AMEX Multiple Users under same account

Phil9550

I have three cards under one American Express account (me, wife, and son). On AMEX website it identifies the purchaser. When downloaded to quicken I cannot find a column to add that gives me the purchaser

Frankx

Hi @Phil9550,

I can understand your wanting to see that data in a download from Amex as it would make life a lot easier.  Unfortunately while that information is shown on the AMEX website, it is not part of the standard data that is included in the file that Quicken gets from Amex.  And since those "standard data fields" are set by the financial institutions they are not likely to change.

An alternative, although at all not practical, would be to open two other Amex accounts (which would give you one account for each of you) which could then be downloaded into separate Quicken registers.  

Frankx

Frankx

Hi @Phil9550,

I can understand your wanting to see that data in a download from Amex as it would make life a lot easier.  Unfortunately while that information is shown on the AMEX website, it is not part of the standard data that is included in the file that Quicken gets from Amex.  And since those "standard data fields" are set by the financial institutions they are not likely to change.

An alternative, although at all not practical, would be to open two other Amex accounts (which would give you one account for each of you) which could then be downloaded into separate Quicken registers.  

Frankx

Phil9550

Thank you

jtemplin

I have had multiple additional card members on our main AMEX account for years (at least 15 years). Here is how I manage them:

• I consider my main card the "household" card. This card is used for the vast majority of the charges we make.
• Additional member #1: My "personal" card.
• Additional member #2: My spouse's "personal" card.

We create separate logins at AMEX for the additional members and download transactions into all three corresponding Quicken accounts. The household account gets all transactions across all three cards (that's the way AMEX works), and the personal cards get only their transactions.

Because the number of personal transactions are relatively small, I delete them from the household account when I review the download. This gives me the flexibility to keep a transaction in the household account if a personal card was mistakenly used for a household purchase (I keep it in the household download and I delete it from the corresponding personal account's download). Result: I have all the AMEX charges separated into their proper Quicken accounts.

How you pay your AMEX bill depends on the financial agreement you have with your card holders.

In our case, we pay the "household" bill from a joint checking account, and each person pays their "personal" bill is from their own personal checking account. The Quicken accounts tell us what each needs to actually pay (because, as I mention above, I may have "moved" charges into the household account).

If your scenario is that you pay all the charges for your additional card holders (lucky them!), you can still do this. The AMEX bill presented in your main account should be the sum of all your Quicken accounts (in my case, household + my personal card + my spouse's personal card).

The key is creating separate AMEX website logins for your additional cards from which you can download. Not many folks know you can do this.

Hope this gives you some ideas.