Setting up Credit Card for Payment Creates a Double entry (Q Mac)

AnneK48

This is driving my nuts. I am on a MacBook Pro running Monterey 12.3.1 but this issue has been happening for a while. I am just trying to set up a credit card for payment. I enter the Payee name (the name of the Credit Card), then in Category I enter Transfer:[name of credit card], then in account the name of the checking account I want the payment taken out of and then hit "Save." My Bills & Income register looks like the attached screen shot. Two lines. Before switching to a Mac a couple of years ago I was on a PC so some of the credit card payments were inherited. They all look great. Any ideas what is going on?

AnneK48

I was on a chat today and did this: deleted the bad credit card, reset the quicken data, signed out and then signed back in. That did not solve the problem.

Quicken Jared

AnneK48 said:

I was on a chat today and did this: deleted the bad credit card, reset the quicken data, signed out and then signed back in. That did not solve the problem.

Hello @AnnK48, 

I am sorry to hear about this problem with duplicate credit card entries. Thank you for bringing this matter up for discussion on the Quicken Community. 

If you have the chance, it would help us to troubleshoot the situation if you could save a backup by going to File > Save a Backup... in the upper menu at the top of the screen while Quicken is open and then create a new 'test' data file by following the steps listed below:

1. Navigate to File
2. Select New
3. Select Start from scratch
4. Click Next
5. Choose appropriate default categories based on geographic location
6. Click Next
7. Choose Don't use Quicken Mobile & Web
8. Click Next 

You may then add your non-Charles Schwab affiliated Credit account - if necessary - in the newly created data file by clicking the '+' symbol in the upper left-hand corner, and then choosing your financial institution and entering your credentials as prompted, or you may otherwise choose to operate the account manually by clicking My bank is not in the list next to the 'question mark' in the lower left-hand corner of the Add Account screen, and then Add Manual Account. I am curious whether or not these issues with duplicate transactions continue in this test data file, once you have linked them and then attempted to add payments.

I look forward to hearing your response.

Thanks,

Quicken Jared 

AnneK48

I'll give it a try and let you know.

Quicken Jared

AnneK48 said:

I'll give it a try and let you know.

@AnneK48, 

I understand. Thank you for continuing to work with me on this issue so patiently. I will keep an eye out for your response.

Feel free to reach out, anytime.

Thanks,

Quicken Jared 

AnneK48

I am not experiencing the same issue with the test account. Everything is working as it should. My main account was originally a transfer from a PC several years ago. Do you think it is corrupted or that something else is wrong?

jobworker

It looks to me like the one transactions shows the account from which the payment is being made and the other is the account to which the payment is going to be made.  I have seen this before but cannot remember the circumstances.  I just left it and it corrected itself at payment time.

Quicken Jared

AnneK48 said:

I am not experiencing the same issue with the test account. Everything is working as it should. My main account was originally a transfer from a PC several years ago. Do you think it is corrupted or that something else is wrong?

Hello @AnneK48, 

I do apologize that this problem is continuing in your original file, although I appreciate that you took the time to test this in an additional data file, and I thank you for getting back to me with your results. That information will prove very helpful. 

I prefer not to speculate about the status of the original data file. The best advice I can offer is to restore from a backup saved just prior to when you first noticed this problem in the original file. We recommend saving backups often by going to File > Save a Backup... in the upper menu at the top of the screen while Quicken is open. Provided that this is done regularly, recent backups should be available for situations such as these. You can then restore a saved backup by going to File > Restore from Backup... in the same menu mentioned a moment ago. Note that you may also use the new data file in place of the old one, if this proves more feasible. 

I wish that I had additional recommendations in this situation, but I do believe this is the best possible procedure to take.

Thank you,

Quicken Jared 

AnneK48

Not trying to be snarky here but why would restoring a backup from the original file fix the problem? The file seems to be in the original file.

AnneK48

@jobworker I hadn't thought of that. I'll give that a try and see what happens. I'll do a dummy payment and see what happens. Thanks.

AnneK48

@jobworker @Quicken Jared It worked this time. Arggg. I hate when things are inconsistent. 😀

Quicken Jared

AnneK48 said:

@jobworker @Quicken Jared It worked this time. Arggg. I hate when things are inconsistent. 😀

@AnneK48, 

I am happy to hear that the credit card payments seem to be functioning as expected, in this case. Thank you for following up with us and letting us know about what you are seeing after each step is taken.

Also, thank you to @jobworker for the explanation regarding the payment and the accounts it is being made to and from.

Feel free to reach out with any additional questions or concerns, and let us know if this issue reemerges.

Thank you,

Quicken Jared 

AnneK48

@Quicken Jared @jobworker OK I spoke too soon. It worked when I had the payment set for today, but then I changed the payment day to the correct date due and I now have two lines again. Any idea what is going on? Maybe I'll follow @jobworker advice and wait it out to see if it corrects itself when the actual payment is due.

It is acting like a double entry bookkeeping item.

AnneK48

I just got off the phone with Quicken. They were no help. I am not sure that, even with a screen share, the person understood what the issue was. Oh well. I'm a little discouraged.

jacobs

If you look in your credit card register, do you see the future scheduled payment in gray? Just once in June? And if you look in your checking account register, do you see the same scheduled transaction, just once in June? If the registers are showing the transaction correctly, then seeing it twice on the Bills & Income screen seems like some sort of cosmetic bug.

I can't replicate what you're seeing, but I don't use Quicken bill pay and I don't have any $0 scheduled transactions; my Bills & Income > Bills screen looks as I'd expect, with each scheduled transaction showing once. 

AnneK48

@jacobs I don’t use Bill Pay either. My issue is with manual transactions in Bills & Income. I am setting up a manual credit card payment. What I am seeing when I set up the account for payment is two lines. From an accounting standpoint it is the double entry that is supposed to be behind the scenes. One is a debit (from the checking account) and the other a credit (to the credit card account). Everything is going to right place but the unusual behavior is that all my other manual card payments are only showing one line in Bills & Income. The double entry is always behind the scenes. I have been using Quicken for over 20 years (on my Mac about three). I have never seen this behavior up until about a year ago.

jobworker

I have had this happen to me but I do not recall the circumstances.  Almost all of the time I get only the one transaction shown which is the one for the bank.  I originally thought it was when I set up the transaction in the credit card account with the tie back to the bank.  But that was not the case when I tried to duplicate the issue.  It seems sporadic.

AnneK48

@jobworker I think I am just going to have to live with it. It’s just frustrating that no one understands what is going on. I think you mentioned above that after the payment it might have corrected itself. I hope that is the case.

jacobs

@AnneK48 I wondered why I had never seen this, but then I realized that I don't do my credit card payments as scheduled transactions. The amount is different every month, so when I make a payment, I create a new transaction, type a few letters to summon the correct Payee, which has a QuickFill rule to supply the transfer account, and enter the amount. I'm not sure what entering a zero dollar schedule transaction saves you in work: you have to mark it paid, and then enter the amount; I create new, type a few letters, and enter the amount. The only advantage which I can think of for a scheduled transaction $0 is if you use it as a reminder when the bill is due each month? 

AnneK48

@jacobs for me this is probably a holdover from my PC days. It was called Billminder. Now I set up the reminder and just change the amount every month. I am on auto pay for all the cards so I suppose I could do it the way you described. I do prefer scheduling.