Quicken not recognizing account in category dropdown

Pheebers2

Decades-long user here. I use one-step update almost every day, and reconcile all of my bank and credit cards as well.

Today, one of my credit cards (happened to be Amex) wouldn't reconcile. Some looking around revealed two transactions were missing -- both transfers to another account.

When I look at the other account, both transactions are there, but instead of it showing the usual [Amex 1234] in the category, it now shows just Amex 1234. When I try to correct the category, it instantly reverts to the incorrect transaction. Even when I try a new transaction from that account (or from any account) it won't let me put my Amex in. I can enter FROM my Amex account to any account, just not TO Amex. I've never heard of this happening before. I've tried exiting, rebooting, validating the file...

This is extremely frustrating. Any suggestions?

Tom Young

I think the problem might lie in the fact that you have a Category with the exact same name as an Account and I don't think Quicken likes that.  I'd try deleting those two transactions, then deleting the Amex 1234 Category.  Try entering the transfers after that.

Pheebers2

Thanks, but the "category" spot is where the account goes. I don't actually have a category Amex 1234, but that's exactly what it looks like in the category field, whereas it SHOULD look like a transfer to the account [Amex 1234]. It's as if Quicken changed it to a category, because it no longer transfers to another account and the other accounts can't see it. However, when I go to the category list, it appears as an account, not a category.

Boatnmaniac

@Pheebers2 - I think perhaps you misunderstood what @Tom Young was suggesting you do.  Let me try to rephrase it.

1. First, back up your data file in case something goes wrong.
2. In the account Register, delete the two transactions that have Amex1234 for the category.
3. In Category List, delete the Amex1234 category.
4. Go back to your account Register and re-enter those two transactions with [Amex1234] for the category.

Let us know if that fixes the problem.  If it does not, then perhaps we or someone else will have another idea about how to fix it.

Pheebers2

Thank you, @Boatnmaniac . I wish I had misunderstood and it had been a fix like that. Unfortunately, there wasn't actually a category "Amex1234" when I went into the category list. It was just showing up that way when I went to choose [Amex1234] in the transaction. I tried a lot of things, including deleting and trying to reenter from the other side of the transaction.

I ended up contacting Quicken Support who, if it makes anyone feel any better, didn't believe that this was happening until they did a screen share. They kept having me wait while they checked with other people for ideas (the good news is I guess this is a rare error?). No one could figure out what caused the error or how to fix it, so the solution was both to restore from the last good backup and create a new account for the Amex, unlinking from the potentially bad one and relinking to the new. Fortunately I backup frequently and redundantly and only(?) had to deal with a backlog of about 500 transactions across 30 accounts. Thank goodness for downloads.

If anyone ever has this error in the future, hopefully this saves them a few hours of frustration.

Boatnmaniac

Frequent backups are a very good thing. I automatically backup every time my data file closes.  It's saved me a lot of headache many times.  I'm glad to hear you were able to resolve your issue.  I'm sure there will be others who will find your solution helpful.