Bank of America....EWC+ Connection

denmarfl

The emails to e were purposely Vague...and even misleading.  Quicken and BofA are still somewhat Business partners and one will support the other even at the expense of the Customer...US.  The Communcation builtup and highly Priased this new..faster EWC+ connection when in real life, the Connection is no faster in my opinion than RxpressWebConnect (EWC).  They played down the termination of DirectConnect Because without DC, Quicken users cannot send requests to their Banks to Pay Bills.  This as I have written is a Big downfall of the Quicken software...If you use Bill Pay you must enter all Bill Payment requests and Transfers Between BofA accts at the BofA Online website...2 Places now required to go to to accomplish what was done at one Place...Quicken Software.  I hope enough BofA complain that BofA will feel some loss of Business...but no matter they will survive.  I for one have been shopping other Banks that Offer Quicken and DirectConnect so I can make a change.  If I don't I see NO value in paying Quicken for a yearly subscription....I can see balances and cleared transactions at the banks site if I must go there to Enter Bills....

Randalllind

I will keep it as is. I hope they still have yearly options because if I renew and have to pay monthly that will suck, Buy tab just shows monthly prices.

jrhoyer

I got a prompt from Quicken to update my BoA connection type, which I did.  Now, new bill pay transactions entered on the BoA web interface are not showing up in Quicken as they did previously.

Jim_Harman

@jrhoyer said, "I got a prompt from Quicken to update my BoA connection type, which I did. Now, new bill pay transactions entered on the BoA web interface are not showing up in Quicken as they did previously."

That is as expected. The new EWC+ interface to BoA no longer supports Bank Bill Pay. You will need to enter the Bill Pay transactions in Quicken manually or via Reminders. Also if you have Online Payees set up in Quicken, where you enter the transaction in Quicken and the payment instructions are sent to BoA, going forward you will have to enter those transactions on the BoA website or smartphone app.

JSS

So I'm not sure I understand.
I upgraded to the new EWC plus interface, and I'm trying to make a bank bill pay manually, but I keep getting "quick pay payment to ---- in account Bank of America was unsuccessful. Additional information: unspecified failure. Transaction amount has been set to zero."

How do I make a bill pay in Quicken to an account that I have the bill in bill pay already such as a Discover card?

Randalllind

You will have to sign up for Quicken Bill Manager if you want to fo bill pay within the software. I would just go to BOA sit and click on Bill Pay and it should be listed there and pay for free,

denmarfl

Or, you can do what many others have done, look for other banks that still offer their bill pay using the quicken software. For right now, Truist, Wells Fargo and I'm sure there are other Banks that are offering direct connect to use their bill pay. How about using this post for others to respond providing names of large Banks that are offering direct connect with quicken for bill pay, I think that would be helpful to many of us making changes from Banks switching to EWC+ 

Jim_Harman

denmarfl said:

Or, you can do what many others have done, look for other banks that still offer their bill pay using the quicken software. For right now, Truist, Wells Fargo and I'm sure there are other Banks that are offering direct connect to use their bill pay. How about using this post for others to respond providing names of large Banks that are offering direct connect with quicken for bill pay, I think that would be helpful to many of us making changes from Banks switching to EWC+ 

Some alternatives are listed here
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7915857/banks-that-offer-free-direct-connect

Chris_QPW

My approach is that I go to all my billers' websites and setup automatic payments.  If possible from a credit card that pays me back or if not possible from my checking account.  Not only is everything automatic I have 20 to 30 days to contest any bill (the credit card ones), but in the 25 years or so that I have been doing this, I have never had to contest any of these bill payments.  And of course the payment for my credit card is paid automatically from my checking account.  Mostly my "cash flow" amounts to having enough in the account to pay that month's credit card payment which of course I know way in advance, plus the few that are paid directly.

And these days my credit card and my checking account are both at Chase so setting that up is trivial.

Randalllind

The only bills I use bill pay for are the power company and BOA credit card. The rest I go and pay manually or auto bill.

denmarfl

Direct debut to credit card or direct from checking to pay bills...if You lose your CC, or, the Bank closes your Credit due to Merchant Compromise...you must notify those Payees that are automatically Debited...of the New Credit card Number.  As to Debit from checking, one more place your checking acct is Saved in another bank...Banks can get Hacked.  Bill Pay using Quicken to pay with your Banks Bill pay service is\was 22 Century Technology in my opinion and the Banks dropping DirectConnect have gone back to 20th century Technology.  I want to bank with a forward thinking bank that offers convenient services...that serve me.

Chris_QPW

denmarfl said:

Direct debut to credit card or direct from checking to pay bills...if You lose your CC, or, the Bank closes your Credit due to Merchant Compromise...you must notify those Payees that are automatically Debited...of the New Credit card Number.  

That is the reason I have two credit cards.  One that is only used for online activities and another that my wife and I carry.

I have had to change the credit card with the billers like one time.  Yes, it is a pain, but not the end of the world.  And certainly not worth changing a very automatic system to a manual one.  BTW Direct Connect/bill pay came out in the 1990s, certainly not 22dn century technology.

If we had true 21 century technology we wouldn't have this problem with credit card numbers at all.
No one should have "a credit card number".  It should be working like "chip" that is on your credit card right now where the number constantly changes.  And all bills should be able to be paid automatically using a set protocol.

In fact, these problems have nothing to do with technology.  They have to do with no one wanting to cooperate.

JSS

> @Randalllind said:
> You will have to sign up for Quicken Bill Manager if you want to fo bill pay within the software. I would just go to BOA sit and click on Bill Pay and it should be listed there and pay for free,

Isn't bill manager included with Home and business??

Greg_the_Geek

Quicken Bill Pay (Manager) is free with Quicken Premier and higher. It's available in Quicken Deluxe for a charge.

Chris_QPW

JSS said:

> @Randalllind said:
> You will have to sign up for Quicken Bill Manager if you want to fo bill pay within the software. I would just go to BOA sit and click on Bill Pay and it should be listed there and pay for free,

Isn't bill manager included with Home and business??

Quick Pay is included in Premier and above, and Check Pay is included but has a limit of the number checks you can send a month for free.

JSS

> @Chris_QPW said:
> Quick Pay is included in Premier and above, and Check Pay is included but has a limit of the number checks you can send a month for free.

So once again why am I getting the error that I got above

Chris_QPW

JSS said:

> @Chris_QPW said:
> Quick Pay is included in Premier and above, and Check Pay is included but has a limit of the number checks you can send a month for free.

So once again why am I getting the error that I got above

I don't use Quicken Bill Manager and wouldn't touch it because I think isn't reliable enough so I can't give any details on how to use it or fix problems with it.

But let me state what I do know.

1. Quicken Bill Manager is a completely different bill paying system so you have to reset up all of your bills and payments in the new system.
2. Just because you were able to pay a bill through your financial institution's bill pay system doesn't imply that you can with Quicken Bill Manager. It works completely different from your old bill system.  Your old bill system was a "push" system.  You sent payments from your checking account to the biller.  Quicken Bill Manager/Quick Pay is a "pull" system that logs into the biller's website and tries to schedule making a payment to it from your checking account.

Here is a page describing some more details:
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7916268/my-explanation-of-the-different-term-services-that-quicken-has-provides-and-provided-in-the-past

Randalllind

I use deluxe and since all I am doing now is going to be download transactions makes no sense for me to get any higher version.

JanStewart

Quicken uses a push & pull sync...
Meaning: Pull, to download all information from your FIs (Financial Institution).. bank accounts, credit cards, stocks, IRAs.
Push, to push new payments to the FI. (this function will be eliminated)

First, lets look at the benefits of using Quicken..
For me, it's to see all of my financial information in one U.I. (User Interface) using the Pull sync
Secondarily, it is to pay all of my bills in one U.I. using the Push sync (this will be eliminated)

Technically, in future Quicken is letting you pay bills in one U.I.; just in a different spot within the U.I. and with different technology.

How I pay bills?
- For fixed amount, fixed date, I setup recurring payments in the BofA website...
these are things like insurance, internet and consist of the majority of my payments. I could also setup these through the Billers website.
- For variable payments, like electric, water, I need to set these up using auto-pay using the Billers website because the Biller knows the amount of the bill; BofA does not.
All of the above are typically paid using my credit card to get the cash back.

- For on-the-fly or one time payments like medical bills, paying the plumber... I currently pay through Quicken by entering it into my Quicken check register as Send Online Payment. (This will be eliminated).
I don't have very many of these, so to pay these in the future, I will need to go to the BofA website.

As an I.T. expert in the payment industry & bill pay, I suspect this is due to security concerns within the current technology. I would suspect all FIs to eliminate it in the future, so moving to a different bank may not solve the problem... but we will have to wait and see.

Chris_QPW

@JanStewart Very nice rundown.  I would state one thing about security.  The main advantage Express Web Connect + has over Direct Connect is that it is using OAuth2 (rotating security tokens).  This means that the username and password don't have to be anywhere outside of the financial institution.  In the case of Direct Connect that is in the Quicken Password Vault or typed in by the user at the time of use if they don't use the Quicken Password Vault.

But the newer versions of the OFX protocol that Direct Connect uses do allow for OAuth2, so this is a concern that they could have addressed, but choose not to.

And I can certainly see why they didn't.

Quicken users might think that they are a force to be reckoned with, but the truth is that they are a small percentage of the users for any given financial institution, and Direct Connect isn't the "majority" of this kind of access.  Instead it is "aggregators".  And as such with an aggregation system like Express Web Connect, those usernames and passwords are being stored on the aggregators servers (encrypted I hope!).

So for most of their customers that use aggregation they are certainly concerned about trusting all of those aggregators to do the right thing.

So, going to FDX (what Quicken Inc is calling Express Web Connect +, which includes the whole flow not just the connection between Intuit and the financial institution) reduces the financial institutions cost by supporting only one protocol and ups the security in the process.  As far as they are concerned this is a win win situation for them.

marvink

I went through the prompted changes for Bank of America yesterday and it totally screwed up my Quicken accounts...added checks again that had already cleared, added deposit entries twice and other crazy entries. I went through and deleted double entries and made sure the balance in Quicken matched what was on the Bank of America website. When I opened Quicken this morning my ending balances had changed! Now I can't trust anything in Quicken. I'm guessing the only option is to reload the last backup and enter everything manually from that point? Any words of advice?

wenglish

Go back to a backup of your Quicken data file that was made just before you allowed Quicken to "upgrade" your connection with BofA, then resist the urge to allow the "upgrade" until they have ironed out the kinks.

BTW a Quicken update from 9/22 claims to have fixed the same problem, but only for Chase. I still plan to hold off going through this "upgrade" for both Chase & BofA until I am forced to (and may wait even longer).

senequier

Even worse now! The new download for BofA download all registered transaction (Not the pending) BUT the balance downloaded includes the pending. So impossible to reconcile. Intuit really screwed this think up with Chase and BodA the 2 largest banks of the US. Time to find a new sofware if they don't resolve this quickly!!!

Randalllind

I don't see why I couldn't just go in to direct connect and click disable bill pay. Why did we have to change connections?

Mark Ellis

I may have stumbled onto another limitation with the new connection method which is very annoying. With the prior connection method, I could enter bill payments on the Bank of America site with a scheduled payment delivery date, and then as soon as I did a bank update in Quicken these transactions would show up uncleared.

It was very useful to see what my future bank balance would be without the need to do double entry of the payment in both the BofA site and Quicken.

Apparently, this is no longer supported with the new connection method. The bill pay transactions will only come down AFTER they have cleared.

Very aggravating..

Chris_QPW

Mark Ellis said:

I may have stumbled onto another limitation with the new connection method which is very annoying. With the prior connection method, I could enter bill payments on the Bank of America site with a scheduled payment delivery date, and then as soon as I did a bank update in Quicken these transactions would show up uncleared.

It was very useful to see what my future bank balance would be without the need to do double entry of the payment in both the BofA site and Quicken.

Apparently, this is no longer supported with the new connection method. The bill pay transactions will only come down AFTER they have cleared.

Very aggravating..

That is all part of dropping Direct Connect in favor of Express Web Connect +.
Direct Connect allows for a two way communication. This is what allows for Quicken to sync your billing information.  Express Web Connect + is one way, and only download transactions.

JSS

> @Chris_QPW said:
> Quick Pay is included in Premier and above, and Check Pay is included but has a limit of the number checks you can send a month for free.

So once again why am I getting the error that I got above. If it's one way communication then how does Quicken bill pay work I have been unable to get it to work. I am using Quicken home and Business and it's supposed to be included with that version

Chris_QPW

JSS said:

> @Chris_QPW said:
> Quick Pay is included in Premier and above, and Check Pay is included but has a limit of the number checks you can send a month for free.

So once again why am I getting the error that I got above. If it's one way communication then how does Quicken bill pay work I have been unable to get it to work. I am using Quicken home and Business and it's supposed to be included with that version

I can't help you, I have never used Quicken Bill Manager.  I would never touch it.  I value my credit score too much.  Getting it to work without errors is in fact the least of the problems one might face.  The others are actually getting the payment to the biller on time, or canceling payments, communicating with a third party service through Quicken Inc, ...

Note you might want to read how it works here:
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7916268/my-explanation-of-the-different-term-services-that-quicken-has-provides-and-provided-in-the-past

Greg_the_Geek

Have you enabled Quicken Bill Manager?

Quicken Bill Manager: How To Make Payments Using Quick Pay and Check Pay

Quicken Bill Manager for Windows: Frequently Asked Questions

JSS

Yes sir enabled and verified the accounts and when I get to try and pay a bill such as for example my Discover card bill it knows the amount that is due but the payment just fails