpful" behavior you turn off in Windows but not Mac.

For anyone else reading this, the match status of my old imported transaction was "Not Reviewed." To make them "Reviewed."
1. Select all your old transactions.
2. Right click > Set Status of Selected Transactions > Reviewed

jacobs

@garry4  You can turn off auto-categorization by going to Preferences > Connected Services and unchecking the box for "Automatically improve the quality of downloaded payee names and categories".

Alternatively, you can build up a library of QuickFill rules for your Payees which categorize transactions the way you, not Quicken, prefer. While this can take some time to set up, after a month or two of making your regular Payees have QuickFill rules for your preferred categorization, you should have generally smooth sailing as you move forward (whether you have auto-categorization on or off). 

garry4

Quicken Julio--if you were a regular forum person I would ignore your response. But since you're a Quicken employee I'm going respond. .

>>Feel free to visit the Quicken Windows Help Dashboard<<
I post in the **Mac** forum asking about the **Mac** software and you provide a link to Windows help. Seriously?

>>Quicken only downloads transactions that have cleared with your financial institution.<<
Last year someone went to Best Buy and bought an iPhone with my credit card number. That transaction was cleared by my financial institution. Should I have just paid it?

As far as I'm concerned it is not a "feature" for the Mac version to put unmatched transactions directly into the register. It's also not a "feature" that unmatched downloads are automatically categorized without my input. Almost by definition your customers are more careful, if not compulsive, than "regular" people. Instead of posting irrelevant replies in this forum you should listen to what your customers complain about and report it to the developers and make your software better. Just an idea.

RickO

@garry4

When working in QWin, you review new transactions in a separate review window. In QMac, what if you invoke the filter Status > Not Reviewed and consider this configuration to be that separate review window? Then review each transaction and mark reviewed making them disappear from this view (as I think they do when you accept them in QWin, yes?). When you've reviewed everything, clear the Status filter which would be the equivalent of returning to the register in QWin. 

BTW, If you do find a blue dot icon that is valid but just didn't match to the manual transaction (maybe the amount was a little off, for example), you can drag and drop one onto the other to force them to match.

Oh, and I don't recall where the Status column is by default. I always have mine on the very far left to make it more noticeable. I put the Clr column next to that. And if you like, you can widen the Clr column just a bit to separate the two.

smayer97

Meanwhile, you can add your VOTE to Restore Transactions Downloading Acceptance and Matching workflow.

First, click on the underlined link above to go there, then click the little grey triangle under the VOTE count at the top of page 1 in the blue banner, so your vote will count for THIS feature and increase its visibility to the developers by seeking to have the features you need or desire end up in the latest version (it may take a moment for your vote to register).
(If the triangle is black, your vote has already been counted.)

Your VOTES matter!

Chris_QPW

To me this sounds like another case of misunderstanding of the features/processes.   It isn't too surprising since a lot of the Quicken Windows SuperUsers tend to make the same assumptions.

People see "automatic entry" and immediately jump to the conclusion of "out of control", whereas if the person follows the proper procedure this isn't the case.  And if the person doesn't follow the proper procedures it doesn't matter if it isn't "automatic entry mode" they will still be messing things up.

The Mac user might not know it but Quicken Window has basically the same mode that Quicken Mac uses for this process.  And in fact it is the default for new users.  But of course it also has the old "accept" method.

I personally use the new "review/automatic entry" mode in Quicken Windows, and I can guarantee that my tracking of transactions is far from "out of control".

And this original statement doesn't sound right:
"In Windows if a downloaded transaction can't be matched against the register it gets flagged for review."

I have setup for downloading and importing where some of the transactions have been pre entered, and some not so that you can see what the process is for matching and in general the "review" vs "accept" processes.



OK you can see the two that match.  What you can't see is what category will be assigned to the others that don't match.  And actually in reality you get the "match" status, but what if you had two transactions with the exact same amount.  How would you know they match the right ones?

That is where the "accept" process comes in.  You have to click on each transaction to see what it is going to do.  I click on the first one in the Downloaded Transactions tab.  And notice the transaction it matches to in the register is highlighted.
At this point the user would click Accept.


And for one that isn't pre-entered/matched?
You click on it in the Downloaded transactions tab and it put a new transaction in the "blank entry" at the bottom.  This is the first time you get to see what the category Quicken will assign to it unless you override it.  And yes you have options not to auto categorize and all that, and you can edit the transaction in the register once it is selected.  In fact editing it and hitting Enter in that transaction is the same as hitting the Accept in the Downloaded Transactions tab.

Note in the case of this transaction I have purposely told Quicken not to automatic categorize for "Automatic Thank" because that is credit card payment and as such is a transfer that I would normally pre-enter to get the accounts correct and such.

OK enough of that mode, now for the "automatic transaction entry mode"/Review process.

In this process you "review" the transactions.  You just do it in the register instead of in a separate list.  The review process is look at all transactions that have New or New Match and "review them".  This can be done in a few different ways. Clicking on the New icon gives this menu.

You can mark the one transaction reviewed or all of them (and since you can see all the transactions and what categories Quicken gave and such there isn't anything "out of control" by first reviewing them all and marking them all reviewed).  "Reviewed" clears that status, that is the indication this it has been reviewed.  If you edit the transaction, that is also considered reviewed.  If you do a reconcile the transactions in the reconcile are marked reviewed.  Note it is very important not to be in this mode and use automatic reconcile on Quicken Windows, because the reconcile is only looking at the amounts, not things like the category/payee names and such.  You should always review before reconciling.

The New Match menu is similar.


Matching on Windows and Mac is different (and better on the Mac).  On Windows for matching a transaction that was pre-entered that wasn't matched the process wasn't matched the process would be to change the amount of the pre-entered transaction to the amount of the downloaded one and then click on the "uncleared" status and get this menu.

Clicking on it gives a dialog with a list of downloaded transactions that the same amount.  Clearly the drag and drop of Quicken Mac is better.  Also I know some of the details are a bit different, but it is the same process.

Other considerations from the Quicken Inc standpoint is that Quicken Mobile/Web and their new Simpifi are all going to be using the "review" process, not the "accept" process.  But I hope my showing the two processes shows that neither is "out of control" if you use them right.

And I do say use them right.  Like I said one could turn on automatic reconcile and mess things up in the "review" process.  They can also mark them all reviewed without doing it for real or event just ignore the process.  But the same goes for the "accept" process.  Notice there is an Accept All button.  One could come in hit that and all the transactions will be accepted into the register without any review process and no status of what got changed.

Reviewing in the register has advantages.  You can see how Quicken assigned categories with a quick scan instead of clicking on each transaction in the Downloaded Transactions tab.  You have the power of the register to do filtering, sorting, editing of multiple transactions at the same time.  The Downloaded Transaction tab is much more limited in functionality.  Until recently you couldn't even select more than one transaction at a time and delete them.

And as a final note, this statement:
"Quicken Mac, OTOH, blithely adds any and all transactions to the register, guesses at a category (usually incorrectly) AND marks it as cleared!?!"

First off I didn't talking how Quicken gets the category, but both Quicken Mac and Windows have a "guess" option, and a "rules" option.  The guess option is good for a new user starting out or maybe even for new "unknown payees".  For sure the user should be making use of the "rules" to ensure that Quicken is selecting categories for the most part how you want them.  It isn't going to be 100% because it only has what is sent to it like the payee name and memo.  But the fact that it isn't 100% is why there is a review/accept process.  And BTW the more complicated your categories are the more likely the "rules" won't work and you will have to tweak the categories as they come in or pre-enter the transactions and then match.

And the part of "marks it as cleared" makes no sense.
The "cleared" status means that the transaction has cleared the financial institution.
And clearly if the transaction has been downloaded it has cleared the financial institution!

It isn't the "cleared status" you should be looking at.  In the case of the "review" process you should be looking the the transaction status (New/New Match/uncleared/blank) that is what is tell you about your process of checking to make sure things are correct.  It is the same as you going into the Downloading Transactions tab and "accepting" that transaction.

smayer97

One key difference in the Acceptance process in QM2007 is that you CAN see and even edit the assigned categorization right in the same window.

Also, there are MANY good reasons where the Acceptance process is beneficial, and I argue, superior. These are listed in the IDEA thread above.

Chris_QPW

Well I personally disagree with several points in your idea thread, but in fact that isn't the point of what I posted.

I can certainly see how both processes could be improved, and maybe the old Quicken Mac had a better system than the Windows had.

The claims have always been that for some reason that because a term like "automatic entry" gets slapped on to a given process it is "dangerous" (from the title of this thread).  And that isn't true.

The "review" process is no more or less "dangerous" than the "accept" process.

In my opinion the MAIN reason for complaints is that it is DIFFERENT that what people are use to.

smayer97

Chris_QPW said:

...
The claims have always been that for some reason that because a term like "automatic entry" gets slapped on to a given process it is "dangerous" (from the title of this thread).  And that isn't true.

The "review" process is no more or less "dangerous" than the "accept" process.
...

I'm not seeing that claim here. I'm reading it as an issue of lack of desired control and interaction.

Chris_QPW said:

...
In my opinion the MAIN reason for complaints is that it is DIFFERENT that what people are use to.

As I have argued, as well as others, it is far more than just different. The current design may work for some, but I know it does not work for everyone. In fact, this is the third TOP requested feature out of literally hundreds and hundreds, and I would say for very good reasons.

garry4

Jacobs
>>you can build up a library of QuickFill rules for your Payees which categorize transactions the way you, not Quicken, prefer. <<

Indeed I already have a long list of quick fill rules. What I wasn't expecting was that Quicken would install and and quick fill to its own a set of default categories. Of course it makes perfect sense for a new user but it irritated the heck out of me. In any event, I have nuked the Quicken defaults so this should improve with time.

garry4

>> you can drag and drop one onto the other to force them to match.<<
SWEET! I'm using that for sure. Thanks for taking the time to help.

garry4

Chris,
I appreciate the care and thought you put in your very comprehensive response. The detail is helpful but it also illustrates my quarrel with how Mac reconciles.

Reconcile in Quicken Windows.

-Download transactions.
-Transactions open in a separate reconcile view and are flagged (yes they are flagged) as "matched" and "unmatched."
-Click on a match and the corresponding register entry highlights.
-Click accept, the register entry is marked as cleared and the "match" disappears from the view.
-When the matches are gone, verify and categorize the unmatched.
-Once verified click accept and a cleared entry goes into the register and the downloaded transaction disappears from the view.
-When the view is empty click the Reconcile button and you're done.

When I made the switch I didn't expect or even want Mac to work the same as Win. But after six weeks of trying I don't see how this blue dot, status filter rigamarole is an improvement over a system that I can describe in a few sentences. As far as I'm concerned the Win reconcile is simpler, completely unambiguous and it's time tested. It should at least be an option on Mac.

Now if I didn't scare off our moderator maybe he will read this and forward the thread to the powers that be.

garry4

Smayer97
Thanks for letting me know I'm not out on an island here. I added my vote to the feature request.

jacobs

garry4 said:

What I wasn't expecting was that Quicken would install and and quick fill to its own a set of default categories. Of course it makes perfect sense for a new user but it irritated the heck out of me. In any event, I have nuked the Quicken defaults so this should improve with time.

One thing to understand is that there's nothing wrong with deleting many of Quicken's default categories, but it will mean that auto-categorization by Quicken won't work well for you in the future. Quicken's auto-categorization uses crowd-sourced, anonymized data to know that "Safeway" should be categorized as groceries. But I have a top-level category called Groceries from decades ago (which I don't know if I created or some original version of Quicken created), and Quicken Mac has a default category of Food & Dining with a sub-category of Groceries; if I delete Quicken's categories, then their auto-categorization engine won't match to my self-created. I have an "Auto:Fuel"; Quicken Mac has "Auto & Transport:Gas & Fuel", so if I delete Quicken's defaults and keep my own, it won't know to put "Exxon" in my "Auto:Fuel" category.

That all said, I don't care, because I'm fine being off the auto-categorization system. My QuickFill Rules now know exactly how I want things categorized, and for the new Payees that come up from time to time, I have no problem categorizing them and "teaching" Quicken how to treat them in the future.

So as long as you know how it works it can work well a number of different ways depending on your workflow and desires. 

garry4 said:

Now if I didn't scare off our moderator maybe he will read this and forward the thread to the powers that be.

Yeah… it doesn't work like that at all. There are lots of ideas generated on this forum every week, and the moderators don't organize them and pass them all on to the developers or management because it would exceed their capacity to process and far exceed their capacity to implement. So they have this system of threads on this forum which are in the Product Ideas section, which users can submit and users can vote for if they support the ideas. Those ideas which get significant traction are periodically gathered and submitted to a product review team. After some time (sometimes months, sometimes years), some ideas are approved for implementation and put on the development roadmap, and after some time (sometimes months, sometimes years) the idea ends up in the released product.

If that sounds daunting and discouraging, well, it is somewhat. On the other hand, having hung out here for a number of years and watched the development of the modern Quicken Mac since it came out six years ago, I can definitely say that management and the developers do listen to and respond to user requests… just not as quickly as we'd like.

jacobs

As a P.S. to my comment above: to vote for the idea topic for downloading transactions to be held separate from registers until approved/accepted, click here to go to the thread, scroll down until you see the big blue box under the first post, and click the little gray arrow under the counter to register your vote. @garry4 I'd also suggest copying and pasting your comment from above into that thread, because if/when the developers actually consider these ideas, they want to see not just votes but the reasons why users say an idea would prove helpful. A good use case story can help developers grasp user needs in ways that perhaps the original idea post does not.

This idea is already marked "Under Consideration," but that means only that it has enough votes and comments here that the moderators have sent it on to the review committee. More votes and comments can still be helpful in not only pushing for an idea to be accepted, but influencing how high a priority it is given if it is approved for development.

Chris_QPW

smayer97 said:

Chris_QPW said:

...
The claims have always been that for some reason that because a term like "automatic entry" gets slapped on to a given process it is "dangerous" (from the title of this thread).  And that isn't true.

The "review" process is no more or less "dangerous" than the "accept" process.
...

I'm not seeing that claim here. I'm reading it as an issue of lack of desired control and interaction.

"It's dangerous that QMac automatically enters and clears downloaded transactions."

Chris_QPW

garry4 said:

Chris,
I appreciate the care and thought you put in your very comprehensive response. The detail is helpful but it also illustrates my quarrel with how Mac reconciles.

Reconcile in Quicken Windows.

I hope you realize that the two methods I was describing were from Quicken Windows.  The second one which closely resembles what Quicken Mac does.

There isn't "one method" in Quicken Windows, there is two.
And even though most long time Quicken user might not realize it there is a lot of people using the second method, because in fact it is the default for new users.

And my only reason for posting isn't to argue about which is "better", that is just an opinion and that also depends on how someone uses Quicken.

My point is simply that both processes can be used "safely" and "successfully".

One might be "easier" for this use case or another, but that isn't what I was talking about.

smayer97

Chris_QPW said:

smayer97 said:

Chris_QPW said:

...
The claims have always been that for some reason that because a term like "automatic entry" gets slapped on to a given process it is "dangerous" (from the title of this thread).  And that isn't true.

The "review" process is no more or less "dangerous" than the "accept" process.
...

I'm not seeing that claim here. I'm reading it as an issue of lack of desired control and interaction.

"It's dangerous that QMac automatically enters and clears downloaded transactions."

HAHA... I was so caught up in the comments and replies, I overlooked the original title... so I got a different sense through the comments and lost sight of the original context by the OP. oops.

garry4

Headlines get attention, no? Here's what happened, I was looking at my check register and noticed a mysterious $1.08 withdrawal by Quicken.

Turns out they were taking back the account verification "micro deposits." But being a legitimate transaction is besides the point. In Windows that transaction would have stuck out when I was clearing transactions. With the Mac set up it got past me.

"Dangerous?" Ok an overstatement. But it shouldn't happen.

RickO

I know I'm going to get blowback on this, but I think if you substitute "reviewing" transactions for  "clearing/accepting" transactions in your workflow, you will find that you don't miss this type of thing. Instead of working on the Clr column, work to clear the Status column by using Mark Reviewed. That will become your acceptance process. Using the Status > Not Reviewed filter can help with this.

Reconciling the account is a separate, different process and that does involve the Clr column.

smayer97

No blowback here... that approach is useful but one point is that it has its limitations and drawbacks that the original Acceptance workflow overcomes for which there is no work-around.