Reconciliation Difficulties with USAA Accounts

hicksp0026`

After successfully obtaining a new Quicken ID and Passcode, I am still having challenges with downloads and reconciliation. I'm noticing a trend that the balances for the accounts after an update do not take into account the downloaded transactions. So I'm accepting the transaction but marking it as not cleared. In a following update of transactions, the same transaction downloads again and the balance finally updates.

For accounts with a few transactions, I'm able to keep up and delete the duplicate transaction and reconcile without difficulty. However, in an account with numerous transactions coming in every update, this has regularly led to errors in reconciliation that require balance adjustments when reconciling.

Why are transactions coming in twice and the balances taking two updates to match what is actually reported online in the account? This started appearing when the USAA problems started.

Frankx

Hi @hicksp0026`

I am not sure whether you were following the other, very long, message thread about the USAA download problems.  But part of the issue, that was happening after they made changes to their systems, was that the bank was actually downloading "pending transactions" (which they had received but not actually processed yet) and then - a day later - they would download the same transaction, but this time is was a real transaction because it had been processed.  Users initially couldn't understand or discern that the first ones were "pending" and therefore they downloaded them twice.

The good news is that the bank stopped sending the duplicate downloads about a week ago, so you should not be getting any new duplicate transactions.  If you are still receiving duplicate transactions, I would suggest that you log out of your Quicken application and then open Quicken again. 

The problems that you are having with reconciling that one account which has the most duplicate transactions makes sense, because it can be difficult to keep track of which ones are duplicates, etc.  However I would suggest that you try to avoid making those "balance adjustments" because that could cause issues going forward.

I hope this helps; let me know if you have any followups.

Frankx

hicksp0026`

Thanks, Frankx. I've been trying to follow the USAA problems, but it became too cumbersome to keep up with all of the issues (on top of other issues I'm working through like PenFed Credit Union and Vanguard not downloading). I'll try the logout and login to Quicken and see if that corrects the issue. If that doesn't work, I can try to disconnect and reconnect my USAA accounts (as painful as that can be).

hicksp0026`

Signed out, signed back in. Restarted Quicken. Updated this morning and the downloaded transactions have to be noted as not reconciled due to the account balance not updating properly.

Chris_QPW

@hicksp0026` First off I don't recommend that you disconnect and reconnect, that will just cause more problems.

What I do suggest is that you do a "proper reconcile".  As in reconciling is the process of making sure your Quicken account register matches the financial institution's (not including any pending transactions on the website)

This might include reconciling to a statement balance or a balance you see on the website oppose to what is being sent for the online balance.

The pending transactions problem can throw off your reconcile in two ways.
First off you might have transactions that are duplicated or even downloaded with the wrong signs and such.  So you can't take any of those transactions "for granted".  Make sure they really match with what the USAA website says.

Second at any given time the online balance might be wrong.  For instance when they were sending pending transactions the online balance didn't include them.  Since they shouldn't have been sending those transactions the online balance was actually correct and it was the transactions at fault.  But it might seem that the online balance is the one wrong in this case.

Also I believe people are seeing the opposite in some cases.  As in they are getting proper transactions, but the online balance hasn't been updated to include those transactions.

USAA has changed many things in this change over.  In the past they didn't even post any transactions/online balance changes until late at night.  They weren't doing this "real time".  Now they are posting the transactions "as they happen", but it seems like they need to get all the parts working together, not to mention fixing all the other problems.

charles.haseltine

> @hicksp0026` said:
> After successfully obtaining a new Quicken ID and Passcode, I am still having challenges with downloads and reconciliation. I'm noticing a trend that the balances for the accounts after an update do not take into account the downloaded transactions. So I'm accepting the transaction but marking it as not cleared. In a following update of transactions, the same transaction downloads again and the balance finally updates.
>
> For accounts with a few transactions, I'm able to keep up and delete the duplicate transaction and reconcile without difficulty. However, in an account with numerous transactions coming in every update, this has regularly led to errors in reconciliation that require balance adjustments when reconciling.
>
> Why are transactions coming in twice and the balances taking two updates to match what is actually reported online in the account? This started appearing when the USAA problems started.

This is a serious problem and it renders this application unusable. I have not been able to reconcile for over a month now. Initially when USAA required a Direct Connect, Quicken was downloading pending transactions which caused a mismatch with the balance and actual final transaction (especially restaurants when tips were included). Quicken fixed this by not downloading pending transactions, HOWEVER, the online balance still reflects the balance that includes pending transactions. Daily, I mean daily, when I reconcile it, quicken wants to make an adjustment. The balances never match up. Ever. I tried making an adjustment once but that made the true balance inaccurate and I overdrawn an account because of it. I am searching for a replacement for Quicken. I cannot use this right now for accurate registry tracking and balance fidelity. PLEASE FIX THIS!!!!! I have been a Quicken customer for over 15 years. I never ever seen this kind of mistakes in this software. PLEASE FIX or I will go elsewhere.

charles.haseltine

This is a serious problem and it renders this application unusable. I have not been able to reconcile for over a month now. Initially when USAA required a Direct Connect, Quicken was downloading pending transactions which caused a mismatch with the balance and actual final transaction (especially restaurants when tips were included). Quicken fixed this by not downloading pending transactions, HOWEVER, the online balance still reflects the balance that includes pending transactions. Daily, I mean daily, when I reconcile it, quicken wants to make an adjustment. The balances never match up. Ever. I tried making an adjustment once but that made the true balance inaccurate and I overdrawn an account because of it. I am searching for a replacement for Quicken. I cannot use this right now for accurate registry tracking and balance fidelity. PLEASE FIX THIS!!!!! I have been a Quicken customer for over 15 years. I never ever seen this kind of mistakes in this software. PLEASE FIX or I will go elsewhere.

Chris_QPW

charles.haseltine said:

PLEASE FIX THIS!!!!! I have been a Quicken customer for over 15 years. I never ever seen this kind of mistakes in this software. PLEASE FIX or I will go elsewhere.

You do realize that you are complaining to the wrong people, right?

It is USAA that is sending the wrong data.

BTW you can reconcile to the "statement balance" (which can be the real online balance).

charles.haseltine

> @Chris_QPW said:
> You do realize that you are complaining to the wrong people, right?
>
> It is USAA that is sending the wrong data.
>
> BTW you can reconcile to the "statement balance" (which can be the real online balance).

I understand that you can reconcile with the statement balance, however, that takes the "Auto" out of automation. Might as well use a spreadsheet. Ive voiced this concern with USAA and Quicken.

SGK

[removed - duplicate]

SGK

MAY 5 2021 - still happening. What is the purpose of Quicken if I must manually review every entry? Whether it is a QUicken or a USAA caused issue is irrelevant. It renders the software near useless for maintaining balances of credit cards with USAA. I must delete the duplicates THEN login at USAA to make sure some vendor has not double billed me.

impdust

I'm still surprised that it's not listed in the "Alerts & Known Product Issues", which to me implies Quicken isn't doing anything to assist USAA in fixing it.

Chris_QPW

impdust said:

I'm still surprised that it's not listed in the "Alerts & Known Product Issues", which to me implies Quicken isn't doing anything to assist USAA in fixing it.

What are they suppose to do?
This is a purely USAA problem.

But it is strange that it isn't listed in the "Alerts & Known Product Issues" section because in fact having a thread in that section isn't about if they are the ones to fix a problem or not.  It is about notifying the users of a problem.  I'm going to flag your comment and suggest that they put something in that section.

impdust

> @Chris_QPW said:
> What are they suppose to do?

Per Quickens page on Connection Types for direct connect, "Banks pay Quicken a fee to support the services that Direct Connect provides."
I would think that fee covers some basic level of support to make sure the banks are using the service correctly. It's Quicken's service, I don't think it's unreasonable for them to reach out to a Bank if the Bank doesn't have things setup right.

Or look at from the other side, we're paying Quicken for a service and one of the Banks is using their service to send bad data to their customers. It's not unreasonable for us as paying customers of Quicken to expect them to reach out to USAA and offer assistance to help resolve the issue.

Chris_QPW

First off you are misquoting the statement for the connection types.
The statement is that the BANK may charge a few for Direct Connect, Quicken Inc doesn't.
And in this case USAA doesn't charge for Direct Connect.

Second off Quicken Inc can't dictate to a financial institution on fixing a problem, the best they can do bring it to their attention.  This problem has been reported several for months, USAA has also acknowledge it is as their problem.  This isn't anything else Quicken Inc can do.

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20175715#Comment_20175715
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20164562#Comment_20164562

impdust

> @Chris_QPW said:
> First off you are misquoting the statement for the connection types.

I'm not misquoting anything, it's literally the line right below the part you highlighted in yellow. You took your image from a different page then I pulled my quote from, so yours says "Financial Institutions pay Quicken a fee for to support the services that Direct Connect provides".

> Second off Quicken Inc can't dictate to a financial institution on fixing a problem, the best they can do bring it to their attention.  This problem has been reported several for months, USAA has also acknowledge it is as their problem.  This isn't anything else Quicken Inc can do.

You say "the best they can do bring it to their attention." That's exactly what I said "assist" and "reach out". Not sure where you got "dictate" from. If they've done that great, and it seems like something that should be put into a "Alerts & Known Product Issues" post.

Chris_QPW

@impdust my mistake on the fee.  In reality the fee is paid to Intuit.  Quicken Inc pays Intuit for the transaction connection services.

Chris_QPW

P.S. I agree on the fact they should have long ago posted this problem on the "Alerts & Known Product Issues" section.

SGK

It is now August 10th and this is still ongoing between USAA and Quicken. As far as I am concerned I won't be renewing Quicken, and I won't be staying with USAA. Both of you need to figure it out and fix it if you want my money.

myers18111

The download of my USAA checking account transactions has worked for several years. Then, 10 days ago or so, it just got totally fubar-ed. One-step downloaded several dozen old, duplicate transactions. I tried to fix it by identifying and deleting the offending transactions, but I finally just gave up and did a balance adjustment. 

That said, now there is another problem.

+=====================+
***===>>> The "current online balance" reflects pending transactions that have not yet been downloaded. <<<===***
+=====================+

So, I have to enter those transactions manually to be able to reconcile the account, which sort of defeats the whole purpose of the one-step update. 

Any ETA for a once-and-for-all-final solution to our USAA woes?