Transfer "category" confusion

DeeEhm

Quicken Deluxe-Newbie (but used Quicken years a lot years ago)

I have a recurring transfer from "Alpha Checking" to "Escrow Savings" within the same credit union, but when Quicken downloads the transactions, it categorizes it like so:

-Account: "Alpha Checking"
-Payee: Online banking transfer
-Category: "Escrow Savings XX1234" (This seems correct)

HOWEVER, the corresponding transfer is:

-Account: "Escrow Savings"
-Payee: Online banking transfer
-Category: "OTHER INC" (As I understand it, this should be "Alpha Checking") so....

When I change the category to "Transfer: Alpha Checking," I wind up with a duplicate in Alpha checking marked as "Uncleared." If I right-click: Reconcile status>Cleared... it does nothing.

Quicken help says there a way to mark them as "transfer" and not link them, (as another option) but I see no way to do this. The only thing listed under "Transfers" in categories is the names of all my accounts.

If it matters, Quicken was set to "auto match" but I've since changed it to "manual match."

How should I be handling this?

Thanks!

Sherlock

If you haven't already, you may want to review: 

https://www.quicken.com/support/how-do-i-categorize-transfer-quicken-windows

https://www.quicken.com/support/transfers-are-not-matching-quicken

Chris_QPW

"Linked transfers" in Quicken are created by the special syntax of [Other Account] in the category field.
As in if I was in "Checking" and wanted to do a transfer to "Savings" I would set the category to [Savings].
This will create the corresponding transaction in "Savings" with a category of [Checking].

When Quicken downloads the data from the financial institution all it gets is a deposit in one account and a withdraw in the other account.  So, it doesn't know that the two transactions are a transfer.

So, the recommended process is to pre-enter transfers and then match the downloaded transactions to them.

There is also a "guessing system" called Transfer Detection in the preferences, but it is only a guess that two transactions with the same amount downloading in two different accounts, one withdraw, the other a deposit and in fact a transfer.  But it only kicks in after you have accepted the transactions into the register.  And since it a guess, if one uses it at all the '"confirm" should be on.

DeeEhm

Thanks, Sherlock, I looked at the first one. I'll have a look at the other.

DeeEhm

Thanks, Chris. Same amount, same day, two different accounts... why not ask me "Is this a transfer?" The payee line actually says "Olbtr" "Online banking transfer" but I guess this isn't a universal term.

Of course, I did not know that I should enter EVERY STINKIN' TANSFER for the past three months before hitting download. You have to admit, that's pretty absurd. (Not that I'm calling you that. I appreciate your feedback!)

Any thoughts about why the help section says I can mark it as a transfer (not a linked one) but that there seems to be no way to do this? (I can't find that again but it was in Quicken help)

Thanks for you help!

Ps56k2

DeeEhm said: Same amount, same day, two different accounts... why not ask me "Is this a transfer?"

take a look at this ---> Edit --> Preferences -->

good to take a look at ALL the settings and see what they are, and what they do -

Sherlock

DeeEhm said:

Thanks, Chris. Same amount, same day, two different accounts... why not ask me "Is this a transfer?" The payee line actually says "Olbtr" "Online banking transfer" but I guess this isn't a universal term.

Of course, I did not know that I should enter EVERY STINKIN' TANSFER for the past three months before hitting download. You have to admit, that's pretty absurd. (Not that I'm calling you that. I appreciate your feedback!)

Any thoughts about why the help section says I can mark it as a transfer (not a linked one) but that there seems to be no way to do this? (I can't find that again but it was in Quicken help)

Thanks for you help!

I suspect the help section you read was for Quicken for Mac.

Chris_QPW

DeeEhm said:

The payee line actually says "Olbtr" "Online banking transfer" but I guess this isn't a universal term.

That might make sense to you because you know what that means, but if you wouldn't have told me that was used as the payee for a transfer, I certainly wouldn't have been able to guess what it means.  Let alone have a program looking at payees and guessing at terms like this mean.

Chris_QPW

P.S.  And even if Quicken was understand that was a transfer "payee", it still wouldn't know what the other account in the transfer was.

DeeEhm

Hi Sherlock: Perhaps I was in Mac help but I've since discovered that I can mark the transaction as a pure "transfer" in the Android app and the iPad app. I have Win10 desktop, Chromebook, Android phone and an iPad pro. Is it best not to mix these. I also note that on iPad the "Payee" choices are "external transfer" and simply "Transfer." These choices are not available on Win10. Not sure if it helps yet. Need to play with it.

DeeEhm

Hi Ps56k2 Thanks. Yes, I looked at those settings. Have since changed them to "manual" but it doesn't solve the problem of my first download where "automatic" (default) ignored almost all transfers.