Downloaded Bank's Checking Account Data Is Wrong in Many Instances

QwikOne

Recently when updating my checking account transactions online, Quicken chooses the wrong payee and sometimes/many times the wrong category for that entry (check number). Our financial institution, on its register, has the check number and "Check W/D" for the description . . . nothing else to identify who the payee was. When updating the account Quicken has assigned unrelated payee, category and memo from my memorized payee list. Quicken has used only a few different payees with the hundred or so transactions in the register. Shouldn't Quicken leave payee, memo, and category blank if there is no information in the banks register online? Is there something I can do in Quicken to modify this error being placed in the Quicken register?

NotACPA

The Payee name, on a check, isn't part of the data that's downloaded.  In general, all that's downloaded is the MICR line and the date the check is posted.

SO, I'd suggest that you manually input your checks directly into Q when writing them ... thus, when they download they should have a greater success rate in matching.

Also, your bank doesn't know what Category you want to use for the check ... so the manual input allows you to assign that when the info is freshest in your mind.

Chris_QPW

QwikOne said:

Shouldn't Quicken leave payee, memo, and category blank if there is no information in the banks register online? Is there something I can do in Quicken to modify this error being placed in the Quicken register?

I would bet that the downloaded payee isn't blank (and maybe the memo too).  You can see what was really sent by the financial institution by turning on the Downloaded payee and Downloaded memo fields, which Quicken will use in renaming rules that are then matched to your memorized payees to pick up the category.

Given that checks never have the payee like @NotACPA suggests I manually enter them so that when they are downloaded the transaction can be matched based on the amount and check number.

I also do this in the renaming rules and memorized payee list.




This above makes sure that if I did forget to enter a check, it will not be categorized.

I also have this preference off so that Quicken doesn't make guesses at what categories I want, instead will leave them blank so that while I'm reviewing new payees that aren't in my memorized payee list the stand out as not having a category.


But the main thing I do is not write many checks, instead I use a credit card that I can get cash back from.

QwikOne

Although using for years I am still a novice. Thanks for the insights!