Quicken or the Bank? Direct Connect Issue.

BridgeTwnSmith

My bank made changes on their systems that required me to remove and add back my Direct Connect connection.

When I do so (there are three accounts and this happens if I select/link them all or try to do one at a time) after the connection is complete I can see the missing transactions matching my register for the last couple days BUT...

Every non investment account in Quicken now has the wrong balance and it is not clear why (some credit cards are thousands of dollars off but every transaction I can see is still cleared or reconciled or a car loan I paid off is now back to full balance with no corresponding additional money in the account I transferred the payment from).

What is happening here and who can I talk to (Quicken or the Bank?) to try to resolve what is happening.

Also I ran a Validate/Repair on the file before and after. Before there were no errors but after there were a bunch of repairs for transactions with a date of 0/0/1900 and from 2018.

The Validate says it made repairs but the balances in Quicken did not go back to their correct amounts.

Examples:

Quicken repaired some transaction information. No action required.
"ACCT_120f5" 8/21/2018

Quicken found an invalid transaction and removed it. "401K" 0/ 0/1900

Boatnmaniac

If the assumption I made regarding the cause of your account balance issues is correct, you can relax some, because you will not need to review all transactions back to 1997.

Each FI determines how far back they will download each time you run OSU.  In most cases, they will download no more than the last 60-90 days but it could be less than this or it could be more than this.  When you find that new Opening Balance transaction that will tell you how far back your bank downloaded data for.  You will not need to review transactions for duplicates before that Opening Balance date...all of the duplicate transactions will be on or after that date, not before it.

There is no way to flag your bank to not download any more data from before today.  But Quicken normally does a pretty good job of keeping it clean for us.  Once data is downloaded from an FI Quicken "memorizes" that record so in future downloads the previously downloaded data is essentially screened out...hence, no duplicates show up in the register.  But this screening process can break in deactivation/reactivation situations like what you have gone through.  Since the FI information has changed Quicken "thinks" the newly downloaded data is for a new account so it does not recognize it as being previously downloaded.  So the information is entered into the Quicken account, again, and then you will have duplicate transactions (and sometimes a new Opening Balance).  Now that you have had successful download(s), Quicken now has a new "memory" established so during future OSUs, Quicken will screen out the previously downloaded transactions, again.  So, duplicates should not be an issue going forward.

Note:  This thing with duplicate transactions and new Opening Balances does not always happen with deactivate/reactivate.  It all depends on what the specific circumstances driving the need to deactivate/reactivate an account are.  If it is that the FI has changed information being downloaded, then the duplicates issue is likely to come up.  If it is that deactivate/reactivate is needed for some reason other than the FI information being changed, then it is most likely that there will be no duplicates issues.

Boatnmaniac

Hi @BridgeTwnSmith .  When a Financial Institution (FI) makes changes that require deactivating and the reactivating the accounts in Quicken, it often will result Quicken treating the downloaded data as new account(s), especially if the FI changed their name, changed the account number (even if just to add a "0" to the front of the number) and/or if the FI link in Quicken was changed.  Even when during the activation setup process we link the downloaded data to an existing account in Quicken, Quicken sometimes does not recognize the data that is already in the account register so it will add duplicates of what is already there.

If this is what happened in your 3 bank accounts, then fixing the duplicates issue will likely fix the balance issues in these bank accounts and might also fix many of the issues in other accounts.  I suggest you take the following steps:

1. Backup your data file before proceeding in case something goes wrong.
2. Select one of your 3 bank accounts and search for another "Opening Balance" transaction.  There should be only one Opening Balance transaction and that would be the very 1st transaction in the register.  If you find another Opening Balance transaction, make note of the date and then delete it.
3. Look for duplicate transactions in the register that are dated on or after the date of the Opening Balance transaction that was deleted.  The duplicate transactions need to be manually deleted...take care to not delete the original transactions.
4. Once completed, the account balance should be accurate.  If it is, repeat this process for each of the other 2 bank accounts.
5. Once this process has been completed for all 3 bank accounts, review your entire accounts portfolio to identify any issues that might remain and post the results back here.
   

BridgeTwnSmith

Ok I get it. I will try this. There is no way I can review all the transactions (transactions go back to 1997.... LOL...) but the opening balance items is a good idea.

Any idea/chance I could tell the bank to flag my data to not download anything from before today? Or something similiar?

Boatnmaniac

If the assumption I made regarding the cause of your account balance issues is correct, you can relax some, because you will not need to review all transactions back to 1997.

Each FI determines how far back they will download each time you run OSU.  In most cases, they will download no more than the last 60-90 days but it could be less than this or it could be more than this.  When you find that new Opening Balance transaction that will tell you how far back your bank downloaded data for.  You will not need to review transactions for duplicates before that Opening Balance date...all of the duplicate transactions will be on or after that date, not before it.

There is no way to flag your bank to not download any more data from before today.  But Quicken normally does a pretty good job of keeping it clean for us.  Once data is downloaded from an FI Quicken "memorizes" that record so in future downloads the previously downloaded data is essentially screened out...hence, no duplicates show up in the register.  But this screening process can break in deactivation/reactivation situations like what you have gone through.  Since the FI information has changed Quicken "thinks" the newly downloaded data is for a new account so it does not recognize it as being previously downloaded.  So the information is entered into the Quicken account, again, and then you will have duplicate transactions (and sometimes a new Opening Balance).  Now that you have had successful download(s), Quicken now has a new "memory" established so during future OSUs, Quicken will screen out the previously downloaded transactions, again.  So, duplicates should not be an issue going forward.

Note:  This thing with duplicate transactions and new Opening Balances does not always happen with deactivate/reactivate.  It all depends on what the specific circumstances driving the need to deactivate/reactivate an account are.  If it is that the FI has changed information being downloaded, then the duplicates issue is likely to come up.  If it is that deactivate/reactivate is needed for some reason other than the FI information being changed, then it is most likely that there will be no duplicates issues.

BridgeTwnSmith

Right. I have had had to do Activate/Reactivate in the past without issue or as you note some duplicates (which is why I loath doing this) but in the past those transactions were all within the one account I was reconnecting.

Perhaps because this is my checking account and it is sort of the root transfer spot for all transactions to other accounts (credit card with wrong balances) it is just going to be a bigger mess to clean up. Going to be some holiday weekend fun I guess :)

Boatnmaniac

BridgeTwnSmith said:

...Perhaps because this is my checking account and it is sort of the root transfer spot for all transactions to other accounts (credit card with wrong balances) it is just going to be a bigger mess to clean up. Going to be some holiday weekend fun I guess

Yes, that is why I mentioned that fixing the problems in your bank accounts might also just fix the balance/transaction problems in your other accounts.  Some of those duplicate transactions in your checking account might have been entered with transfer categories.  Deleting those duplicates in checking should delete the corresponding duplicates in the other accounts. 

BridgeTwnSmith

Well after all that, I sat down today with a beer and resigned myself to a couple hours of effort. Downloaded all transactions, made a backup, thought through my working process...

Added the download for Checking/Savings/HELOC from my Credit Union and prepared for the worst...

And everything is exactly right. Not a single entry needs to be corrected. LOL. I am not sure what the bank did in the last couple days but I suspect me having waited a few more days after their systems upgrade might have given them some time to resolve any issues.

Thank you so much for the advice though, I have been in this spot before (just not as bad) and will be useful going forward.

Boatnmaniac

Good to hear that everything is OK, now.   Have a great holiday weekend!