Why did Quicken stop distributing my mortgage payments between principal and interest?

Gainrider

For some time, after setting up a mortgage, the loan payments would automatically distribute my payment between principal and interest according to its calculated amortization schedule. After a recent update (not sure which one), the loan payment reminder only goes to one account, and attempting to edit the loan payment reminder does not provide an option to create a split. I now have to edit each payment manually to enter the split either when tell the reminder to post or after it has posted.

If I click on "Edit" next to "Amount due" on the Edit Loan Payment Reminder screen, it shows the correct distribution, but those amounts cannot be edited. Is this a new bug or a removed feature?

Thanks

Sherlock

The loan payment reminder has appropriately prevented us from directly modifying the first to entries in the split for many years as the entries are generated based on the loan details.  So, not a new bug or removed feature.

If you aren't already, I suggest you enter the loan payment reminder's transaction into the payment register in advance of importing the payment transaction.  This should enable the imported transaction to be matched to the split transaction. 

Gainrider

Thanks for your response, but my comment about the loan payment reminder was to show that Quicken already knows the correct payment split. The new bug/removed feature question has to do with the fact that Quicken no longer makes that distribution when entering the payment from reminders system. It still puts "Sched" in the transaction which means it should be creating the distribution from the amortization schedule it created, which it used to do.

Sherlock

Gainrider said:

Thanks for your response, but my comment about the loan payment reminder was to show that Quicken already knows the correct payment split. The new bug/removed feature question has to do with the fact that Quicken no longer makes that distribution when entering the payment from reminders system. It still puts "Sched" in the transaction which means it should be creating the distribution from the amortization schedule it created, which it used to do.

Sched does not mean Quicken will enter the loan payment reminder's transaction in the register.  We either enter the loan payment reminder's transaction ourselves (for example, right-click on the reminder in the register and select Enter this reminder) or we set the reminder to Automatically enter the transaction in the register. 

Gainrider

Thanks again for the response, but I did not say I expected "Sched" to mean it entered the transaction. I said that because Quicken knows it comes from a schedule, it should be using that amortization schedule to create the split - like it used to do. Perhaps some background will help with future answers:

I've been using Quicken for over 20 years. I have a 4-year accounting degree and recently retired from over 40 years of I/T work as both a developer and level 2/3 support specialist on major systems. This is not a "how do I use Quicken" type of question.

I'm asking this question because Quicken stopped doing something it had been doing, and should be doing, only recently. I've tried several options from editing the memorized payee transaction to every form of editing the loan reminder I can find. I have created the split manually when telling the loan reminder to enter the payment and created the split after entering from the loan reminder. In both cases, the next loan reminder only shows the entire payment going to mortgage principal. Since editing the loan reminder does not provide an option to create a split, I cannot find any way to re-establish the split. This is the 5th mortgage I've created in Quicken. It has stopped creating the split before, but after additional updates, went back to creating the split. This is a very basic financial function, so I'm hoping it's just a bug that got re-introduced in error. Bottom line: Quicken creates the amortization schedule when I setup the mortgage and creates the loan reminder, so it should be looking at that schedule for each payment and creating the correct split for each mortgage payment. It has stopped doing that, forcing me to manually create these splits each month - a totally unnecessary fundamental task in what is supposed to be financial software. I am hoping someone out there has dealt with this before and found a resolution.

Sherlock

Gainrider said:

Thanks again for the response, but I did not say I expected "Sched" to mean it entered the transaction. I said that because Quicken knows it comes from a schedule, it should be using that amortization schedule to create the split - like it used to do. Perhaps some background will help with future answers:

I've been using Quicken for over 20 years. I have a 4-year accounting degree and recently retired from over 40 years of I/T work as both a developer and level 2/3 support specialist on major systems. This is not a "how do I use Quicken" type of question.

I'm asking this question because Quicken stopped doing something it had been doing, and should be doing, only recently. I've tried several options from editing the memorized payee transaction to every form of editing the loan reminder I can find. I have created the split manually when telling the loan reminder to enter the payment and created the split after entering from the loan reminder. In both cases, the next loan reminder only shows the entire payment going to mortgage principal. Since editing the loan reminder does not provide an option to create a split, I cannot find any way to re-establish the split. This is the 5th mortgage I've created in Quicken. It has stopped creating the split before, but after additional updates, went back to creating the split. This is a very basic financial function, so I'm hoping it's just a bug that got re-introduced in error. Bottom line: Quicken creates the amortization schedule when I setup the mortgage and creates the loan reminder, so it should be looking at that schedule for each payment and creating the correct split for each mortgage payment. It has stopped doing that, forcing me to manually create these splits each month - a totally unnecessary fundamental task in what is supposed to be financial software. I am hoping someone out there has dealt with this before and found a resolution.

If the loan payment reminder's transaction is entered in the payment register, as previously suggested, the appropriately split transaction should appear in the payment register.  If the appropriately entered split transaction is subsequently being replaced, that may be due to the synching of the payment register with the Quicken Cloud which is known to have difficulties with split transfers. 

If the loan payment reminder's transaction is entered in the payment register and the appropriately split transaction does not appear, I suggest you recreate the manual loan account basically following the directions in the FAQ: How do I convert a loan account that automatically downloads transactions, to a manual entry/sc 

Gainrider

Sherlock - thanks for you interest in trying to tackle this with me. Based on your last response, this is, in fact, a bug. I say this because if I do manually create the split when entering from the payment reminders, the split stays intact when I download from the mortgage provider. So the second paragraph of your response applies here because if I don't manually create the split when entering from the payment reminders, no split is entered into the register and I have to update the transaction manually. Quicken Cloud is not an issue because I turned it off after numerous problems with it corrupting my data and finding little use for the mobile app.

From reading the FAQ link, it's not clear if converting the mortgage to a manual account will fix the splits for me, which leaves me with the same problem I already have. I am going to try setting up a fictional manual loan sometime down the road to see if that creates proper payment reminders. If it does, my answer may be to just delete the current mortgage account and create it all over again.

Thanks again for your time and effort. It was greatly appreciated.

Sherlock

Gainrider said:

Sherlock - thanks for you interest in trying to tackle this with me. Based on your last response, this is, in fact, a bug. I say this because if I do manually create the split when entering from the payment reminders, the split stays intact when I download from the mortgage provider. So the second paragraph of your response applies here because if I don't manually create the split when entering from the payment reminders, no split is entered into the register and I have to update the transaction manually. Quicken Cloud is not an issue because I turned it off after numerous problems with it corrupting my data and finding little use for the mobile app.

From reading the FAQ link, it's not clear if converting the mortgage to a manual account will fix the splits for me, which leaves me with the same problem I already have. I am going to try setting up a fictional manual loan sometime down the road to see if that creates proper payment reminders. If it does, my answer may be to just delete the current mortgage account and create it all over again.

Thanks again for your time and effort. It was greatly appreciated.

From your admission that the behavior is correct when the loan payment reminder's transaction is entered in the register, this is not a bug.  You do not need to recreate the loan account.

If you would like Quicken to automatically enter the loan payment reminder's transaction, set the reminder to Automatically enter the transaction in the register. 

Gainrider

Sorry, but you do not seem to understand the problem. I did not "admit" the behavior was correct. I said the split only appears if I manually enter the split when telling the payment reminder to enter the transaction. It would only be behaving correctly if it created a split transaction in the register based on the amortization schedule when I simply tell the payment reminder to enter the transaction into the register without me taking any additional actions to create the split.

Sherlock

Gainrider said:

Sorry, but you do not seem to understand the problem. I did not "admit" the behavior was correct. I said the split only appears if I manually enter the split when telling the payment reminder to enter the transaction. It would only be behaving correctly if it created a split transaction in the register based on the amortization schedule when I simply tell the payment reminder to enter the transaction into the register without me taking any additional actions to create the split.

You said:  

if I do manually create the split when entering from the payment reminders, the split stays intact when I download from the mortgage provider.

I interpreted that as meaning you manually entered the reminder's transaction which created the split.

If you're saying when you enter the loan payment reminder's transaction in the payment account register, the transaction does not include entries for the interest and principal, then you should recreate the loan account to coerce Quicken into recreating the correct loan payment reminder.

Steven Latus

I have almost the exact same problem, which started only today. Quicken has been properly amortizing our mortgage payments since 2012. Today there was a Quicken update, which I installed. After I entered the monthly payment from the Bill and Income Reminders window as I always do, I switched to the mortgage account register to verify the current mortgage balance. I saw that, not only had the balance not changed since last month, there was no payment transaction for today shown in the mortgage account register. I switched back to our checking account register and opened the split transaction window for the payment transaction I had just entered. The split transaction window lists the mortgage principal and the interest expense categories, but the entire payment was allocated to a blank line with no assigned category (unlike your issue with the entire payment going toward principal). All the loan details in the mortgage account look OK; the monthly payment is shown properly allocated, but it doesn't get entered that way. The next scheduled transaction shows the same thing—a split transaction showing the mortgage principal and interest expense categories, but the entire payment being allocated to a blank line with no assigned category.

One more odd thing—after getting out of Quicken and going back in again, I noticed that the reminder was still showing up as unpaid in the Bill and Income Reminders window, even though I had entered that payment. I figured, OK, maybe I found the cause of the problem. I didn't know how it could still show as unpaid when I had already recorded the payment, but OK—I deleted the original payment and then re-entered the payment, once again from the Bill and Income Reminders window. Guess what—same problem, but at least this time it did not show up as unpaid again.

Steven Latus

It looks to me that my problem is very likely related to one of the Quicken updates done between December 13 and January 12 since I had no issue when I entered my December 12 mortgage payment. I'm currently running version R46.12, build 27.1.46.12 under 64-bit Windows 10 Pro.

I say this because I restored various (about 6 or 7) Quicken backups earlier today stretching all the way back to January 2022 (last year). In every one of those restored files, the bill reminder in the Bill and Income Reminders list did NOT allocate any amounts to either mortgage principal or interest expense but instead entered the entire payment amount to a blank line in the split transaction with NO category. All prior mortgage payments going back over 10 years were allocated properly by Quicken.

Steven Latus

I also validated the Quicken file—did not fix the problem.

tgregorymd

Steven, you are not alone - I am having the exact same problem here. I am hoping it is a bug in the latest version R46.12. I have attempted to report the issue to Quicken support, but it looks like they are closed until Tuesday. Hopefully this will be resolved soon...

Steven Latus

I had a little back-and-forth with a very knowledgeable gentleman on a Quicken newsgroup. He was able to reproduce the problem and is pretty sure it's a bug. I have reported it to Quicken support. And now we wait.

jaredjared

I am having same problem! I'm on version R46.12 Build 27.1.46.12. I have also reported via the "Report a problem" menu item.

Steven Latus

That makes at least three of us who have the same issue, which at this point sure looks like a bug.

larry

I am experiencing the exact same issue that Latus described. The app no longer calculates the transaction split for principal and interest on a mortgage payment in Bill and Income Reminders. The amounts displayed are zero for both.

The correct bucket amounts are displayed in the (next) Monthly Payment amount fields on the account itself but are not transferred to the corresponding Bill reminder. I do not know the exact date this began but (for me) it would have been after 12/20/23.

larry

D'oh! The issue began after 12/20/22....

Steven Latus

You may not be surprised by this, but the same thing happens with a regular loan too. I just paid my car loan and it put the entire payment on a blank line with no category.

Steven Latus

I also reported this latest issue to Quicken Support.

aplanedrvr1

Exactly what Larry said above. I too have the same issue. The split buckets are fine until you make the payment, then the whole amount is placed on it's own uncategorized line while principal, interest, and escrow show 'zero' and the loan balance doesn't change.

ablau

Same issue with version R46.12 build 27.146.12 on WIndows 10 Home and looks to have started between 12/1/22 and 1/1/23.

32U

I am having the same issue with latest version R46.12 build 27.146.12. I think it happened when they added the improvement "Customers can now edit the Category, Tag, and Memo fields for individual instances of bill payments." This improvement was in Jan 2023 version R46.9. Kind of an infuriating bug when you have many mortgages. The bill payment shows the correct split when you "edit this instance and all future instances", but when you "Enter" the bill reminder, the splits are not carried into the register. Gah.

32U

And until they fix this, the easy solution is to write down what the splits are from "edit this instance...", then when you Enter the bill payment, fix the categories appropriately before submitting. That seems to work--for now.

pumford

I just spoke with "Ed" on the Quicken technical support help line about this problem, and he informed me that the Quicken team is aware of the issue and is working to get it resolved ASAP. No ETA on when the fix will be pushed to users. It's a big deal for me, because I use Quicken to track a number of private loans, and can't easily provide a loan balance when Quicken isn't recording principal and interest. R46.12 build 27.146.12 on Windows 10 Home

larry

It's fortunate that my loan payment only comes around once a month....
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Steven Latus

The latest Quicken update R47.11 HF1 is supposed to fix the problem according to the release notes. I will try it out next week when I make our mortgage payment.

larry

Thanks for the update. I have the latest release and just checked Bills & Income for my next scheduled mortgage payment. It looks fixed to me; the prin/int buckets are correctly populated.

Steven Latus

The latest update R47.11 *did* fix the amortization problem.