Duplicate transactions

MplsP

I opened quicken a few days ago and downloaded transactions only to find out that there were an extensive number of duplicate transactions, going back weeks to months. I decided to simply restore from a backup but when I reconnected the online services, the exact same thing happened again - there are duplicate transactions going all the way back to May. (This is in multiple accounts, not just one.) The one odd thing I've noticed is that the dates on the transactions are often (but not always) off by one day. Is it possible that something in the date stamps has gotten off so Quicken is unable to match transactions?

Regardless, any ideas how to fix this?

Quicken Anja

Hello @MplsP,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community and telling us about your issue, though I apologize that you are experiencing this.

If you haven't already, please take a moment to review and follow the guidance found in this support article regarding this topic. Also, please be sure to click the Mac tab for proper guidance.

I hope this helps!

MplsP

Thank you for your suggestion. I found that article when searching for suggestions. I know how to delete individual transactions. The problem is this isn't just for an isolated week; it involves every account for several months encompassing hundreds of transactions.

Quicken Alyssa

Hello @MplsP,

Do you find that after deleting the duplicates they return? Are the duplicates continuing to happen with every download? Or is it isolated to a certain time period?

Thank you for continuing to provide us with more information as needed. We do appreciate your patience with us. 


Quicken Alyssa

MplsP

It's hard to say - due to the sheer volume of duplicates I quit trying to weed them out and re-restored from a backup. I've only connected a 3 accounts that are infrequently used and only had a handful of transactions to delete. In both of those accounts it appeared that every transaction back to approximately May 8th was duplicated.

In the accounts that I have gone through the trouble to reconnect and delete the duplicates they don't seem to recur.

Quicken Alyssa

@MplsP,

Thank you for providing the information.

While this is not the intended behavior of the software, sometimes this does happen after disconnecting and reconnecting accounts. The 90 days of transactions that you would normally be given when adding a new account comes in even though it is already there. I do think that the dates being different has definitely contributed to this happening in your case. If this is all that has happened, the only thing to be done is to delete the duplicate transactions and move forward from there. 

If the duplicates continue to happen, there are other things we can look at to see what is causing it to happen. 

Note: Make sure to check the affected accounts for more than one opening balance. You can do this by typing "open" into the search bar at the top of the register. If there is an extra one in May, where the duplicates began, you will need to delete it.


Quicken Alyssa

MplsP

So basically you're saying the only way to fix this is to re-connect my accounts and manually delete 6 months worth of duplicates in every one of my accounts? And why does the problem recur even if I restore from a previous backup?

Quicken Alyssa

Hello @MplsP,

As I attempted to explain before, this is happening as a result of reconnecting a disconnected account, as well as the dates on the transactions being different than the existing transactions. 

There is another option for avoiding duplicates. You can add the accounts like new, and then move all of the historical transactions in the original account over to the new one. I did not offer this option in the first place, because it can become rather cumbersome when it involves transfers between accounts, reconciliation status of accounts, etc... If you decide to try this option, I suggest calling Quicken Support to walk you through it.

In my opinion, while deleting the duplicates can be somewhat time-consuming and inconvenient, it is still the best option. 



Quicken Alyssa

MplsP

That doesn't explain why the duplicate issue happened in the first place and why the dates were off on some of the transactions, nor does it explain why it happened after restoring from the backup file. (My first attempt at restoring from the backup file was actually prior to disconnecting online services but had the exact same results.) If the backup file requires one to manually go through and pare out hundreds of duplicate transactions then it's pretty worthless as a backup.

I came up with a solution on my own. For the benefit of anyone else who experiences the same issue:
1. Determine how far back the duplicates occurred (Early May in my case.)
2. Restore from a backup
3. Create a dummy account.
4. Before connecting an account for automatic downloads, move all transactions for the duplicated timeframe (early May to the present) over to the dummy account by highlighting and dragging them.
5. Connect the account for automatic downloads (if you have multiple accounts with an institution you'll either need to make multiple dummy accounts or connect them one at a time)
6. check the account balance and the transactions to make sure the ledger is complete. If it is you can delete the transactions from the dummy account and repeat the process with the next account.

This entire process still took me 2-3 hours, but it was far better then attempting to weed out over 1000 duplicate transactions that were frequently grouped in different order.

imdcareys

.....

milnev

I am having the same problem. [Removed - Rant]  I have been looking into switching to QuickBooks finally, or deleting my file and starting over in Quicken home office but that is a big challenge also.

imdcareys

MplsP,

This also happened in my Quicken Windows file recently. In my case, I had to re-establish my connection after restoring from a backup to get my budget back that had just vanished! In the meantime, I think  either Quicken (the company) or my Credit Union changed how transactions are downloaded but I cannot be sure. I ended up with 396 duplicate transactions going back to May (I think not a coincidence to your situation) in three separate accounts.  It took 4 hours to delete them, which included verifying whether each and every one were already in the various registers.

The Downloaded IDs of the existing transactions all started with a different pattern of numbers than the ones that re-downloaded. The dates were different because I record transactions on different dates than the Credit Union does and Quicken normally respects the dates I used when I recorded them. The Credit Union uses the dates the transactions clear on their end.

Even now, I am getting a few duplicate stragglers with the new pattern for existing transactions with the old Downloaded ID pattern. It might have been easier if Quicken had a 'Delete All' button for downloaded transactions that have not been accepted. 

garysmith87

In Quicken Mac, this is an easy problem to solve.  Backup your data file first.  

When you disconnect and reconnect your account for downloads, you WILL get duplicate transactions the initial download.

The new transactions will have a blue dot next to them in the left most status column.  This designates them as NOT REVIEWED.

Set the register filter from ANY STATUS to NOT REVIEWED.

All the transactions in the register will now have a blue dot.

Select and highlight the first transaction in the register.  Holding the SHIFT key, select the last transaction in the register.

Use the DELETE key...and poof...all the duplicates are gone.

Change the filter back to ANY STATUS.

Your next download in the future will download new transactions only. 


Glad to have helped....

Mike O'Brien

Quicken Alyssa - I wasn't sure how to contact you or Quicken Sarah regarding the Schwab duplicates problem:

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7902333/updated-11-29-21-schwab-duplicate-transactions#latest

Unfortunately, the Schwab downloads are still producing hundreds of duplicate transactions going back more than a year so that the 30 day "internal fix" announced by Quicken Sarah on 11/29/21 isn't working and/or has not yet been implemented. If you could check into that, it would be appreciated. Thanks. Mike O'Brien