Online balances in Register in error

jhansen

Today I have experienced a number of issues with online balances not appearing to update correctly, such that when I cannot reconcile after new transactions are accepted (they are not part of the new balance). If I login, the balance stated does not match the balance reported in my register (Online Balance). It has happened for my 2 AMEX and my NC SECU checking accounts. After a few more update attempts the NCSECU seemed to correct itself, but not the AMEX. It seems there may be a glitch in the error reporting or there is no check of the balances to create an error report. Thoughts?

Boatnmaniac

@jhansen - Yes, it does sound like you are experiencing the timing issue.  Some background (from my perspective) on this for you:

The historical Connection Channel (kind of like a routing) for Quicken Windows is FDS.  With FDS this timing issue was not so commonplace.  A little over a year ago Quicken began to migrate Quicken users to a new Connection Channel called QCS.  I've been told QCS does offer some advantages for the Quicken team in managing and troubleshooting EWC data and connections and it does help to speed up DC connections.  But it also presents a couple of issues for Quicken users, notably slower OSU for EWC connections and an increased prevalence of this timing issue.  I understand the migration process is still continuing and I suspect the reason why you are seeing this timing issue now is that you were recently migrated to QCS.

But I am scratching my head.  This timing issue, from my observations, primarily affects EWC connections with DC being affected much less frequently. Yet you say that the two accounts you are seeing this issue with are set up with DC. 

So, it's a bit dumbfounding....unless you are mistaken about being set up with DC.  You said you rebuilt your Quicken file.  When Quicken sets up new connections and if both EWC and DC are supported by the FI, Quicken will default to the EWC connection, not to the DC connection.  To get DC set up for AMEX and NC SECU you would have had to have gone into Advanced Options during the set up process and then manually selected DC.  Maybe you could check to confirm that you actually have DC set up for them...via the Online Services tab of Account Details or from the Account List?

If you find that you actually have EWC set up, then there should be a link saying there is an improved connection method available.  Click on that link and it will start the process of setting up DC.  And if this option is available to you then once DC is set up I think the timing issue for the most part will go away.

Boatnmaniac

What connection(s) are these accounts set up with:  Direct Connect or Express Web Connect?

Are you receiving any error codes for these accounts when you run OSU? 

If you do get an error code with AMEX, do you think this Alert might be related to it?:  https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7895800/ongoing-7-20-21-american-express-returns-ol-293-294-cc-503-103-or-cc-502-102-error#latest

When you try updating, again, are you doing that with One Step Update or with Update Now?  (Update Now is updates a single account whereas OSU updates all accounts.  When OSU fails to complete properly for a financial institution, sometimes Update Now will complete properly.)

What troubleshooting steps (if any) have you already taken?

TheTormanator

I have this same issue. I tried doing UPDATE NOW for just the one bank, but it does the same thing. New transactions do not show up in Reconcile report and the ones that are already there are not in the online balance.

TheTormanator

My accounts are using Express Web Connect. I also tried to RESET ACCOUNT with no change.

Boatnmaniac

TheTormanator said:

I have this same issue. I tried doing UPDATE NOW for just the one bank, but it does the same thing. New transactions do not show up in Reconcile report and the ones that are already there are not in the online balance.

You have the same issues with the same two financial institutions?  Please confirm.

jhansen

> @Boatnmaniac said:
> What connection(s) are these accounts set up with:  Direct Connect or Express Web Connect?Are you receiving any error codes for these accounts when you run OSU? 
> If you do get an error code with AMEX, do you think this Alert might be related to it?:  https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7895800/ongoing-7-20-21-american-express-returns-ol-293-294-cc-503-103-or-cc-502-102-error#latestWhen you try updating, again, are you doing that with One Step Update or with Update Now?  (Update Now is updates a single account whereas OSU updates all accounts.  When OSU fails to complete properly for a financial institution, sometimes Update Now will complete properly.)What troubleshooting steps (if any) have you already taken?

My apologies, Direct Connect for all 3, Citi is the only Web Connect account that I have. Interestingly, the online balance listed for my NC SECU account has the correct balance after updating this pm, but did not, then I updated the AMEX accts separately and voila, they are not correct....

jhansen

Still same problem, online balance in Quicken is not correct for my accounts if I have downloaded transactions. The stated online balance in Quicken does not agree with the online balance when I login to my institution website. I receive no error codes, download appears to complete without issue, but the balances are not aligned. Thoughts? I have submitted 2x to Quicken, not sure how to report, but I've tried.

jhansen

I've run 2 or 3 OSU with no change in balance. I ran Update from my AMEX twice and the balance updated to the correct amount. This is dumb, why is the Quicken online balance not working correctly?

Boatnmaniac

@jhansen - I just want to spell out my understanding of this situation.  Correct me if any of this is incorrect.:

• The 2 AMEX and the NC SECU accounts are all set up with Direct Connect (DC).
• You have a Citi account that is set up for Web Connect (WC) but this account is not having this issue.
• Transactions do download OK from these accounts.
• Online balances after downloads are sometimes correct (i.e., matches what is shown in the online account) but at other times are not.

Is there anything else you want to add?

There is what I call "a timing issue" that can occur when doing OSU.  This happens most frequently with Express Web Connect (EWC) accounts but it can also sometimes happen with DC accounts.  This happens when the data that is downloaded is not the real-time current online data. 

It is more common with EWC accounts because what is downloaded into Quicken is usually a snapshot of the transactions and online balance on record from the night before.  So, when we download the data is already hours old and might not include the latest posted transactions and online account balances.

Historically, DC accounts were a snapshot of the real-time posted transactions and online balance at the exact time that OSU is run.  I think most Financial Institutions (FIs) supporting DC still follow this historical process but there is a trend toward moving away from transmitting real-time data.  For instance, BBVA now takes a snapshot of the transactions that have posted to my account and the online balance at night.  When I run OSU in the morning and DC connects with BBVA, what gets downloaded is that previous day's posted transactions and online balance....which is much like what happens with EWC.

In these timing issue cases, updating the accounts again within 12-24 hrs (or less) will usually correct the balances and download any missing posted transactions.  But until this happens reconciling to online balance cannot be completed.

Is this what you are seeing....balances updating and transactions being 12-24 hours out of sync with what is showing in the online account?

There is one other thing I can think of that can be happening:  Some FIs will include pending transactions in their online balances but what gets downloaded into Quicken does not include these pending transactions.  I have one checking account and one credit card that do this.  With these FIs it can be difficult to correlate the data shown in Quicken with what is shown in the online account because one shows only posted transactions data/balances and the other includes pending transactions.  But the FIs that do this will identify the transactions that are pending so it is not impossible to correlate the everything.

Boatnmaniac

One thing you can do to verify if your accounts are actually updating when running OSU:  When the OSU Summary report comes up click on the blue font words under the FI name that say how many accounts were updated.  That will open a popup showing when the last account update occurred.  In the example posted here you can see that the the date on the right and the dates in the popup are different.  This is because the date/time shown on the right are the last time OSU was run.  The dates in the popup are the dates of the last downloaded data.

jhansen

Thanks @Boatnmaniac for the input, on the whole I've been doing this since 1993 and have never had this issue happen until I rebuilt my file over the past month. I will confirm whether or not the dates and times match on my next download, but I don't suspect this will be an issue as I suspect it is Quicken reported time (not the time the online balance was last polled. I did a complete file rebuild from QIF import and re-established all accounts, etc with a new file, which after 17+ yrs no longer has any errors!

"in these timing issue cases, updating the accounts again within 12-24 hrs (or less) will usually correct the balances and download any missing posted transactions. But until this happens reconciling to online balance cannot be completed.
Is this what you are seeing....balances updating and transactions being 12-24 hours out of sync with what is showing in the online account?"

You are correct in the above statement, for whatever reason it takes multiple downloads or time, but the balance will get right eventually, just make it impossible to reconcile and it's is legitimately a bug...

jhansen

I have an issue with online vs quicken banking balances in which they don't align after transaction download. In my case I have to download multiple times before the balances are updated. I've not had this issue with Investments as yet, but not a lot of transactions to test it with either...

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: after update, my share balances went to 0.

Boatnmaniac

@jhansen - Yes, it does sound like you are experiencing the timing issue.  Some background (from my perspective) on this for you:

The historical Connection Channel (kind of like a routing) for Quicken Windows is FDS.  With FDS this timing issue was not so commonplace.  A little over a year ago Quicken began to migrate Quicken users to a new Connection Channel called QCS.  I've been told QCS does offer some advantages for the Quicken team in managing and troubleshooting EWC data and connections and it does help to speed up DC connections.  But it also presents a couple of issues for Quicken users, notably slower OSU for EWC connections and an increased prevalence of this timing issue.  I understand the migration process is still continuing and I suspect the reason why you are seeing this timing issue now is that you were recently migrated to QCS.

But I am scratching my head.  This timing issue, from my observations, primarily affects EWC connections with DC being affected much less frequently. Yet you say that the two accounts you are seeing this issue with are set up with DC. 

So, it's a bit dumbfounding....unless you are mistaken about being set up with DC.  You said you rebuilt your Quicken file.  When Quicken sets up new connections and if both EWC and DC are supported by the FI, Quicken will default to the EWC connection, not to the DC connection.  To get DC set up for AMEX and NC SECU you would have had to have gone into Advanced Options during the set up process and then manually selected DC.  Maybe you could check to confirm that you actually have DC set up for them...via the Online Services tab of Account Details or from the Account List?

If you find that you actually have EWC set up, then there should be a link saying there is an improved connection method available.  Click on that link and it will start the process of setting up DC.  And if this option is available to you then once DC is set up I think the timing issue for the most part will go away.

Chris_QPW

@Boatnmaniac to clarify the "connection flow":

Direct Connect:
Quicken connects to financial institution's OFX server.

Express Web Connect, old FDS connection method:
Quicken -> Intuit server -> Financial institution website.

Express Web Connect, with QCS connection method:
Quicken to QCS (Quicken Cloud Service/Quicken data set) -> Intuit server -> Financial institution website.

"Sync to Mobile/Web" is Quicken syncing to QCS/Quicken data set.

QCS/Quicken data set is where Mobile/Web read/update their data.  In other words Mobile/Web are the GUIs for that data, and in a sense so it the Quicken Desktop program data file, because in the case of Express Web Connect/QCS and if Sync to Mobile is on the Quicken data file is being synced with it.

And also note that QCS/Quicken data set goes out to the financial institutions periodically and updates transactions if either Sync to Mobile/Web or Express Web Connect/QCS is on for that account.

As for getting the right online balance, as you can see Direct Connect gets it directly from the financial institutions.  So if it is off it (and it can be at times for some financial institutions) it is their fault.

When it comes to Express Web Connect it gets a lot more fuzzy of where the problem lies, but just looking at the posts in this forum it seems to happen a lot more with the Express Web Connect financial institutions.  But that might be "artificial" because only about 2,400 out of the 15,000 supported financial institutions support Direct Connect, and as such they are less to begin with.

 Note that one difference between using just Express Web Connect/QCS and Sync to Mobile/Web is that the accounts using just Express Web Connect/QCS aren't exposed to the Mobile/Web applications.

jhansen

Thank you @Boatnmaniac & @Chris_QPW. It's not hard to figure out that they are all Direct Connect, it states it clearly at the top of register (last download xyz date & time, Direct Connect). It's actually one connector for 2 AMEX, the fall under the same login. I have like 7 accounts at NCSECU, all updated using the same login. Note that prior to rebuilding the file, these same accounts used Direct Connect and I had this problem maybe a couple times over 20 yrs (and then only with my Citi card).. Ironically, this AM the balances were correct, so it can be right some days, other days not so much. Which leads me to believe the connection is closed before the balance is correctly received, and the error is ignored (or maybe this is not it at all, I'm not the programmer here).

jhansen

@Boatnmaniac I want to say I intentionally setup Direct Connect, but anything less than 5 yrs old I don't remember so well.

jhansen

Ran mid-day update and one AMEX acct had new transactions, but the balance is again misaligned. Just kinda seems random whether the balance in Quicken is recorded correctly or not.

Chris_QPW

jhansen said:

Ran mid-day update and one AMEX acct had new transactions, but the balance is again misaligned. Just kinda seems random whether the balance in Quicken is recorded correctly or not.

A lot of times when this happens it is because the financial institution is not consistent about pending transactions.  Pending transactions should never be sent to Quicken, and most financial institutions do that right, but a few will also send the online balance including them.  So depending on when the pending transactions clear the online balance will be correct or not.

jhansen

@Chris_QPW what you stated has not happened to me, at a minimum I can confirm that the balance online does not align with the balance reported by Quicken. Of course it doesn't mean the discrepancies aren't real as you mentioned, I've just never experienced it in the past 28 years of using Quicken every day of the week until the last update (which coincidentally is when I made a new file).

jhansen

And randomly I've had no issues of late. Who knows.....

Chris_QPW

Well about all can be said is that because it is Direct Connect, the problem is on the financial institution side.