R41.19 Release Notes - Preparing for Chase Bank Bill Payment changes

Chris_QPW

You guys are a lot more tolerant than I would be.  I certainly wouldn't risk my credit score for working with a bill payment system like this.

Sherlock

Bob. said:

OK, today Quicken did an auto update to 42.8. Immediately after I got this:

Of course, I HAVE the most recent update.

I have no "Alert Icon". I do have the learn more, but it does not take me to anything automatic to change my connection type, just the previously posted Track Manual or small type learn more.

From all the links I followed, I would have expected this:

I have never seen that.

So let me presume this is waht I should do and in this order and will wait for a confirmation or denial form @Quicken_Kathryn or @Quicken Anja or ???

1. Unlink my Chase Bills from reminders
2. Delete Chase Bills in Online Billers
3. Change from Direct Connect to EWC for my Chase Accounts
4. Create NEW Chase Billers in Online Bills
5. Link to exisitng reminders

Yes??

I suggest you start a new discussion for the issues you experience with staged R42.XX release.

Bob.

Thanks Sherlock. I would if I could seed it with the last few posts here. But now things have gotten worse and this is Chase prep.

I unlinked my Chase online billers,, then deleted them.

I tried to change my Chase accounts from direct to EWC, went through numeroius browser screens authorizing this, selecting accpounts etc, and at the very end it fails to finish. Tried two browsers.

Chase thinks it went through and sent me confirmation emails three times.

It left me with NO connection to Chase. I then restored from earlier backup and Quicken deleted my Chase online Billers. I am connected to the accounts again by Direct Connect.

This is such a mess. Could really use some help.

Sherlock

gooddog50 said:

Man, this operation is getting too weird. After making said changes, this is what my final Bills & Income screen looks like regarding the two credit cards I have @ Chase:



As like many of you have mentioned earlier, I autodraft directly from the biller or automatically pay from my bank. This feature I use as a snapshot for cashflow and it ain't working for me, it's too much trouble to rely on.

What were said changes?

Exactly what are the instructions to update to the improved connection being provided? 

It appears the Check Autopay-5379 is an online bill linked to a reminder and you have to option to pay the online bill with Check Pay.  The Check Autopay-0809 is likely the same.

As discussed previously, Chase should already be blocking the online bill aggregation service used by Quicken.  If these online bills are for Chase credit card payments, I suggest you unlink these online bills from the reminder and remove the online bill.

Bob.

Forgive me, but literally blood pressure elevated over this.

I restored from this morning and everything is back before I tried to switch to EWC. Even the Chase "Needs Attention". And Direct Connect.

To futher clarify, the change connection type took me to many browser screens. The last was blank and it left Quicken in a grayed out state that required me to kill the process. Several times.

Chase thought it al lwent through and sent me an email about what IK am sharing with Quicken and Intuit.

I am back to Chase Onlibne Billers that need attention and will not work and direct connect. If I could get to EWC and re-add the Chase Billers just to get the date and amount due, I would be very happy.

Need to go relax a bit.

Sherlock

Bob. said:

Thanks Sherlock. I would if I could seed it with the last few posts here. But now things have gotten worse and this is Chase prep.

I unlinked my Chase online billers,, then deleted them.

I tried to change my Chase accounts from direct to EWC, went through numeroius browser screens authorizing this, selecting accpounts etc, and at the very end it fails to finish. Tried two browsers.

Chase thinks it went through and sent me confirmation emails three times.

It left me with NO connection to Chase. I then restored from earlier backup and Quicken deleted my Chase online Billers. I am connected to the accounts again by Direct Connect.

This is such a mess. Could really use some help.

It sounds like you're set up appropriately.  You should not need to switch to the unreliable Express Web Connect connection method.

Connectivity with Chase is going to be unstable for some time as Chase has chosen to stop maintaining the existing connection methods while Chase and Intuit attempt to implement the new Express Web Connect+ connection method by mid-September.  Note: The new Express Web Connect+ connection method is not available yet.

We've chosen to close all our Chase accounts and told Chase's customer support why we we closing our accounts, why we would not be recommending Chase to other's, and why we would recommend other long time Chase customer's do the same.

Bob.

Well, all except getting Chase Online Bills is working. And I do not disagree with your choice to close Chase. However, to the best of my knowledge that is the ONLY Amazon Prime card and very important to my shopping and cash back.

gooddog50

@Bob. Sorry man, I don't have a clue why the "Needs Attention" is still present. 

Sherlock

Bob. said:

Well, all except getting Chase Online Bills is working. And I do not disagree with your choice to close Chase. However, to the best of my knowledge that is the ONLY Amazon Prime card and very important to my shopping and cash back.

Chase has decided to block the online bill aggregation service used by Quicken.  This means Quicken will not be able to populate online bills for your Chase credit cards. 

With regard to Chase's Amazon Prime credit card account, if the Direct Connect connection method becomes too unreliable or when Chase officially drops their Direct Connect connection method support, I suggest you maintain the register offline.

Bob.

Sherlock, this is NOT how I understand it and Quicken has said so several times. With EWC you can (so Quicken says) download your bills. BUT, you can not pay through Chase nor the Chase CC bills through Quicken. Fine, I pay through my bank. But they SPECIFICALLY say this.

There are three or four places they did. I am still trying to calm down, so will not search now. But it is there.

I have several bank and credit card accounts that are EWC only. never had an issue.

Going to tune out for the rest of the night. Will check in tomorrow.

Sherlock

gooddog50 said:

@Bob. Sorry man, I don't have a clue why the "Needs Attention" is still present. 

I suspect the "Needs Attention" is still present, because the online bills blocked by Chase have not been unlinked from the reminders and removed.

Sherlock

Bob. said:

Sherlock, this is NOT how I understand it and Quicken has said so several times. With EWC you can (so Quicken says) download your bills. BUT, you can not pay through Chase nor the Chase CC bills through Quicken. Fine, I pay through my bank. But they SPECIFICALLY say this.

There are three or four places they did. I am still trying to calm down, so will not search now. But it is there.

I have several bank and credit card accounts that are EWC only. never had an issue.

Going to tune out for the rest of the night. Will check in tomorrow.

You may choose to switch to using the unreliable Express Web Connect connection method for all the Chase registers if you want to be able to view the credit card bill amount pulled by Intuit in Quicken.  I would prefer to continue using the Direct Connect connection method and obtain the bill directly from the financial institution.  If you haven't already, you may want to review: https://www.quicken.com/support/chase-bills-no-longer-available-bill-manager

Bob.

I have several times. It confirms the bnills canbe scraped. However some if not most of there screenshot dialogs do not appear. This would be easier if they did. I have already commented on that above. These "instructions?" are innacurate.

Sherlock

Bob. said:

I have several times. It confirms the bnills canbe scraped. However some if not most of there screenshot dialogs do not appear. This would be easier if they did. I have already commented on that above. These "instructions?" are innacurate.

Intuit continues to have difficulty maintaining the Express Web Connect connection method for Quicken.  I suspect their focus with Chase is on completing their implementation of the new Express Web Connect+ connection method planned for September.  Again, I suggest obtaining the bill directly from Chase.  Otherwise, you're just going to be...

Bob.

OK: Today's Misadventures

• I backed up Quicken
• I unlinked the two Chase CC Online Bills from their reminders
• I tried to delete the Chase Online Bills - NOTHING I could do to delete them even though the process of deleting went as it always had. They are still there.
• I went to my Chase accounts and to Change Connection Method
• Went through the 4 or 5 browser screens to make the change
• The last screen, where I might expect a "finished" or "done" or "success" or "completed" was blank.
  
  Returning to Quicken I get this:

• Chase emailed me that it was successfully linked to quicken
• Tried three times - same.
• Then, since the Chase acounts were not activated and had a setup now button, I tried that.
• Quicken's entire container went gray. Nothing ever happened. Had to kill the process.
• Tried two more times. Same thing.
• Gave up, restored from backup. Once again instructions from Quicken not matching the reality.

Any ideas now?

Bob.

OK, here is the trick to deleting the Chase Online Billers when actually clicking delete under Manage Billers does nothing.

Go to the biller, click learn more, then click track manually.

It will delete the Online Biller, BUT if you had a reminder, it will create another for the same account. So you then need to delete one of the reminders.

Too tired to try to change conection again today. Either by change connection type or deactivate and setup since neither has worked. And when it fails, Chase no longer connects to the bank for bill and payment downloads.

Bob.

OK, had to try one more thing.

I went to my trusty TEST file in Quicken where I can play carelessly. I tried to add a new account for CHASE as none in this file.

Took me to the same 4 or 5 pages in my browser. Never asked for what type of connection, btw.

Got to the same blank page and same error dialog in Quicken. But this time I enabled the inspector and debugger. It showed this:

Expanding the error shows:

GET
    https://services.quicken.com/oauth-redirect/334829538235971073?error_source=client&error_code=invalid_input&error_description=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXremoved codes in case tethered to me and my accounts
Status200
OK
VersionHTTP/2
Transferred509 B (0 B size)    

So, maybe the programmers have a clue why this fails.

Chris_QPW

Bob you might want to consider changing banks.
Banks that offer free Direct Connect — Quicken

I'm personally going to just drop using Quicken.  I'm consolidating on using Chase for most of my finances and that is more important to me the Quicken.  And I even if Express Web Connect + works perfectly with Chase once the changeover happens (I have my doubts on that), I still don't want to use it.
Our personal finances are setup in a way I can be stubborn about such a detail.

When I look at this thread and Bob's frustration, I sort of wonder what you expect Bob.

When I look at all the different servers, and third parties, and Quicken's not so great handling of all of this I have to wonder why anyone would be trying to use every one of these services and expect them to work flawlessly, especially when a quick search shows tons of people having problems with each of them.

Bob.

No, Chris. Chase is just credit cards. But, my Amazon Prime card which is indespensible is Chase. I do not need Direct Connect for Chase. I have working EWC fo rALly, PayPal, etc. Works fine.

What i expect is to be able to change to EWC, scrape my bills, and pay them as I always have. But the Quicken instructions are incorrect, do not work and Quicken support here nonexistant.

Chris_QPW

Bob. said:

What i expect is to be able to change to EWC, scrape my bills, and pay them as I always have.

Express Web Connect has no ability to retrieve bills or pay bills.

Quicken Bill Manager (previously known as Online Bills before the add the bill paying) is a completely different service from a different third-party.  At one time I think I heard the name of the third-party in a beta, but I don't remember who it was.  It isn't Intuit.

The way this service works is that Quicken talks to the third-party service servers using an API they give Quicken Inc to use.  The third-party servers are in turn the ones that log into a given biller's website to try to get the bill and if requested schedule a payment.  There are two major problems with this.  Just like on getting transactions from financial institutions that have no standard for this, the biller websites have no standards for getting bills and for paying those bills.  That means that the third-party service is forced to play the same kind of games of trying to do this with "scripts" and such.

The second problem is that the billers might not in fact want that third-party service connecting to their website.  They might consider it insecure and purposely block it.  That is what the current problem sounds like.  Chase doesn't want to third-party service accessing your accounts to get the bills.

Sherlock

Bob. said:

No, Chris. Chase is just credit cards. But, my Amazon Prime card which is indespensible is Chase. I do not need Direct Connect for Chase. I have working EWC fo rALly, PayPal, etc. Works fine.

What i expect is to be able to change to EWC, scrape my bills, and pay them as I always have. But the Quicken instructions are incorrect, do not work and Quicken support here nonexistant.

It is a mistake to assume that because the Express Web Connect connection method works fine with some financial institutions, it works fine at others or will continue to do so.  I doubt Intuit will put resources on correcting their old screen scraping scripts for Chase accounts as they're planned to be obsolete in two months.

With regard to the Chase Amazon credit card, I suggest you continue to use the Direct Connect connection method as long as it works reliably enough.  Then, maintain the register offline until you think the new Express Web Connect+ connection method is working reliably enough.  In the meantime, obtain the account bills directly from the financial institution.

Bob.

@Chris_QPW Quicken has said many times that EWC WILL scrape bills from Chase.

I have said many times I pay my bills through myt bank. I do not want or need EWC to pay my bills nor could it.

I have never and will likely never use Quicken Bill Manager. I have spoken about Online Billers - never Quicken Bill Manager.

Chase specifically shows that you are granting permission for Quicken to talk tho their bank when you try (and fail) to change to EWC or setup a new account. That is broken, but the intention is to talk to them.

I am unsure why all the confusion?

Sherlock

Bob. said:

@Chris_QPW Quicken has said many times that EWC WILL scrape bills from Chase.

I have said many times I pay my bills through myt bank. I do not want or need EWC to pay my bills nor could it.

I have never and will likely never use Quicken Bill Manager. I have spoken about Online Billers - never Quicken Bill Manager.

Chase specifically shows that you are granting permission for Quicken to talk tho their bank when you try (and fail) to change to EWC or setup a new account. That is broken, but the intention is to talk to them.

I am unsure why all the confusion?

Quicken Bill Manager refers to the functionality that displays the online bills obtained from the online billers using a third-party online bill aggregation service.  There are a variety of ways of paying the online bills provided by the Quicken Bill Manager.  You chose to pay the online bills provided by the Quicken Bill Manager using the financial institution's bill pay web portal. 

When you say I pay my bills through my bank, that maybe interpreted as using Quick Pay, Check Pay, an online bill payment, sending a check, directly on the online biller's bill payment portal or the bank's bill pay portal.  (I'm sure I missed some other payment methods that would pay bills through a bank.)

The confusion stems from the words used.

Bob.

Quicken Bill Manager (formerly Quicken Bill Pay)1 is an online bill pay service that works as an add-on with Quicken personal finance software.2

It is free for Quicken users who have Premier plans or better. Otherwise, the service costs $9.95 per month.

(from another site, but convenien)

The presentation of online billers is Bills and Income.

Chris_QPW

Bob. said:

@Chris_QPW Quicken has said many times that EWC WILL scrape bills from Chase.

Frankly I don't care what the Quicken Moderators have said, there isn't any way for Express Web Connect to "scrape bills".  Express Web Connect downloads transactions, and the online balance and date.  That is, it!

Express Web Connect has nothing to do with the Bills & Income tab/online bills.  That is a completely different service.

Online Bills, were introduced about in 2012 I think.  I tried for years to use that service and I was in the betas that first tested it out.  It also corrupted my data file to a point that only Quicken Inc's developers could fix.  The only reason that they were fixing the problem is because it trashed lots of people's data files and I was willing to give them my data file for them to work with to find the problem and in the process, they fixed my data file.  It took them a week and even the CEO was involved in testing.

So, I'm VERY aware of what this system is.  In my years of using for online bill presentment (which also controls setting a reminder if they are linked) some biller's worked just fine, some never worked, and others worked "sometimes".

When the third-party that was servicing "Quicken Bill Pay" decided to get out of that business Quicken Inc went to the third-party that was doing the "Online Bill presentment" and worked to change over to it.

Here is a rundown of how each of these bills pay services work(ed).

"Bill Pay" (through Direct Connect):  Using the OFX protocol basically Quicken works almost like a GUI for the financial institution's bill payment system.  As in it can request the list of billers, add new ones, send payments, schedule payments, ... All through the OFX protocol.  Only Quicken (the program) and the financial institution are involved.  Note this is a "push" system where the payments are sent from your checking account.

"Quicken Bill Pay".  For the people that didn't have "Bill Pay" (or didn't want to pay if their financial institution charged for it) they could use this service.  For the most part other than setting it up, to the Quicken user it looked the same, but underneath it was talking to a third-party service.  This service worked by you authorizing it to do ACH transfers from your checking account.  So, if you requested it to pay Xfinity it would put in an ACH transfer from your checking account to Xfinity.  It was a "push" system too.  But this is the service that the third-party got out of.

Quicken Bill Manager.  This third-party service works by logging into the biller's website to get the bills/schedule payments.  This is a "pull" system where it is the biller that is transferring the money from your credit card or checking account to pay the bill.

It seems that you aren't using any of these bill systems, but instead you are just using your financial institution's bill pay/website.  Great!  But that doesn't change how "Online Bill presentment" works.

It isn't Express Web Connect/Intuit that is doing this.  And like I have said some billers worked just fine for me and other never and others were flaky.  Because of the fact that there isn't any standard for doing this (log into the biller's website and get the bill) it suffers from the same problems Express Web Connect does.  Some billers might work just fine, for years.  But at any given point the biller might make changes to their website that means that the third-party can't log in or find that bill.  And some might actively block it.  It sounds like Chase is actively blocking it.

And in that case, unless you can change Chase's mind about it, you are stuck.

Personally, I used Quicken long before Online Bill presentment was available with just manual reminders that did estimates of what the bill is going to be, and I spent many years trying to make that system work, and it has been several years since I have dropped using it.

I have almost all of my bills paid automatically from my credit card, so I don't have to care being able to see every bill.

Bob.

Additional option for Windows users

If you are a Quicken for Windows user, the ability to download Chase credit card bills via Express Web Connect is a new feature being offered; this feature enables you to download your Chase credit card bills, so you can see your latest bill(s) and what you owe.  However, other bill types from Chase are only available as manual bills, and the new EWC bill method for credit cards only works with Check Pay at this time. 

Please see this FAQ for more details on setting up this change in Quicken for Windows.

Bob.

If you are not tracking your Chase credit card through Express Web Connect

If you are connected to your Chase credit card account through Direct Connect or if you don’t yet have a Chase credit card account added in Quicken,

1. You will need to follow a set of instructions to either change your connection type or add the account through the Express Web Connect.
2. Once you have a Chase credit card added through Express Web Connect,
   
   1. In the Bills & Income dashboard, select the + icon in the top right and select Online Bill
   Select Chase in the biller list.
3. Once selected, Quicken will display a list of bills that were detected from your account list. Select the bills you’d like to track and select Continue.
4. The bills will be added to your Bills & Income dashboard and will automatically update with new statement balance information.

Enough arguing. Things are broken. i would like to get them fixed.

Chris_QPW

Note it is entirely possible to have ZERO Express Web Connect accounts and still use Online Bill presentment and Quicken Bill Manager.  They aren't even talking to the same entities.  Express Web Connect talks to financial institutions.  Quicken Bill Manager (online bill presentment) talks to the "billers", which may or may not be a financial institution.

Sherlock

Bob. said:

Quicken Bill Manager (formerly Quicken Bill Pay)1 is an online bill pay service that works as an add-on with Quicken personal finance software.2

It is free for Quicken users who have Premier plans or better. Otherwise, the service costs $9.95 per month.

(from another site, but convenien)

The presentation of online billers is Bills and Income.

Quicken Bill Pay was a bill payment service provided by Metavante Payment Services.  They provided a bill payment web portal and bill payment services in Quicken.  The Quicken Bill Manager existed concurrently and provided the online bills obtained from online billers using a third-party online bill aggregation service.  After Metavante Payment Services announced their decision to terminate their service, Quicken announce Quick Pay and Check Pay as alternatives for the Quicken Bill Pay users even though they are not equivalent to Quicken Bill Pay.  The Quick Pay functionality may only be used to pay online bills obtained by the Quicken Bill Manager so it's easy to understand why some may fold the Quick Pay functionality under Quicken Bill Manager.  The Check Pay and the pre-existing bank bill payment services available in Quicken never required online bills or online billers (aka Quicken Bill Management).

Here's the link to how Quicken describes Quicken Bill Manager today: https://www.quicken.com/billmanager

Chris_QPW

@Bob. No matter what the announcements say, if you follow them, you are way jumping the gun, and going to just cause yourself problems.

Yes, there is some blocking going on for "Online Bills", fine.  That is a separate problem.  Yes, some people are reporting that paying bills through Direct Connect/Chase has been broken, granted.

Neither of these problems will be solved by going to Express Web Connect.

With Express Web Connect there isn't any bill pay system.  That means you have to switch to Quicken Bill Manager, which as I have explained has its own set of problems that have nothing to do with Express Web Connect.

There are also long-standing problems with Chase and Express Web Connect that haven't been resolved, that is why Direct Connect has been recommended.  My Direct Connect for downloading transactions has been work just fine.

Now about September and Chase dropping Direct Connect.  Chase isn't adopting Express Web Connect (they already supposedly support, even if it is flaky), they are going to Express Web Connect +.

There isn't any indication that it will be easier to change from Express Web Connect to Express Web Connect + than it will be to change from Direct Connect to Express Web Connect.

What Capital One did this conversion they only had Express Web Connect, and still the users had to disconnect all of their accounts and reconnect them for Express Web Connect +.

So, no matter what that announcement is saying I wouldn't be changing anything until Chase actually is changing over to Express Web Connect +.

And as I said before on their "wording", I hate to say it, but a lot of Quicken employees don't have a very good grasp on how all of this works, and as such their statements have to be carefully evaluated.

To me that is not really understanding how these thing works make perfect sense.  Quicken Inc has created a very complicated system that takes a lot of years of experience to even get close to exactly how it works.  To this day the SuperUsers don't even totally agree on some of the details.