How do I pair credit card payments from to Checking Account Register to my Credit Card Register

Question

I am new to Quicken and just set up my accounts. I have several credit cards and one checking account. I downloaded the last three months worth of transactions (or as far back as the FI will go) from my respective credit cards and from my checking account. I know I need to categorize the expenses in the credit card registers to track spending and that when I pay the credit cards they should be transfers, but that is not how these downloaded items appear. The payee in the Checking Account is the name of the checking account in brackets (indicating a transfer into the same account).

I am pretty sure the payee should be shown as a transfer to the credit card (i.e. [Amazon Visa]) but if I change it it does not match up with the corresponding transaction on the credit card register (maybe because they posted a few days apart). It adds the transaction with the exact same date the money was taken from my checking account, which is a day or two after the date the credit card company used. So I have a double entry, one that offers the option to go to matching transfer and the other (the one auto downloaded) sitting there. The only option is to delete the earlier dated version, but I do not want to go through three months worth of transactions altering category for each payment and then going and deleting the unmatched version.

Is there a way I can link them, automatically or manually? It is as if Quicken does not recognize that they are two sides of the same transfer, but thinks they are separate events each listing the category as a transfer back into the same account.

Any ideas? I tried to be as clear as I could but might not be explaining it in the correct lingo. If clarification is needed, let me know.

Thanks

Sherlock · Answer

There are three of us....

I'd handle the issue the same way.  I'd manually match the import 403(b) deposit to the paycheck's transfer or delete the deposit.  Going forward the paycheck transaction should be entered in advance of the import.

Alwx · Answer

Thank you for the clarification, both of you. I see I have to do some manual fixing to catch up. Follow up question. I am adding my paychecks and doing so with the wizard with the gross amounts. For the money going to my 403(b) (like a 401k, but I work for a non profit hospital) the paycheck is split and the money deposited into the account. The problem is that I already downloaded the account info for the retirement account, so these transactions are duplicating. There is the original date when the money hit the account and then there is now the same amount added on the date I was paid. I cannot delete the split but the recorded purchases have price information on the date of the actual purchase. How do I merge these?

Chris_QPW · Answer

I should mention that the bill reminder is a "manual" one.  You can do the same with one linked to a Online Bill.  Which will change the amount and date based on the bill statement.

I don't use that system for two main reasons.  The first is I don't trust it to work properly all the time.
The second for the case of credit card payments the amount isn't correct a lot of times in my case so it adds very little and just gets in the way.

The reason the amount isn't correct is because the way it is going to work is when the credit card closes it picks up the statement ending balance and minimum payment.  I always pay the full amount, so one would think that the statement balance is the correct amount, but if you have a return anywhere from when the statement comes in to when you pay the bill then the payment is going to be reduced by that amount.  And since that can happen right up until you make the payment, nothing can get that exact number.

If you don't have a wife that returns a lot of things, maybe it would work better for you.   ;)

There is also this preference which tries to link up downloaded transactions based on the amount and approximate date.  The problem with it in this case is twofold.  One it is only a guess  (make sure you have confirm on).  The second is that it can't make that guess until the second side of the transfer is downloaded, which will be a few days later.  In the meantime you have to leave the transaction in the credit card account uncategorized.  Not a good idea.

Forgot to include the screenshot.