Understanding Account Transfers in Quicken

OvernightMadness

Hello, new to quicken. I've done some of the tutorial vids but rather than search thru hours to answer this question I thought I'd cut to the chase and ask here. I'm coming from YNAB, so there's a learning curve that I'm having trouble with.

I've set up a bunch of my bank accounts, credit cards and various investment accounts and the bank accounts and CC's have downloaded the last 4 months of data... cool.

Within the accounts there's a bunch of transfers back and forth but it doesn't seem like quicken recognizes this. For instance I have a tax account (called Ally Tax) where I accumulate all the tax I pay at the end of the year ( I divert 30% of all my income here) and then transfer it to my primary account (Called Wells Fargo Primary) where it's pulled.

In my primary account it shows the transfer as "Other Inc" and in my tax account where I transferring the money out of it shows [Ally Tax}... the account itself. Weird. Why would it show itself as the transfer category?

Quicken doesn't see that they are the same transaction. So how do I connect them?

When I go to category in my Wells Fargo Primary account and change the "Other Inc" to [Ally Tax] and then go my Ally Tax account, it shows 2 separate transactions.

This is just 1 of 80 to 100 transfers between a bunch of the accounts over the last 4 months. Is there any way for me to get Quicken to understand that all these transfers are between these accounts? It seems like it thinks they're all totally independent and unconnected to each other.

Ps56k2

You can review this Edit --> Preferences --> to see how Quicken can potentially handle "transfers" -

Also - as you have discovered, you can use the Category [acct name] syntax to initiate a "transfer" between accounts.
You only do it in one Account - and it magically appears in the other Account.

Boatnmaniac

Quicken does have transfer detection capability but you need to set it up for that:  Go to Edit > Preferences > Transfer Detection > check the box and tic "Automatically..." or "Confirm possible..." (I recommend "Confirm possible..." so it can be reviewed and, if needed, corrected prior to entry into the register).

Getting the Preference set up like this will affect future downloaded transactions only.  Transfer transactions already in the account registers will need to be manually edited to correct them:

1. In one account:  Manually change the category or transfer so that it shows the correct name of the account the money is transferred to enclosed in brackets.
2. In the other account:  If there are now two transactions in the register because of #1, delete the transaction that is not the transfer or has the incorrect transfer account listed.
   

Quicken does a pretty good job of matching transfers between accounts at the same Financial Institution (FI) but it does only an OK job of matching transfers between accounts that are not at the same FI.  This is why I suggested ticking "Confirm possible..." because there will be times that you will want to make a correction.

Quicken will sometimes use an account transfer to itself when it cannot figure out what the category or transfer account should be or when it thinks that it should not be listed as an income category or expense category.  The most common legitimate places where the transfer-to-itself is use include things like an account "Opening Balance" and in some asset and liability accounts where there is an account balancing transaction.

OvernightMadness

Thanks. It was checked but set to auto but I've set it to "comfirm..." per your advice. I find it strange that it didn't pick up any of them, even the ones that were within the same bank. I'm hopeful that it will moving forward. I'm moving over from YNAB in hopes of saving myself time. That would slow me down a good bit.