Why do my online bills balance become ZERO at the pay due date?

Michael R

Most of my online accounts become zero at the pay due date and require me to go in the main bills due page and enter the amount of the bill manually.

Chris_QPW

It is because of the screwed up way they do the online bills.

Basically what the third party does is scanning the biller's website for the bill information.  Depending on the site that information "zeroed" right after you paid your bill.

This presents an "online bill system" with bit of a problem, there is going to be a period of time where in fact it doesn't know what the next bill is.

Sometimes that shows up as "Awaiting Next Bill", and/or zeroing the amount.

Which of course makes this system useless.  How can anyone use the projected balances and such if the next bill is going to be set to zero?

This is one of the main reasons I stopped using this system.

If you were using a manual reminder there are "estimate" options that at least give you a guess at what the next bill will be.  Unfortunately the Quicken developers have chosen to ignore this information when linked to an online bill.

jrich75

shshoemaker said:

Every time I do a One Step Update, the coming month's reminders that are linked to Bill Manager are set to zero, while reminders for future months are not changed. Each time this happens I reset the reminders for the coming month, and each time I do a One Step Update the reminders are again reset to zero 

If you unlink the reminders from the online bills, they should follow the estimating rules set within the reminder.  You may have to edit the upcoming reminder when you receive the bill but will not have to whenever you do a OSU.

twarner1

The new online bill system is very confusing to me and I haven't trusted it since it was introduced.  The word "entered" seems to have multiple definitions - one where I enter a bill and one where the bill value has been entered by the online system and shown as "entered" in the bill status list.  Quicken could have used the label "downloaded" instead of entered for bills that were updated online.

The "set to zero" issue discussed above is just another illustration of the poor implementation of Quicken's Online Bills.  BTW, Quicken cloud was so problematic that I disabled it a long time ago.  It caused more problems then it was worth.

Chris_QPW

It is because of the screwed up way they do the online bills.

Basically what the third party does is scanning the biller's website for the bill information.  Depending on the site that information "zeroed" right after you paid your bill.

This presents an "online bill system" with bit of a problem, there is going to be a period of time where in fact it doesn't know what the next bill is.

Sometimes that shows up as "Awaiting Next Bill", and/or zeroing the amount.

Which of course makes this system useless.  How can anyone use the projected balances and such if the next bill is going to be set to zero?

This is one of the main reasons I stopped using this system.

If you were using a manual reminder there are "estimate" options that at least give you a guess at what the next bill will be.  Unfortunately the Quicken developers have chosen to ignore this information when linked to an online bill.

Michael R

Usually, the bill shows the correct amount due for a period of time during the billing cycle. Then it mysteriously changes to ZERO and the due changes to "Awaiting next bill". Then the payee drops to the bottom of the list. I have already changed many of my payees back to manual because this is such an unreliable process. I guess I will abandon the rest of them and go manual on the entire group. Or MAYBE Quicken can come up with a fix. This was touted as one their great improvements when it went into effect. I have been using Quicken for f 20 plus years and find this to be disappointing. Thanks for your input. I am going to call Quicken support and lodge my complaint.

shshoemaker

I have also had this problem for several months (I have used Quicken for at least 25 years and know it very well). I have never used Quicken's Mobile and Web apps and have not set up Quicken sync to cloud. And, Mobile & Web sync is turned off (I checked). However I am still having this problem with the coming month's reminders. Every time I do a One Step Update, the coming month's reminders that are linked to Bill Manager are set to zero, while reminders for future months are not changed. Each time this happens I reset the reminders for the coming month, and each time I do a One Step Update the reminders are again reset to zero (I do this because I want an accurate projection of future cash balances). So, at least for me, turning off the Mobile & Web sync does not eliminate this problem.

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: Monthly Bill Reminders Glitch.

jrich75

shshoemaker said:

Every time I do a One Step Update, the coming month's reminders that are linked to Bill Manager are set to zero, while reminders for future months are not changed. Each time this happens I reset the reminders for the coming month, and each time I do a One Step Update the reminders are again reset to zero 

If you unlink the reminders from the online bills, they should follow the estimating rules set within the reminder.  You may have to edit the upcoming reminder when you receive the bill but will not have to whenever you do a OSU.

Michael R

It is dissapointing that the online billers don't link with current balance correctly. I thought that was the point of this enhancement.

twarner1

The new online bill system is very confusing to me and I haven't trusted it since it was introduced.  The word "entered" seems to have multiple definitions - one where I enter a bill and one where the bill value has been entered by the online system and shown as "entered" in the bill status list.  Quicken could have used the label "downloaded" instead of entered for bills that were updated online.

The "set to zero" issue discussed above is just another illustration of the poor implementation of Quicken's Online Bills.  BTW, Quicken cloud was so problematic that I disabled it a long time ago.  It caused more problems then it was worth.

Michael R

I plan on unlinking all my payment accounts. At least then I will have an estimated balane due like I did before this enhancement came online a year or so ago. I have struggled with this to keep my amounts due in sync with the online biller balance. The concept is great. The net result is more work than it is worth. Thanks to everyone for your comments.

Paul26

I am having this issue as well. It looks like postings for this issue stopped in January. Is there another thread related to the issue?