Why would only about half of the transactions in a date window get downloaded from the bank?

shauna

I have searched the question threads for over an hour and cannot find anything that addresses this exact issue. (If you know there is one out there, please refer me to it!) I am not getting error messages, just incomplete downloads. I cannot find a pattern to which transactions do not download, it seems random. And this happened the last time I downloaded in September but was hoping it was a glitch that wouldn't happen again. It is so time-consuming to figure out which transactions are missing and then enter them manually. I am downloading a Chase checking account into Quicken for Mac. Thanks for any help!!

John_in_NC

Your question is a bit vague: "half" is in before a certain date is cutoff (90 days historical normal), or "half" in transactions within the date range are getting dropped?

A common dropped transaction is when it is identical amounts on the same day-that causes issues for some banks.

shauna

Sorry for being vague! I can see how that sounded unclear. What happens is I’ll put in my 90 day window for downloading and then only about half the transactions in that window actually make into Quicken. And these are not identical transactions because I have seen that happen. These are from all different vendors and amounts and sometimes even checks will download and sometimes not. There does not seem to be any rhyme or reason! I even tried making the date window smaller like 15 days and that did not help either. 

Quicken Sarah

Hello @shauna

Thank you for providing that additional information, although I apologize that you have not yet received a follow-up response.

To ensure we are understanding the situation correctly, you are logging into your bank website and downloading 90 days of your transaction history into a Web Connect (.QFX) file.

When the file is opened in Quicken, half or more of the expected transactions do not appear in Quicken.  Is that correct?

 If so, please open the downloaded file in a text editor software, like NotePad.  You should be able to see the transaction details included in the file, are the missing transactions listed at all?

Please let us know, thank you.

Sarah

shauna

Hi Sarah, couldn't get to this until today. I tried what you suggested and downloaded from Dec 18 to today onto Excel and no transactions were missed on the Excel document! So I did that same date range into Quicken (had already entered up to Dec 18 in Quicken before today) and again, a bunch of transactions were missing. Any advice? Thanks for your response, by the way!

Chris_QPW

I would edit the QFX file in a text editor and make sure the transactions you are missing are actually in there.

Another thing to consider is the "unique Id", which in the QFX file is the FITID field.  It needs to be different from for every transaction, including the ones that exist currently in your Quicken account.  I believe that in Quicken Mac the column for that is something like Downloaded Id.  Quicken will consider any transaction that has the same unique Id a "duplicate" and not import it a "second time".

You can also try importing into a new data file to see if there is something about that data file that is causing this.

shauna

Hi Chris_QPW, thank you for taking the time to respond! I'm not an expert in this area so I might need more direction.

As to your first suggestion, if I edited the file in Excel (which I think is the only place I can figure out to download other than Quicken) can I transfer the data somehow into Quicken from there? Otherwise, I'm not sure if I understand how that would help?

Second, I don't know about ID's on files and how to manipulate that but it sounds like it could be a plausible explanation. How do I deal with that and why would it had just started happening to me this last September? I've been using Quicken on my mac for many years. Maybe some update they did last year?

Third, do you mean I could try making a whole new account in Quicken to see if downloading works on the new account and maybe something is wrong with the present one I'm using?

Thanks again for your help!!

Chris_QPW

Now that I look at this thread more closely, I'm going to change directions on how I would approach this problem.  I will leave the "troubleshooting by QFX" down below, but I expect these other steps are a better approach.

First and foremost what is the connection method?
As in Direct Connect, Quicken Connect, or Web Connect (download and import a QFX file)?

Chase allows for all three of these methods with Direct Connect being the best.
For instance the "dropping of identical transactions on the same day" that @John_in_NC mentions is something that Quicken Connect does, but Direct Connect/Web Connect never does.

If possible changing from Quicken Connect to Direct Connect might clear up the problem.  But Quicken Connect "should" work too.  But when dealing with Direct Connect and Quicken Connect the way you troubleshoot is by going to the logs, whereas you can do the same thing for Web Connect what you are mostly looking for is already in the QFX file, so it is usually easier just to edit it.

Troubleshooting by QFX
The "edit part" would be to download the QFX file and save it to disk (don't open it in your web browser or it will open in Quicken), and then using a text editor (not Excel to read it).  The syntax is a big confusing especially since they don't always have linefeeds in them, but if you search for transaction amounts that are missing you should be able to find if they are in the QFX file or not.
The format of a transaction in a QFX file looks like:

<STMTTRN>

<TRNTYPE>CREDIT

<DTPOSTED>20110207120000[0:GMT]

<TRNAMT>835.00

<FITID>201102070

<NAME>DEPOSIT  ID NUMBER 379853

</STMTTRN>

Clearly if the transactions you are looking for aren't in the QFX file there isn't anything Quicken can do about that, but if they are there then Chase not including the transactions in that file correctly gets eliminated as the cause.

The second part which is where the unique Id (FITID/Downloaded ID) comes in.
To avoid duplicates Quicken stores the unique Id of every transaction that is imported into a given account. If it sees a repeat it ignores it.  And note this includes transactions that get imported and then deleted by the user.  The "deleted ones" will not reimport into that account register.

Needless to say if the same unique Id is ever repeated even for what is actually a different transaction, Quicken will ignore it.  That is why looking for repeats in what is in that QFX file and what Quicken has (the Downloaded Id column) might lead to if the QFX file is wrong or something that Quicken is doing.

With all this said, I don't think that you are going to find that duplicate unique Ids are the problem.  Especially for Chase.

shauna

OK! I think I've had success! I decided to try to figure out the Direct Connect you talked about but I could not find that exact wording when I went to my Chase account download screen. I could choose a QFX file "Quicken Web Connect" or a QIF file "Quicken or Microsoft Money" (plus 2 other options for Quickbooks and Excel). BUT, for the first time, I saw something below those options about allowing software access to my bank and thought that might be the Direct Connect of which you spoke? Anyway, I went through a couple easy steps and then finished on my Chase site. Then I went back into Quicken and clicked on the circular arrow for updating my account. I have done that with a couple other bank accounts on Quicken but for some reason it hadn't worked awhile back for my checking account and so I had reverted to downloading from the Chase website. ANYWAY, all that to say, when I "updated" from Quicken all the transactions (this time in about a 30 day window) downloaded! Thank you for all your help!! You have saved me so much time (and possibly ditching Quicken altogether!!)