How can I view the raw data that Quicken downloads via Express Web Connect?

gobig

I have a situation where new transactions are either not being downloaded or are downloaded but not being added to the register. I can go directly to my FI web site, download the QFX file (all outside of and independent of Quicken) and new transactions are present in the QFX file. But when I do an Update from within Quicken the same transactions do not appear in Quicken. I'm set up for Express Web Connect so there is no way for me to see exactly what information Quicken received. Therefore I don't know if the FI failed to send the transactions or if Quicken just failed to process them. Is there a way for me to see the raw data Quicken received?

Chris_QPW

These days what raw data there is for Express Web Connect with the QCS connection type is in the Cloud Sync Log (Help -> Log File -> Cloud Sync Log).

It is a very "noisy" log, try search backwards for currentBalanceAsOf to get in the right area.

Chris_QPW

These days what raw data there is for Express Web Connect with the QCS connection type is in the Cloud Sync Log (Help -> Log File -> Cloud Sync Log).

It is a very "noisy" log, try search backwards for currentBalanceAsOf to get in the right area.

gobig

Thank you Chris! That looks promising!

oldngrmpy1

Have you tried just looking by using "Register Columns" icon and checking the various "Downloaded.... " selections. Sometimes they too can provide some usable information.

gobig

Thx TJ...that could be a quick solution.

UKR

Are you automatically accepting downloaded transactions into your registers?

If you are relying on Quicken to "automagically" fill your account registers from downloaded transactions, you may run into problems. Despite all efforts by the Quicken programmers, the "Autopilot" (that's my name for the part of the Quicken program which processes downloaded transactions and converts them into new register transactions) is not infallible. For that process to work 100% of the time one would need a crystal ball because the information downloaded from the banks often is just too terse and cryptic.

You should, at least for a while, turn off the "automatically accept downloaded transactions into registers" setting to gain better control over what is downloaded and what to do with it. Click on and review each downloaded transaction, make changes if necessary (e.g., to get a payee name = "Starbucks" instead of "POS TRANS 070119 STARBU", "POS TRANS 070219 STARBU", "POS TRANS 070319 STARBU" or to assign a category) before you click to accept each transaction.

Any changes you make to downloaded Payee Names are remembered in Renaming Rules.

Any other changes you make (add/change Category or Memo text) are remembered in the Memorized Payee List.

Next time the same transaction for this Payee comes along, Quicken should remember and give you a better new register transaction.

Chris_QPW

UKR said:

Are you automatically accepting downloaded transactions into your registers?

If you are relying on Quicken to "automagically" fill your account registers from downloaded transactions, you may run into problems. Despite all efforts by the Quicken programmers, the "Autopilot" (that's my name for the part of the Quicken program which processes downloaded transactions and converts them into new register transactions) is not infallible. For that process to work 100% of the time one would need a crystal ball because the information downloaded from the banks often is just too terse and cryptic.

You should, at least for a while, turn off the "automatically accept downloaded transactions into registers" setting to gain better control over what is downloaded and what to do with it. Click on and review each downloaded transaction, make changes if necessary (e.g., to get a payee name = "Starbucks" instead of "POS TRANS 070119 STARBU", "POS TRANS 070219 STARBU", "POS TRANS 070319 STARBU" or to assign a category) before you click to accept each transaction.

Any changes you make to downloaded Payee Names are remembered in Renaming Rules.

Any other changes you make (add/change Category or Memo text) are remembered in the Memorized Payee List.

Next time the same transaction for this Payee comes along, Quicken should remember and give you a better new register transaction.

What does this have to do with the stated problem?

The stated problem is that the transactions don't appear in the register.
With automatic transaction entry mode, they appear in the register.
With automatic transaction entry mode, they appear in the Downloaded Transactions tab.

In both cases it should be quite easy to see if the transactions "show up".

No where in the stated problem was it stated that the transactions are being assigned the wrong category or anything like that, which is what your answer is trying to "solve".

UKR

@Chris_QPW ,

the reason why I gave my 2cents' worth to this discussion is:
It's quite possible that an automatically accepted transaction is mismatched to a prior transaction of the same Payee Name when, instead, a new transaction should have been created. As a result of this mismatch, the transaction appears to disappear. Manually reviewing each downloaded transaction for proper Match / New status should catch these phantoms.
OK?

Chris_QPW

Matched transactions in automatic entry mode show up with a status of New Match.
And a simple sort of the Status column puts all the New and New Match transactions at the bottom so if needed to catch such a problem.

gobig

Thanks for the tips UKR. I don't--and never have--used auto txn entry mode. Mainly for the reasons you covered.

gobig

UPDATE - just did an update and experienced the same issue as in my original question. I had already entered a particular $30 txn manually yesterday. Today's update session did not report a match even though my FI shows it has cleared. Using Chris's tip to search the Cloud Sync Log I found an entry for the missing txn. Now the question is why did Quicken not make the match?

markus1957

Any chance there was another $30 transaction from the same FI?  If so, especially with scraped EWC downloads, Quicken sometimes treated one of them as a duplicate and ignored it.  I haven't seen that issue in a while though.

gobig

Markus: "scraped"?? To answer your question, no. I don't use automatic entry so I would've noticed it in the list. Thx for the assist!

gobig

Actually, Markus...you might be on to something. I just saw another strange symptom when doing an update. Download list contained an $X txn whose payee & amount matched the only uncleared $X txn in my register. I accepted it in but the txn remained uncleared. It must've applied to another txn already cleared/reconciled. Is there any way to see the matching history?

markus1957

Scraped is one of older methods used by EWC to literally screenshot the website transactions and and convert them to a data table. 

I have also seen transactions get incorrectly matched to older transactions in the register. There is no good way to identify it after it happens. You can identify it beforehand if you click on it in the download register where it shows a Match status.  Then look to see which transaction in the register it highlights for the match.  I've been surprised a few times to see it not choose the one I expected.

If that happens, no matter how many times you download it again, it will not show up again in the download register because it it stored in a hidden table as already downloaded and so declared as a previously downloaded duplicate.

gobig

Thx again, Markus!