QuickFill rules don't work

vxxxf

QuickFill rules for memorized payees do not auto-populate transaction categories when I enter a transaction manually.

Here's what I did to confirm that an applicable rule exists:

Window => Payees and Rules => QuickFill Rules => Look for "Deposit from IBM, Inc." under Payee Name.

Double-click this row to show the "Edit QuickFill Rule" dialog. I note that the Category field shows "Paycheck", which is what I want, and that there are 0 other rules for this payee.

So my expectation is that when I enter a transaction in my checking account register, selecting the payee "Deposit from IBM, Inc." should automatically populate the Category field for that transaction with "Paycheck". That's not what actually happens, though -- after creating a new transaction and selecting that payee and tabbing through to the Amount field, the Category field is "Uncategorized". Pressing enter to finalize the transaction leaves the Category field as "Uncategorized".

I'm either doing something wrong, or I misunderstand the QuickFill feature's functionality, or there's a bug in this feature. Which is it?

jacobs

There's one trick you may be missing. When you're in the Payee field and you type IBM, Quicken will display a drop-down menu of "Best Matches". Note that there are two entries for this Payee: one which is just the Payee name, and one which is the Payee name plus the category (and amount, if you save the amount in the QuickFill Rule). Quicken will highlight the latter by default, so you can simply press enter to select it, and enter again to record the transaction (if the amount was part of the rule). If you select the Payee name only entry in the dropdown list, Quicken will auto-fill only the Payee, but not the category. This is by design: if allow you to quickly bypass a QuickFill rule for any Payee if you know this new transaction isn't going to follow the rule.

He's an example. In the Payee field, I've typed "LD Pro", and Quicken is suggesting the Payee LD Products.  The first entry is the Payee only, while the second is a QuickFill rule which includes a category, amount and memo. The latter is auto-selected by Quicken:



If I were to select the first LP Products n the list, the Payee name would be completed, but the category, amount and memo would be blank.

vxxxf

I should have mentioned that I'm running Quicken for Mac version 6.2.0 on Mac OS 11.3.1.

Quicken_Tyka

Hello @vxxxf

Thank you for taking the time to visit the Community to report this issue although, I apologize that you have not received a response.

So far, I have been unable to recreate this issue. I have few additional questions to help me understand what could be happening.

First, can you please navigate to Window > Categories and see if there is a duplicate Paycheck category? I would also navigate to Window > Payees and confirm that there is not a duplicate payee.

Are you able to recreate this issue on a new transaction with a different payee and rule?

Please let me know!

-Quicken Tyka

jacobs

There's one trick you may be missing. When you're in the Payee field and you type IBM, Quicken will display a drop-down menu of "Best Matches". Note that there are two entries for this Payee: one which is just the Payee name, and one which is the Payee name plus the category (and amount, if you save the amount in the QuickFill Rule). Quicken will highlight the latter by default, so you can simply press enter to select it, and enter again to record the transaction (if the amount was part of the rule). If you select the Payee name only entry in the dropdown list, Quicken will auto-fill only the Payee, but not the category. This is by design: if allow you to quickly bypass a QuickFill rule for any Payee if you know this new transaction isn't going to follow the rule.

He's an example. In the Payee field, I've typed "LD Pro", and Quicken is suggesting the Payee LD Products.  The first entry is the Payee only, while the second is a QuickFill rule which includes a category, amount and memo. The latter is auto-selected by Quicken:



If I were to select the first LP Products n the list, the Payee name would be completed, but the category, amount and memo would be blank.

vxxxf

Thank you, @jacobs , you hit the nail on the head. I had actually been choosing from the "Recent payees" list, which has the same effect as choosing the first entry offered from the "Best matches" list. I'm very much obliged for your setting me straight!

@Quicken_Tyka , thanks also to you for evaluating my issue. I'd like to share my opinion that the QuickFill feature would be improved by making it more readily employed. It seems to me that where a user has taken the opportunity to create a QuickFill rule, it follows that more often than not, the user expects to apply the rule when a Payee is chosen. It does make sense that there might also be cases where the user wants to override the rule as @jacobs points out, but to to my way of thinking the user's experience would be enhanced by favoring the rule if it exists by making it the default.

Thanks again to all for your suppport!

jacobs

@vxxxf  If you create a new transaction and you partially type the Payee name in the Payee field, the one with the QuickFill rule is selected by default. All you need to do is press enter to select it; you don’t need click on it in the list.

Also, if you create multiple QuickFill rules for a Payee, there’s a checkbox in the Payee Rules window to designate a rule as the default for that Payee.

vxxxf

That's true, @jacobs , thanks for mentioning it. I should have clarified that I was referring to selections from the "Recent payees" list that appears when the Payee field first receives input focus when entering a new transaction. In my typical use case, selecting from the "Recent payees" list is the ideal workflow versus typing the name of the payee.

jacobs

@vxxxf  Ah, I see. I have actually never used the list of the 5 most recently used payees because I use a more varied group of Payees over the course of a month; I had to test it just to remind myself what you were describing, because I'm so not-conscious of that pop-up list. I'm used to decades of typing a few letters of a Payee name was soon as I tab to the Payee field.

For better or worse, that's what you'll need to do in order to take advantage of QuickFill rules for your Payees. I think you'll find if you start typing in the Payee name field it is easy to get the one you want with just a few characters.

I think they're unlikely to add QuickFill rule options to the Payees in the list you're seeing, because each one would require a plain entry plus one or more QuickFill entries, doubling or tripling the length of the Payees -- and it wouldn't be able to pre-select the one with the QuickFill rule because if you haven't typed anything, it has no idea which Payee or Payee variation you might want.