Downloaded transaction not matching (Q Mac)

4pickering

I've had this problem in the past and it looks like it is back. I use Bank of America for my primary checking and download using Direct Connection. When I use BoA bill pay I schedule my payments in advance. On the next download, I "see" the scheduled payment recorded in Quicken at the scheduled date. I love this, because I can get a real sense of my cash flow and know if I will be overdrawn - and avoid that by scheduling a transfer or adjusting future payments.

The trouble is with a new version of Q4M just downloaded (Version 6.8.3 Build 608.44884.100 and macOS v12.5), when the payment is processed, it doesn't match up with the scheduled check - I can see the check number assigned at the time of scheduling). See screen grab. It's throwing off my reconciled balance. How can I combine them or fix this?

Quicken Anja

Hello @4pickering,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community and telling us about your issue, though I apologize that you are experiencing this.

Please take a moment to review this support article regarding matching transactions in Quicken for Mac.

As stated in the article, if the transactions are not automatically being matched, then you can drag and drop downloaded transactions to the matching manual entry transaction to match them. Doing so also "teaches" the program to remember the match for future downloads.

I hope this helps!

4pickering

Hi Anja, I knew that was a method I should try and I did, I just forgot to post that. When I tried the drag and drop, nothing happened. It was as if it wasn't even a feature! If you refer to the image I posted, I tried dragging the 7656 check onto the paid transaction and vice versa. Nothing happens. Thoughts?

4pickering

RickO, Please see attached image here. I think one concern I have is the term "matched". Not to overanalyze it, but it can be confusing - does it refer to a transaction in the current account that has matched one downloaded, or does it refer to the corresponding transaction in the transfer account? I come from using Quicken for Windows for over 25 years. I'm no accountant - that's what I figured out to make all the accounts match up on that platform. Am I doing something wrong?

jacobs

In addition to all the good information @RickO has already provided, I'd be curious why both transactions are reconciled (marked with a green check mark in the CLR column). If one of them is a duplicate, it shouldn't have been marked as cleared (blue checkmark) in the Reconcile window, and/or you shouldn't have completed the reconciliation (which turns blue checkmarks green) because your transactions didn't, in fact, reconcile to the real-world account.

4pickering

"The bottom line is that somehow, prior to downloading, you had two duplicate manual transactions in the register." - That's false. I do not enter anything manually - specifically, I enter my bill payment at BoA online through their web interface, then run a Quicken update. Quicken then inserts the payment as a future-dated transaction - in this case, Check #7656. I really like this because it allows me to schedule my bills and track my future account balance to prevent ever being overdrawn. The other payment above it shows up when the check clears - it's added during the update.

I've been using Quicken for 25 years, 23 on the Windows platform. I would say that I've adapted my behavior to what I've observed is the proper way to do things based on how Quicken handled transactions. This only started happening a few months after switching to Q4Mac. The behavior seems tied to how I download from BoA - I have been using Direct Connect since I started over 10 years ago with BoA. When I first migrated to Q4Mac, it seemed like I was better off connecting via Quicken Connect - but that didn't list any of the online scheduled payments. Not that I routinely overdrafted my account, I just preferred seeing into the future if you will.

4pickering

RickO - I appreciate your help, please don't misunderstand my reply. I'm not sure how this forum works - are you a user like me or a Quicken Support person? I'm assuming the latter, so I'd say contrast how DC works in Windows because that is what this feels like. I am plagued by inconsistencies in how Mac vs Windows behaves. Just this AM, another weird thing happened (I admit that I may be handling these things rather clunkily) - My mortgage is with my Credit Union. Payment is deducted from my CU savings account. I routinely transfer funds from BoA where my primary checking is handled by via bill pay to effect the transfer. The fund transfer is handled without issue - but since I track the CU mortgage, I see the payment from savings under the mortgage account, however, the reconciliation shows an error. It's because the taxes and insurance plus interest add up to the difference. I know this is me probably not setting up the account correctly. To me, setting up a mortgage should have all these details baked into the account setup. I'm sorry if this is a rant, I don't mean it to be. It's just frustrating.

4pickering

I'll certainly do what you ask, but first I wanted to capture another example of this problem. So, someone wondered why everything was marked cleared - that's me just being OCD, I like everything reconciled and balanced.

In the screen grab attached I have just performed a sync. Since we are near the beginning of the month, there are numerous bills due that were scheduled to be paid weeks ago (when I get a bill, in the mail or paperless, I schedule the payment through BoA's online bill pay.). This usually results in me seeing the scheduled payment, near the top of the register and assigned a pseudo check number ( that is, not in sequence with my checkbook - any check numbered in the 7000's is generated as part of that process, I assume that is what the envelope icon represents aka online bill scheduled).

As you can see Auto-Reconcile shows a discrepancy ($0.58 difference - When I checked on the orange error that appeared, it showed me the difference but it removed that banner, so that's now missing in the screen grab). You'll notice the type of transaction error twice - once with Citi Cards check #7655 dated 8/5/22, and again with Barclaycard check #7657. Those transactions were downloaded and not manually entered when I scheduled them. However, both have a new transaction appearing today - Matched (auto), with the CLR flag set. For reference, look above the green line - all those 7600 series check records are a result of my scheduling through BoA.

I suppose when I sync and this happens, I could always delete the numbered check transaction as a way to clean up the register, but then I'd lose the reference to the check number which is sometimes handy when I need to look up on the BoA site. I have not reconciled today's sync under the assumption I was masking an issue in doing so. If you want to proceed from here just let me know which way to go

4pickering

Just to keep us moving, I decided to do what you suggested but using the BarclayCard transaction just posted. I rejected the match ( that is screen grab #1). I searched, and filtered on Barclaycard (screen grab 2). Finally, screen grab 3 is from the Barclaycard account, filtered as requested

4pickering

I enter no manual transactions per se. When I schedule a payment online at BoA, the transaction appears in the Quicken register on the next sync. It usually shows up with a category of Uncategorized. At that time I change it to a transfer, in this case, transfer to the Barclays account. Look at screen grab 2 - at the top and you'll see the current payment I just set up for Barclays - only I held off changing the transfer so you could see it clearly. This is what I used to do in the Windows version. When the payment would be applied, Quicken would match it.

I don't do any paying of bills through the Quicken app. I go directly to BoA's web page, log in to my accounts, and access the Bill Pay feature. My bills are set up to appear there, so when I see their red flag, I know a new bill came in and I immediately schedule payment. I liked this because when Quicken would sync, I could see a "future cast" of my register balance. Hope that clarifies it.

4pickering

Forgot to add, that I am 100% I am not double paying. What I find confusing is the "online account balance" matches what BoA reports. It's the balance shown in the register that's way off (like it appears to have been double debited)

ksl

I'm using the same Quicken version with BofA and the same practice of using the BofA bill pay and then synching with Quicken to see my future cashflow. Also seeing that the downloaded transaction is not matching the scheduled transaction and therefore creates a duplicate. Will continue to investigate . . .

4pickering

@ksl Things just appear to have gotten worse for me. Again, I haven't changed any of my settings. I just logged in after having synced and now my account balance looks like I'm "$-69,000". I'm sorry everyone, I find this so frustrating. I've been doing the same thing with windows for decades, [Removed - Violation of Community Guidelines]. I never would have migrated to the Mac version had it not been for my buying a new Mac and didn't want to jump through hoops to use the windows version on an M1 chip-based Mac. I will be contacting Quicken Support this week to try and resolve this. I will post here when I have new info. Thanks all for the help. I deeply appreciate everyone's comments and expertise.

ksl

So there are two problems here. First is that some BofA transactions that were previously downloaded get downloaded again - it's pretty apparent when you look at your register you can see the new batch next to ones that were previously downloaded - and in my case I can scan down the register and find them with the Blue dot icon and delete them manually. Not pretty but ultimately not hard. The second and larger issue is that the new integration/download process no longer will download the future "Bill Pay" transactions. This is a killer for me relative to the value I get from Quicken. Quicken seems to point to the "Aggregater" and BofA points to Quicken. Nobody will take responsibility.