Why are transfers between two accounts not being registered in BOTH accounts?

JamesBR

I download transactions from my bank. All accounts involved are from the same bank. Some ,not all, Transactions that are transfers from one account are not registering in the "transfer to" account. I have to renter the transfer manually for the transaction to show up in the "Transfer to" account. This throws off reconciliation and drives me crazy trying to balance the affected account.

THEmikehd

If you go online to your bank do you see the transaction completed at both the source and destination? I've had transfers out of my checking to pay a loan at the same bank show a delay between the source and destination. This would create the situation you describe.

volvogirl

In the first account that shows the transaction, what is the Category on it?  The Category should be the name of the other account.   Then when you download the other account it should match the first transfer or you will will have a duplicate which you need to delete.  

UKR

In case you have issues with transfer transactions not being generated correctly:

If you are relying on Quicken to "automagically" fill your account registers from downloaded transactions, you may run into problems. Despite all efforts by the Quicken programmers, the "Autopilot" (that's my name for the part of the Quicken program which processes downloaded transactions and converts them into new register transactions) is not infallible. For that process to work 100% of the time one would need a crystal ball because the information downloaded from the banks often is just too terse and cryptic.

For best results I always recommend that you manually enter properly categorized transfer transactions into your register BEFORE you download transactions from the bank which contain the transfer confirmations. For recurring transfers use scheduled reminders and enter them a day or two before the due date. Be sure to use distinct Payee Names for each transfer / credit card payment to avoid confusing Quicken - memorized payee entries.
That takes the guesswork out of the Autopilot's process. Because a correctly entered transfer transaction already exists in your account registers, the Autopilot should just match the downloaded transfer transaction to the existing one in both accounts.

jacobs

If the Category in the transaction in your bank account shows "Transfer", that's just Quicken's way of saying "the money came from somewhere, but I don't know where, so I'm recording the money but not counting it as income or expense."

What you need is for the Category in the transaction to show the specific Quicken account the transfer is to or from -- something like "Transfer[My XYZ Visa Account]".

You don't need to re-enter the transaction, and you don't have to enter it in the other account; you just have to edit the Category to be a transfer to or from the appropriate account. Then it will show up in the other account automatically. 

(Note: you can also turn on the Transfer column in your registers to use that column to select the transfer account.)

JamesBR

Both transfer transactions are "cleared" by my bank (the same bank). But the one, not both, transfer constantly does not get recorded in the second (XYZ) account ever. The category (Transfer:XYZ) is named as the transfer account. The only way to is to manually enter the second transfer. If I have to manually enter each transaction..........Then I don't need Quicken! or any other program.
Thanks for your suggestions, but they don't solve the problem.

volvogirl

Huh?  What is in the Category?   It should not say Transfer:XYZ.    It should jus be the other account name in square brackets to indicate it's to another account like [XYZ] .

jacobs

JamesBR said:

Both transfer transactions are "cleared" by my bank (the same bank). But the one, not both, transfer constantly does not get recorded in the second (XYZ) account ever. The category (Transfer:XYZ) is named as the transfer account. The only way to is to manually enter the second transfer. If I have to manually enter each transaction..........Then I don't need Quicken! or any other program.
Thanks for your suggestions, but they don't solve the problem.

You should not need to enter the "second transfer" manually.

The issue here is that when a bank transmits transactions to Quicken, it can't possibly know what the name of your other accounts are in your Quicken -- yet Quicken needs to establish a linkage in the transaction to a specific account. 

Does it show "Transfer:XYZ" or "Transfer:[XYZ]"? The former is the syntax for a category and subcategory; the latter is the syntax for a transfer to a Quicken account.

If you make the Transfer column visible in your register, is "XYZ" shown in that column? 

Could you post a screenshot of one of the transactions as it looks when you download it? 

When I download a transaction in my bank account which is a payment for a credit card, I see something like this:

But this does NOT create a transfer to the American Express account in Quicken. Rather this is a generic "transfer" category Quicken uses when it knows the money was transferred somewhere, but doesn't know where. It allows the account balance to be adjusted by the amount of the transaction, and it properly isn't counted as an expense. But there is no corresponding entry in my American Express account.

Now, here's what it looks like if I enter that transaction manually (or edit the downloaded one):



In this case "9-Amex {Hilton}" is the name of my account in Quicken. Because this is a properly linked transfer, this automatically populates in the Amex account as well:

(Side note: in this case, you may observe the dates are different -- the only thing Quicken Mac allows to be different on two sides of a linked transfer. I entered the transaction manually on 9/5/21 because that's the day I paid the Amex bill. But that payment didn't clear my checking account until 9/7/21, so when the checking account downloaded, Quicken matched the downloaded transaction to my manual transaction, bt retained the transaction date from the downloaded transaction.)

volvogirl said:

Huh?  What is in the Category?   It should not say Transfer:XYZ.    It should jus be the other account name in square brackets to indicate it's to another account like [XYZ] .

@volvogirl This is a Quicken Mac topic. In Quicken Mac, a user can select to show category names in short or long format; short is just the lowest sub-category name (e.g. "Fast Food"), while long is the full category pathname (e.g. "Food & Dining:Fast Food"). For Transfers shown in the Category column, the short format is the account name in brackets (e.g. "[Hilton Amex]") and the long format prefixes the word Transfer (e.g. "Transfer:[Hilton Amex]"). There is also, optionally, a Transfer column in the register with shows the account name without brackets (e.g. "Hilton Amex")

JamesBR

Yes the [XYZ} is the abbreviated category version of Transfer: {XYZ}

JamesBR

If you select the Transaction and chose "Edit" you will see the full category name.

JamesBR

jacobs......Im trying to tell you that the transfer shows up in one account and NOT the other So, there is no entry to show you from the second account. The first account shows the transfer and not the second account that the first account transfers to.

jacobs

@JamesBR I do understand what you are saying. I'm saying it doesn't make sense, because that's not the way Quicken Mac works, so I'm trying to diagnose what's going on with that transfer transaction. (I was asking that you show the entry in the account with the transfer; I understand you can't capture a screenshot of the absence of a transfer in the other account. )

You didn't answer whether the XYZ account is showing in the Transfer column. 

It would be helpful for the purposes of diagnosing this issue if you set your Preferences > Register to long category names, and if you made the Transfer column visible, when you capture a screenshot.