Possible bug with Bill Reminders that are supposed to happen once every two months

Kuj

Quicken seems to be entering these reminders into my account registers every month instead on once every other month. The creation of these kinds of reminders also seems to happen in a very different way. You have to create this as a "Monthly" reminder and then add that this is once every two months.

Chris_QPW

I too have a bill that is once every two months, and after years of struggling with this exact problem I just gave up.  The bug has been reported a few times over the years, but never fixed.

NotACPA

Why does editing the bill reminder and clicking "change" and then setting the period to "2 months" not work for you?

mshiggins

That is strange that an every other month reminder is not working properly. I have had my EBMUD (water) bill reminder set up and working properly since 2000. 

Rocket J Squirrel

Here's an interesting twist. If you hold down Shift while clicking "Edit this instance and all future instances", you get the little-known "Who, When, How" dialog. That dialog has an explicit "Every two months" setting. Who knew?

NotACPA

@mshiggins I've loved the acronym for "East Bay MUD" ever since I lived in Walnut Creek in 1981-82.

Chris_QPW

NotACPA said:

Why does editing the bill reminder and clicking "change" and then setting the period to "2 months" not work for you?

Setting it up as a reminder isn't the problem (at least not for me).

The problem is that even though it is setup for every two months the reminder shows up every month.

mshiggins said:

That is strange that an every other month reminder is not working properly. I have had my EBMUD (water) bill reminder set up and working properly since 2000. 

Most likely the reason this working for you, but not for me or @Kuj, is because this is a Quicken Subscription only bug they introduced a few years ago.  You are using Quicken 2017 which doesn't have this bug.

BTW mine is my water bill too. 

Rocket J Squirrel

Chris_QPW said:

Most likely the reason this working for you, but not for me or @Kuj, is because this is a Quicken Subscription only bug they introduced a few years ago.  You are using Quicken 2017 which doesn't have this bug.

BTW mine is my water bill too. 

I'm running subscription and my water bill reminder properly executes every 2 months. Try the dialog I show above and maybe that will clear out your water (bill) blockage.

Chris_QPW

Wow, I have never seen that dialog before.  Mine came up with this:


I changed it to this like you suggested.  Hopefully that will fix it:

Chris_QPW

Where are my manners!  Thank you, @Rocket J Squirrel

Rocket J Squirrel

Chris_QPW said:

Where are my manners!  Thank you, @Rocket J Squirrel

Haha, thank me if it works. This dialog is pretty obscure and is probably just a different GUI onto the same reminder settings. Like @mshiggins, I'm surprised your bimonthly reminder doesn't work because ours has always worked.

I do like the "Who, When, How" dialog better than the regular one because all the info is visible and modifiable together without having to click through to sub-dialogs.

Chris_QPW

I was wondering why that didn't just switch to the new one, but then I reasoned that it might be because it is so big and not resizable.  Which of course might cause problems for some people.  At least I sort of hope they have some reasonable reason for having both.

Chris_QPW

I realized I can "speed up time".  I set my system date to the date it was due this month and entered it.  Closed Quicken and set the date to the next month and it wasn't there.  Set the show reminders to 90 days and it shows up in the next month just like it should.

So, it looks like that did fix it.  Thanks!

mshiggins

NotACPA said:

@volvogirl I've loved the acronym for "East Bay MUD" ever since I lived in Walnut Creek in 1981-82.

I know we look just alike, but it was me, not @volvogirl .

Walnut Creek is my home town, by the way. 

UKR

Wow!
It makes me wonder why the "Who, When, How" dialog is not made the default "Edit this and all other ..." process.
It makes me wonder even more if we're ever going to see the requested new reminder frequencies as discussed here.

NotACPA

mshiggins said:

NotACPA said:

@volvogirl I've loved the acronym for "East Bay MUD" ever since I lived in Walnut Creek in 1981-82.

I know we look just alike, but it was me, not @volvogirl .

Walnut Creek is my home town, by the way. 

I've corrected that brain fart.  Sorry for the mis-attribution.  My current wife and I were out in CA in 2019 and I took her by the WC rental and the Twin Peaks condo I bought in 1982.

Rocket J Squirrel

Chris_QPW said:

Wow, I have never seen that dialog before.

UKR said:

Wow!
It makes me wonder why the "Who, When, How" dialog is not made the default "Edit this and all other ..." process.

It just goes to show there's so much hidden stuff in Quicken it pays to Shift-click, Ctrl-click, Ctrl-Shift-Click, and sometimes even Ctrl-F3-Click everywhere to find it all.

Chris_QPW said:

I was wondering why that didn't just switch to the new one,

I learned of this dialog from @Sherlock, who called it the "old" one. Perhaps he can shed some light on the history.

Sherlock

Rocket J Squirrel said:

Chris_QPW said:

Wow, I have never seen that dialog before.

UKR said:

Wow!
It makes me wonder why the "Who, When, How" dialog is not made the default "Edit this and all other ..." process.

It just goes to show there's so much hidden stuff in Quicken it pays to Shift-click, Ctrl-click, Ctrl-Shift-Click, and sometimes even Ctrl-F3-Click everywhere to find it all.

Chris_QPW said:

I was wondering why that didn't just switch to the new one,

I learned of this dialog from @Sherlock, who called it the "old" one. Perhaps he can shed some light on the history.

My recollection is the Who, When, How form predates the compact form being used today.  I suspect some users complained about it's complexity.  

Chris_QPW

To me it looks "new", the old dialogs never had a "help" (which BTW I feel should be able to be hidden).

Here is what it looked like in Quicken 2004.


Here is what it looked like in Quicken 2013.

Sherlock

Chris_QPW said:

To me it looks "new", the old dialogs never had a "help" (which BTW I feel should be able to be hidden).

Here is what it looked like in Quicken 2004.


Here is what it looked like in Quicken 2013.

Did you press the Shift key?

Chris_QPW

Nope, this are the standard ones.  But I thought that was the point.  That at one point that one where you do Shift was the "old standard one".

Chris_QPW

P.S. Quicken 2013 (and below) didn't have the showing the reminder in the register feature.  I tried Shift on this one, and nothing comes up:

Sherlock

Chris_QPW said:

Nope, this are the standard ones.  But I thought that was the point.  That at one point that one where you do Shift was the "old standard one".

That wasn't my point.  My recollection goes further back than Quicken 2004. 

I've used the Who, When, How form for many years so I certainly wouldn't describe the dialog as new.  I've always suspected someone significant at Intuit/Quicken must like the functionality for it to continue to exist.

UKR

Chris_QPW said:

P.S. Quicken 2013 (and below) didn't have the showing the reminder in the register feature.  I tried Shift on this one, and nothing comes up:

As @Rocket J Squirrel said when he showed the "Who, When, How" dialog for the first time:
If you hold down Shift while clicking "Edit this instance and all future instances", you get the little-known "Who, When, How" dialog.
Click Edit first then, in the popup, Shift-click ...

Chris_QPW

UKR said:

Chris_QPW said:

P.S. Quicken 2013 (and below) didn't have the showing the reminder in the register feature.  I tried Shift on this one, and nothing comes up:

As @Rocket J Squirrel said when he showed the "Who, When, How" dialog for the first time:
If you hold down Shift while clicking "Edit this instance and all future instances", you get the little-known "Who, When, How" dialog.
Click Edit first then, in the popup, Shift-click ...

Oops, yes did the magic sequence in the wrong place.

Quicken 2013's dialog (with Shift).

Chris_QPW

BTW on this comment:

Sherlock said:

Chris_QPW said:

Nope, this are the standard ones.  But I thought that was the point.  That at one point that one where you do Shift was the "old standard one".

I've always suspected someone significant at Intuit/Quicken must like the functionality for it to continue to exist.

My guess would be that they simply forgot about it being there.  Yes, at the start it was probably left in and hidden for "someone significant at Intuit", but over time my bet is because it is a hidden feature, they just forgot about it.  It isn't that hard in a program like Quicken with so many features and dialogs the developers wouldn't even see it very often and when they come across it, just dismiss it as not important to worry about.

Kuj

Thanks to those who pointed out the not obvious work-around to the problem I was experiencing. I have applied the changes needed to my settings and will wait to see if the function works as it should.