Quicken is saying I do not have an account that is enabled for online payments.

Jim Bourque

I have always sent bill payments from Quicken to Fifth Third Bank. Just started getting message I do not have an account enabled for online payments. I can download transactions without a problem.

Rocket J Squirrel

There are 461 banks which are listed as having the mechanism to pay bills from Quicken via Direct Connect. Fifth Third is listed as one of them, but is apparently having connection issues right now.

The list is attached. But understand that just because the bank has the mechanism in place does not imply the service is free or currently available.

Boatnmaniac

There was an Alert posted yesterday regarding a Fifth Third Bank connection issue.  Perhaps this issue might be behind the issue you are observing?:  https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7899652/new-9-28-21-fifth-third-direct-connect-ol-332-a-or-invalid-login-error#latest.

ghdsed

I just got this message today too. Apparently Quicken is discontinuing bill payments in that format. There are instructions given to set up some new payment info with each of your payees again. I sent a message that I would just do that with my banks in future if I had to go through all of that. What's going on with Quicken anyway? I have had many problems with them lately, and I have been a user for over 20 years.

Boatnmaniac

It's a long shot but why don't you take a look at the Online Services tab of Account Details.  The bottom half of it should show the Online bill payment section showing which bill payment options are available and which one(s) have been enabled.  In the following example I have enabled Bank Bill Pay.  Do you see something similar for Fifth Third Bank with the type of Bill Pay you have had?

ghdsed

After doing more research. I found that Quicken has apparently dropped Billpay from its Deluxe version and offers it only on Premier or Home and Business. For "only" $9.95 a month you can regain this service. This is not acceptable to me, and I am not willing to upgrade to Premier now either.

Jim Bourque

I do not have anything listed in bottom half of account details and never did. I did more clicking around and it looks like Bill Pay will cost now. Minimum is $9.95 per month for 15 transactions. Cost goes up the more transactions you make. It sure would have been nice if Quicken sent notifications about the change!!!

Rocket J Squirrel

There are 461 banks which are listed as having the mechanism to pay bills from Quicken via Direct Connect. Fifth Third is listed as one of them, but is apparently having connection issues right now.

The list is attached. But understand that just because the bank has the mechanism in place does not imply the service is free or currently available.

Boatnmaniac

@ghdsed and @Jim Bourque - There are 2 different ways to pay bills in Quicken and I think you are confusing the two. 

• One is via Direct Connect where you send the bill pay command directly to the bank from within Quicken.  This is what is called Bank Bill Pay in the picture I'd posted above...some users also refer to is as Direct Connect Bill Pay.  There is no cost from Quicken to do this...never has been.  While many banks do not charge a monthly fee for doing this, some banks will.  This is the old traditional Bill Pay functionality that has been around for longer than I have been using Quicken (since 2008).  Again, Quicken never charges anything for this and never has and there is no limitation on how many Bill Pays you send via this method.
  
• The other is Quicken Bill Manager Bill Pay service.  This is a service Quicken has contracted for with a 3rd party partner.  It is a free service (and has been for a few years) for a limited number of payments each month for Premier and Home & Business but people with Deluxe can add on the service for a monthly fee...that $9.95/month that you mentioned.

@Jim Bourque - Did you not say earlier that you used to pay bills from within Quicken directly with your bank?  Or did I misunderstand what you had posted?

You could not have paid bills from within Quicken without having one of these 2 Bill Pay services enabled.  So, another question:  At the top of your Account Register, what connection method does it say is set up?  (You can also see this on the Online Services tab of Account Details and in Account List.)

ghdsed

@Boatnmaniac
I always paid my bills with Direct Connect Bill Pay using my Quicken Deluxe. As of end of September 2021, suddenly without any prior notice this function disabled for me. When I attempted to send a payment I received a message that my account was not set up for direct connect.
Further research by me determined that this new policy had been applied. If I wanted this function I would need to pay $9.95 a month or upgrade to Premium Quicken. This was a total surprise. I was not notified of this change at all. I had been paying my bills for many, many years through September 2021
without problems.

Boatnmaniac

ghdsed said:

@Boatnmaniac
I always paid my bills with Direct Connect Bill Pay using my Quicken Deluxe. As of end of September 2021, suddenly without any prior notice this function disabled for me. When I attempted to send a payment I received a message that my account was not set up for direct connect.
Further research by me determined that this new policy had been applied. If I wanted this function I would need to pay $9.95 a month or upgrade to Premium Quicken. This was a total surprise. I was not notified of this change at all. I had been paying my bills for many, many years through September 2021
without problems.

Check your connection method.  If it does not say DC at the top of the Account Register, then you need to upgrade the connection to DC.  Then you should be able to enable the account for DC Bill Pay, again for no monthly cost.

That being said, you might not be able to set up DC at this time because the Alert that has been posted (https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7899652/new-9-28-21-fifth-third-direct-connect-ol-332-a-or-invalid-login-error#latest) does not say, yet, that the connection issue has been resolved.

As I mentioned in my last post, you are mistaken about DC Bill Pay.  There is no "new policy" by Quicken for DC Bill Pay.  Quicken still does not charge anything for this regardless of which edition of Quicken you have (but some banks do charge a monthly fee for DC service).

The fee you are talking about is for Quicken Bill Manager Bill Pay which is a totally different 3rd party bill pay service offered by Quicken.  It is free for Premier and Home & Business subscribers (for a limited number of payments each month).  Deluxe was not able to use this service until recently but now Deluxe subscribers can add on this service for a monthly fee.

If the information you are getting on this is different than what I have just posted, please provide a link to it or take a picture of it and post it here.

Jim Bourque

@ghdsed
Your comment is exactly what is happening to me. I have always used Direct Connect Bill Pay with no issues. It now says I am not set up for Direct Connect. But I can still download transactions.

Boatnmaniac

Jim Bourque said:

@ghdsed
Your comment is exactly what is happening to me. I have always used Direct Connect Bill Pay with no issues. It now says I am not set up for Direct Connect. But I can still download transactions.

So it says you are now set up for Express Web Connect, then?

Did you deactivate/reactivate your account recently?  If so that probably caused the change in connection method because the reactivate process often defaults to Express Web Connect, not to Direct Connect.

Fifth Third Bank shows that Direct Connect is still supported.  So you should be able to upgrade your connection from Express Web Connect to Direct Connect.

You can try to upgrade the connection to Direct Connect on the Online Services tab of Account Details and there should be a message that says Your financial institution supports an improved connection method. Click on the link under that message to start the connection method upgrade process.

You can also do this by going to Account List and in the Transaction Download column you should see a link that says Improve Connection.  Click on that link to start the connection method upgrade process.  (If you do not see the Transaction Download column, click on the Options button at the bottom of Account List and check "Show transaction download status".)

Note:  If the Firth Third Bank connection issue in the Alert is not yet fixed, you probably will not be able to upgrade your connection at this time.  Until that connection issue is fixed you will likely need to settle for Express Web Connect.