how to void or delete a quicken check pay payment after check has been sent?

dan5

I have several transactions now where I sent someone a check with quicken check pay. For various reasons such as the small business wanted me to use a different name. Address did not work, so check got returned to me, etc. Ihave the check in hand, and shredded it, but when I try to void the transaction in quicken it tells me I have to cancel it first. If I try to delete it quicken tells me I need to cancel it first. There is no option to cancel it, it shows the check was sent in the status and gives me an option to see the check. The problem is ITs impossible to cancel, and its impossible to void or delete without cancelling it first. Seems like a dumb bug, but any ideas on a workaround? OR any ideas how to get quicken to fix the bug?

dan5

I just want to get the transactions out of my register, or preferrably just zero'd out

Quicken Paloma

Hello @dan5, 

Thank you for reaching out to Quicken Community. I apologize you are having this issue. Since the payment seems to require cancellation first, I would recommend attempting to delete it another way. Hold down Control (CTRL) + Shift, right-click on payment, then select delete and click yes to confirm.

Please attempt these steps, and let us know how it goes!

-Quicken Paloma 

Frankx

Hi @dan5,

If you are not successful with @Quicken Paloma's suggestion, I would suggest that you contact Quicken Support tomorrow at the following LINK.

Frankx

UKR

If all else fails and because the money never left your account, you could enter a deposit transaction in the amount of the check,

• Date = same as on returned check,
• Payee = same as on returned check
• Memo = "Check xxxx returned, never cashed",
• Category = same as used for original check pay transaction.

That zeros out your transaction and corrects your account balance.

dan5

ctrl shift right click and delete and ctrl shift right click and void neither of those work. Same errors saying I must cancel it first. UKR thanks for your suggestion thats what I have done in the past, and that keeps the balances right, but make reports a bit weird and is my fall back. I was hoping I could just void it and update the comment for that transaction with the right info. I hate to delete because thats like it never happened, and is gone if I have to sort something out with it in some future date, so your suggestion is better than that I think. I tried quicken chat this weekend and they were not helpful, so I will try to get someone at what they called tier 2 today. - Dan

dan5

The support rep was nice, but couldn't make it void or delete after 90 minutes of trying. Seems like a Bill pay 101 user story. Hopefully they will fix it sometime in the future.

Quicken Paloma

Hello @dan5, 

Thank you for your response, although I am sorry that troubleshooting has not been successful. In the meantime, please follow the workaround suggested by @UKR. 

Please let us know how it goes and of any questions or concerns. 

-Quicken Paloma 

dan5

can you log bugs with the quicken developers to fix this? I imagine this happens to anyone who uses the check pay once in a while.

UKR

I'm not really sure how to answer this ...
By all intents and purposes, you have successfully sent and executed an Online Bill Pay instruction to the Online Bill Pay server. That means, this transaction is now laid in concrete and cannot (or should not) ever be changed or deleted. If something needs to be done to correct this situation, the bookkeeper in me says, you need to record an offsetting transaction because you cannot void or delete this transaction. Ever.

As luck would have it, in this implementation of Check Pay a Check Pay transaction is a paper-only transaction. Until the check is actually deposited at a bank, no money has changed hands. And you have the paper check in your hands.
For this specific situation only that means, it would be nice to have a function in Quicken where you could click a "Void" or "Cancel" function to make Quicken generate an offsetting transaction to correct your register balance and earmark the original transaction as void or cancelled (put comment in Memo).

Let me see if I can talk the community moderators into changing this discussion into an Idea. Ideas are brought to the attention of the developers and, if enough votes from other Quicken users are registered, may be implemented in a future version of Quicken.

UKR

Here we go:

Vote on Ideas!

A Community Moderator changed this discussion to an Idea.
Ideas are brought to the attention of the programmers for consideration.

Everyone, including the person who initiated this discussion …
If you would like to see this change made in a hopefully not too distant future version of Quicken please don't forget to vote on it. Locate the big yellow box near the top of this webpage (or page 1 for long discussions) and click the "Up" triangle under the voting count.
 
Wait a moment for the vote count to be registered and updated before you continue.
The little triangle changes from black to grey when you have registered your vote.
Adding extra comments helps, but does not automatically increment the vote count.

Every vote counts!

For additional information about idea posts please read  https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7849425/creating-and-voting-for-ideas-in-the-community#latest

q_lurker

@UKR -- 

If something needs to be done to correct this situation, the bookkeeper in me says, you need to record an offsetting transaction because you cannot void or delete this transaction. Ever.

I am a bit perplexed.  This is a case where the third-party Check Pay printed and sent the check.  If this was a handwritten check from the account holder, would "the bookkeeper in you" say the same thing == Never ever void or delete (or change?) the transaction?  Quicken certainly has the ability to do that for a handwritten check and does so be editing the amount of the check to $0. 

If an offsetting entry is necessary for this case, should that same offsetting entry be used in the 'handwritten' case?  Your thoughts would be appreciated.

UKR

q_lurker said:

@UKR -- 

If something needs to be done to correct this situation, the bookkeeper in me says, you need to record an offsetting transaction because you cannot void or delete this transaction. Ever.

I am a bit perplexed.  This is a case where the third-party Check Pay printed and sent the check.  If this was a handwritten check from the account holder, would "the bookkeeper in you" say the same thing == Never ever void or delete (or change?) the transaction?  Quicken certainly has the ability to do that for a handwritten check and does so be editing the amount of the check to $0. 

If an offsetting entry is necessary for this case, should that same offsetting entry be used in the 'handwritten' case?  Your thoughts would be appreciated.

The distinction here is the fact that an Online Bill Pay transaction was created and sent to at least one other server. The transaction was then immediately and successfully executed by that server. That, IMHO, makes the transaction a matter of record that can never be changed, as if it were a transaction in a real accounting software system with full audit capabilities.
Oppose that with Quicken, which is a simplified electronic check register. It allows transactions to be changed, voided or deleted after the fact at the user's discretion, without leaving any kind of audit trail.

I'm OK with the way Quicken works with offline transactions. Let the user make changes at the user's discretion. Let him void or delete a paper check transaction where the paper check was never cashed.
But I also see the needs for a different process in the case of Online Bill Pay transactions which must be coordinated with a server. And here we have a situation where a successfully completed Online Bill Pay transaction cannot be undone.

Jim_Harman

Did the money ever left your real world account? If so, you will certainly need a way to reverse that charge.

If not, you could treat it like something you bought and returned for a refund: enter a Deposit transaction for the amount of the check using the same expense Category as the check. It will show up as a negative expense and cancel out the check.

dan5

The money never left my account and I have the check in hand. I am not a CPA and not sure what the GAAP rules are for balancing my personal check book :-). But my gut tells me since the transaction never took place and it can't possibly take place, say check gets shredded by me. Then I think the transaction never happened.

My personal preference regardless of accounting is that I don't have to create an entry that is not a real transaction to make up for another not even a real transaction is a waste. I would rather use the current Quicken built in Void Function to 0 out the check, leave it in the register, mark it Void in the payee field, and then in the memo I woudl write check shredded or filed because... That way I don't lose track and I am not creating additional correction transactions I don't need. Either one works, just annoying that they treat mailing a paper check perform differently than writing a paper check.

And, their prompts aroudn deleting or voiding it can go in an many click possible infinite loop to back out of it. try to void, then cancel error, but the put the void in the payee, then another click which leads to save or don't save when it just told me I cant save, and if I click save it takes me back to can't save until you cancel, then to save or dont save, repeat or click the dont save to get back to state 0.

Frankx

Hi @dan5

So this thread has been interesting (to use a word that can mean a lot of things, but doesn't actually result in an answer - which is identical to this thread).

I understand clearly that you cannot manage to "void, delete or cancel" the Quicken Check Pay "paper check" in Quicken.  But I am not clear on one aspect to this saga - I assume that the funds to make this payment were withdrawn from your bank account (that you have connected to the Quicken Check Pay third-party provider), so how did you manage to get reimbursed for the payment amount?  Did the Quicken Check Pay provider give you a credit in your account with them, or somehow refund the amount electronically?  If so, that completes the "round trip" without the need for voiding the infamous "paper check".  If not, aren't you actually out-of pocket for the amount of the check that you shredded? 

I'd love to hear how the story ends.

Frankx

p.s. - BTW - there is no GAAP for personal financial statements...

q_lurker

@Frankx

... I assume that the funds to make this payment were withdrawn from your bank account (that you have connected to the Quicken Check Pay third-party provider), 

I would assume the funds stay in the user's checking account until the check cleared.  My expectation would be that it was a check on the users account, not on an account of the Check Pay service.  When my bank's bill pay service sends a paper check, that is the pattern -- nothing out of the account until the check clears.  The check they send has my bank routing number and my account number on it.  (Not sure where the bill pay service makes their money on such a transaction.)

I too look forward to the rest of the story.

Jim_Harman

With my bank's bill pay service, (Bank of America) via Direct Connect, I specify the date when the payment is supposed to arrive. They either pay electronically or mail a check a few days before the payment date and debit my account on that date. I am not notified when the check actually clears.

On a few occasions I have been informed by a payee that the check never arrived. In those cases, with the register set in 2-line mode, I have selected the transaction and clicked on Status, which opens a dialog that lets me send a message to BoA. You can also initiate messages about payments from the Online Center.

In all cases they have been able to resolve the issue with little further interaction with me. 

CheckPay and other banks may work differently. 

dan5

The funds never left my account the small business I tried to pay (painter) could not deposit the check in her account because the name on the check did not match her LLC name on her account, so she just handed me the check and asked me to write her a new one. I have had this happen multiple times now, once sent return address to me because the business had a new address, another time it was a payment to a doctor but becaue they billed me twice I paid twice so they sent the second payment back to me. Each time I had the check in hand, it was never deposited. My credit union has no idea I even wrote a check because quicken check pay wrote it.

@ frankx is correct in how it works

dan5

I wish I had direct connect it works so much bette, I used it for years and love it. I even tried changing banks several times to get it. I tried to get it at BofA and Wells Fargo here in the last 2 years and neither woudl give me the bill pay service over direct connect. Frankly Quicken Bill Manager is horrible, and the check pay generally works except for this case so far. I hate using my credit union bill pay, and having to also enter in Quicken, but at least it works and is reliable and does not cause me any additional problems.

q_lurker

@ frankx is correct in how it works

@frankx suggested the money was already gone. 

I assume that the funds to make this payment were withdrawn from your bank account (that you have connected to the Quicken Check Pay third-party provider),

You denied that was the case. As it stands your only recourse is creating an offsetting transaction. I agree some other remedy should be made available or made clear. I also see the devil in the details that need to be fully thought through and addressed. 

solostorm

We should just be able to delete the check - as though it never happened.

Ball Room Dancer

I started using Quicken in 1993 (!) and for at least the first 20 years it was indeed easy and QUICK to void a transaction. I'm able to type in an offsetting deposit transaction as suggested by other members, but this is very time consuming and imperfect. I suspect that the programmers are too young or tech-focused to be familiar with check writing and transaction registers -- or with managing a household or renovating a house, which necessitates check writing. Many federal, state and local taxing authorities must be paid by check. So, Quicken programmers, whether or not you personally think it's relevant or useful, software that allows one to write checks MUST have a VOID function!

Frankx

Hi @Ball Room Dancer

I assume that you are using Quicken's "Check Pay" feature - is that correct?

Frankx

Ball Room Dancer

I must also add that voiding a check is about so much more than correcting the recorded balance in your check register. It's part of a record of life and financial events. For example, you pay someone, they lose the check then accuse you of never having paid them-- with whatever negative consequences might accompany that. I don't want to just delete the check or any information on it. I may need to refer back to it to deal with those negative consequences. And I'd rather not have to recreate the transaction as a deposit, but adding VOID to it. We're busy enough, and this software is supposed to facilitate check transactions and related record keeping.

Rx

I just ran into this again today. A check I sent had the wrong address on it and was returned to me. Can't make it go away though, which is ridiculous. I understand the thinking that once a check has gone out, it seems like it should not be "erasable", but that idea does not match real life.

I voted for this.

PS: Sorry for the dup. A dialog at the bottom of the window popped up with: Return value of StatusModel::recordStatuses() must be of the type array, null returned. So I thought it had not posted...

Larry4

I upvoted it as well.  It is ridiculous to block the user from editing/deleting/voiding of a check pay that has failed.  I don't need a software "mother".  I can see an extra warning or having to type in "yes" as happens when you delete an account, but to prevent it naïve.  In a test I found I can delete the entire account with the bad check in it, but cannot void the single bad check transaction.

RichEeyore

This issue hit me this week, too. Also, the inability to change the date on Check Pay entries to reflect when the bank posted the transaction is a pain. This hasn't always been this way. Apparently Check Pay uses the date for memorializing the check initiation. This can be done by capturing the date in a separate (hidden) field while allowing the Quicken user to update the visible date field as needed.

Frankx

Hi @Rx @Larry4 and @RichEeyore

I understand your frustrations.  Those are the consequences of using a third-party to make payments on your behalf.  The way to avoid this is to open a bank account at a bank that will make the payments.  There are a multitude of banks that provide this service, both large and small.

Let me know if you have any followup questions.

Frankx

Rx

Hi @Frankx,

Hmm, Quicken is selling this service to us. They are the providers, not some random third party (the previous, third-party service was much more reliable, FWIW). If they can't make this work reliably, then they should reduce their fees for those who no longer trust the service. Or they could fix the dang thing! Telling us we should rely on a different party, or bank sounds to me like an excuse for Quicken's implementation issues vs. addressing the problem at hand.

After all, this thread is about how Quicken deals with Checkpay entries. That is entirely under Quicken's control; it's their entry in their database managed by their program on our computers. @RechEyyore's suggestion on how to preserve a specific date without limiting users is one way they could handle it, should their payment backend need that information. It's software -- problems should be fixed or the features removed.

RCH

[Removed - Rant]