Online Payee grayed out

Renee Ingwersen

I had to begin a whole new file from scratch. All my Payees are on my BofA account for online bill pay that I've been using for years. Can't I just import them from the bank so I don't have to re-enter everything manually?? If not, despite my searching here, I can NOT figure out how to get my payees entered (aside from doing them all manually, I guess) - and the "Online Payees" option is grayed out. Serious drag.

Sherlock

Did you setup the online bill payment service for the account?

Renee Ingwersen

Yes. You see, I had another quicken file for YEARS, and I paid everything online through Quicken using my BofA checking account. So I don't understand why, since everything was already set up and in use for so long, it isn't just populating my Online Payee list. Shouldn't it? What am I missing??

Renee Ingwersen

...I should add, this is a NEW Quicken file I've started. My old computer crashed and I decided to start anew after 15+ years.

Quicken Francisco

Hello @Renee Ingwersen

Thank you for letting us know more about the issue you're having. I was taking a look and it seems like we may need to add the payees back in. You should be able to do this by going across the top to tools > online center > (select account) > Payees (across the top of the popup) > new.  Once you've submitted an online payee you'll be able to access the online list again. Unfortunately I don't believe we're able to import the ones you previously had.

If you have any questions please let us know.

Thanks,
Quicken Francisco

Renee Ingwersen

Sorry for delay. I'm all the way up to selecting the account.... got that. There is no "Payees" accross the top of the popup. Wish I could post a screenshot. I'm beyond frustrated that I can't get my online payments set up through my BofA account. Desperate for help.

Frankx

Hi @Renee Ingwersen

I understand that your old computer crashed, which is unfortunate.  Is there any chance that you may have saved a copy of your Quicken data file on a flash drive, disk, in online storage, or somewhere else?  Even if it is an older copy, it would have a lot of data - such as the "Online Payees" and perhaps other things that you had setup over the years, and which would be helpful, because you could import some of those things into the new file.

Frankx

(edited to correct typos)

Chris_QPW

When I used Online Bill Pay with Wells Fargo some 20 years or more ago it was basically just a GUI for their bill pay system.  As such what I did on their site reflected directly into Quicken.

So, with that I would have never "lost my online payees".  If I started a new data file and connected it to Wells Fargo it would immediately sync back all the online payees to the Quicken data file.  I doubt any of this has changed over the years, so that means I'm guessing that in fact you aren't using Bill Pay through BofA, but instead using Quicken Bill Manger and as such it is certainly not going to know anything about your old online payees.  And it isn't going to work anything like the old system because it works with the "billers’ site" not with your financial institution's bill pay system.  Note I notice in the most recent versions of Quicken they are calling Online Bill Pay, Bank Bill Pay.

So, you need to make sure that you have setup the account with Direct Connect and Bank Bill Pay, not Express Web Connect and Quicken Bill Manager.

I have been told for BofA the financial institution used needs to be "Bank of America-All Other States" and when you setup the connection to the BofA account to use Direct Connect you probably must use "Advanced Options" to choose Direct Connect.

During the process of creating the new BofA account as a "Connected Account", with Online Bill Pay activated I think BofA will activate Bank Bill Pay automatically.

If not go to the Online Services tab and enable it.

During this connection process your online payees should be updated.

Sherlock

In https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20198472,  @Renee Ingwersen appears to have acknowledged the online bill payment service is not setup for the account register.  This explains the symptoms posted.