Bank of America....EWC+ Connection

Mark1104

@fanfare - clarification: I meant employees who retired from the bank, not retirees in general.  sorry about that. 

dnag

> @Chris_QPW said:
> No.  People are confusing pending transactions with scheduled bill payments, they aren't the same thing, so even if Quicken brings back the feature to download pending transactions you will not get the schedule bill payments synced to Quicken with anything other than Direct Connect.
>
> Pending transactions are transactions that have got to the financial institution but have yet to post.
>
Thank you for the response and thoughtful input.

Fair enuf...AS you note - I was referring to "Scheduled/Pending" not specifically In Process.

dnag

> @Robert Ralyea said:
> Greg-the- Geek
>
> we are all aware that BOA dropped direct connect and this is not Quickens fault. Let’s move past that. What happened to downloading transactions and cleaning processing transactions so we can continue to enter manual transactions.

It's certainly not my job to defend Quicken nor BOA... I just want my current balance to show my current balance.

Telling me to manually enter something ain't why I'm paying Quicken (NOW ANNUALLY!!).... They need to figure it out.. not me.

Chris_QPW

dnag said:

Telling me to manually enter something ain't why I'm paying Quicken (NOW ANNUALLY!!).... They need to figure it out.. not me.

I'm sure Quicken Inc would love to provide such a solution, but they are always going to be limited by what a given financial institution/protocol provides.

Which financial institution you pick and what they provide does determine what Quicken Inc can provide.

It seems like people think that Quicken Inc can dictate to financial institutions to give them access to the information/services that these people want, just because they want it.  It doesn't work that way.

Bill pay directly through the financial institution's bill pay system, which includes syncing the future payment transaction information to Quicken is part of the Direct Connect/OFX protocol.  It isn't part of the Express Web Connect +/FDX protocol.  And that isn't an accident.  More and more the financial institutions are considering any access that would allow controlling their systems like bill pay to be a security risk.

dnag said:

 I just want my current balance to show my current balance.

Sounds easy enough until you looking to the details.

For instance, the new feature to download pending transactions (as in transactions that have yet to clear the bank/ones that are being processed not a schedule payment).  The timing of Quicken Inc turning this on was pretty terrible because it lined up with these changes Chase/Bank of America going to Express Web Connect +, but they are separate things.  Quicken Inc has been working on the downloading of pending transactions for months.  There have been signs of it and even a mention in some old release notes that it was coming.

One might wonder why anyone would even want to see transactions that are being processed that might not even go through (gas station preauthorizing for instance).  Well, I think the short answer is embodied in your statement "I just want my current balance to show my current balance.".  Some people want to see a charge in their credit card as soon as it happens, so that they have what they consider their current balance.

But here is the real truth, there isn't a "current balance".  There are several balances.

• Available balance (which may or may not include some of the pending transactions, and even parts of some).
• Current/Posted balance.
• Balance including scheduled transactions.
• Balance in Quicken that includes transaction that your financial institution knows nothing about like a check you just sent out.
• The "online balance" that one might reconcile to.

Depending on what the Quicken user expects the information needed to show them in Quicken may or may not be provided by the information that the financial institution provides.

Now one might say, well I have been doing this for 30 years so they are responsible for breaking it and should fix it.  Well, in this world somethings we can control, and some we can't and that goes for Quicken Inc's ability to control things.  I notice they try to put a good spin on it saying how nice Express Web Connect + is and glossing over the negative sides, but in truth they are as much a customer of this data as you are.  And they basically have the same choice as you do.  If Quicken Inc can't provide what you want, you have to either change to get what you need in a different way or stop using Quicken and find something else that works for you.  Well, Quicken had a choice with Chase and Bank of America.  They either switched Express Web Connect +/FDX or they stopped being able provide any services for their customers for those financial institutions.  Not much of a choice when you think of it.

TangoWiskey

Quicken just lost it's value to me. Been using since DOS 4. I can build a excel sheet that would work better than this mess. IF we can't figure out better security without eliminating features than we aren't progressing.

Robert Ralyea

Q has done a poor job of advising customers what they can do and can’t do. The loss of direct connection is no fault of Quicken. I think most of us are waiting for Q to come forward as I said what they can do and can’t do. I am creating a new file bc the old file all my Quick pay bills in the register are in processing state and no way to reconcile them and as a result can’t pay bills. Tech support can’t help.

Greg_the_Geek

@TangoWiskey, did you bother to read what @Chris_QPW posted above? Why do posters keep blaming Quicken when the banks are forcing the change?

BarryGraham

Chris_QPW said:

Greg_the_Geek said:

Sorry, I can't help you there since I don't use Quicken Bill Manager.

I wonder if there is any SuperUser using the Quicken Bill Manager, I sort of doubt it.  I wouldn't touch myself, I don't trust it.

I don't know if I qualify as a SuperUser but I do use it and it's very helpful for the credit card bill that isn't supported by Bank of America eBill. I don't pay the bill that way but I use it to alert me of the future payment and to enter it into my Bank of America register.

BarryGraham

A_long_time_user said:

unfortunately i agree with you. i've been using quicken since the dawn of time and am coming to the conclusion its loosing its usefulness. this chase mess is the final straw. while it appears this problem goes back to late august in the comments, i am not aware of any better explanation than "we are working on it and don't have an ETA" or some such. Transparency by quicken as to what the problem is, what they are doing about it, and an estimate of when it would be fixed would go a long way. it looks like i need to start looking for a plan B

It still has the ability to manage multiple accounts and to enter and track transactions, which is the main reason for having it. It also still allows you to download transactions.  It hasn't lost any usefulness to me.

BarryGraham

mshiggins said:

BarryGraham said:

Mark1104 said:

@L_K - a few things

so why spend the money to provide additional capability to download these transactions THAT HAVE YET TO OCCUR? 

So you don't go overdrawn. I don't know if this change will affect this but I rely on my credit card payments being downloaded ahead of time. I pay them by eBill from the Bank of America website but I don't keep all my money there.

Barry, 

BofA bill pay has the ability to link other “pay from” accounts for paying bills. I have both Fidelity and Ameritrade linked as “pay from” accounts, so when I pay a bill on the BofA site, I can choose to pay from my BofA account or from any of my linked “pay from” accounts. Helpful if you don’t keep all your cash at BofA.

That doesn't really help, since you still need to know where the funds are to pay the bill and also not all types of accounts can be "pay from" accounts.

Chris_QPW

BarryGraham said:

Chris_QPW said:

Greg_the_Geek said:

Sorry, I can't help you there since I don't use Quicken Bill Manager.

I wonder if there is any SuperUser using the Quicken Bill Manager, I sort of doubt it.  I wouldn't touch myself, I don't trust it.

I don't know if I qualify as a SuperUser but I do use it and it's very helpful for the credit card bill that isn't supported by Bank of America eBill. I don't pay the bill that way but I use it to alert me of the future payment and to enter it into my Bank of America register.

It actually nice to know that it is working for some people.  Personally, I have "trust issues" since it the same third-party service that I tried to get working reliably for "Online Bills/presentment" and never could.
I think that is true of the other SuperUsers, but that doesn't mean some long-time users like you might find it works fine for them.

BTW one thing occurred to me that I never thought of that you might have an answer to.  It isn't anything I'm going to change to, but I am curious about it.

I always pay the full balance on my credit cards each month (automatic payment that pulls from my checking account).  When I was trying to use Online Bill presentment for setting the reminder's amount, it would set it to the statement balance which was a "good guess", but seldom exactly right for my main credit cards.  The reason is between the time the statement balance was posted and the bill was paid, we usually have returns that reduce the amount of the bill.  And that was never reflected on the Online Bill presentment/reminder.

How does the Quicken Bill Manager handle this situation?
Would it pay the statement balance or the what the actual current bill required?

mshiggins

BarryGraham said:

mshiggins said:

BarryGraham said:

Mark1104 said:

@L_K - a few things

so why spend the money to provide additional capability to download these transactions THAT HAVE YET TO OCCUR? 

So you don't go overdrawn. I don't know if this change will affect this but I rely on my credit card payments being downloaded ahead of time. I pay them by eBill from the Bank of America website but I don't keep all my money there.

Barry, 

BofA bill pay has the ability to link other “pay from” accounts for paying bills. I have both Fidelity and Ameritrade linked as “pay from” accounts, so when I pay a bill on the BofA site, I can choose to pay from my BofA account or from any of my linked “pay from” accounts. Helpful if you don’t keep all your cash at BofA.

That doesn't really help, since you still need to know where the funds are to pay the bill and also not all types of accounts can be "pay from" accounts.

You don’t have all your accounts in Quicken? I know at a glance at my Account Bar the balance for each account.

DONNY5

Same problem. Needs immediate correction

richard4

I have not been able to download transactions from chase for 2 months or more and BOA the last week or 2. and neither will let me authorize the EWC connection. that's 2 accounts now that I have to go to the bank site and download transactions the very old way.

DreamKiller

> @Chris_QPW said:

> How does the Quicken Bill Manager handle this situation?
> Would it pay the statement balance or the what the actual current bill required?

I am using Quicken Bill Manager to pay three BOA credit cards from my BOA checking account. I think I read earlier in this thread that someone could not get that to work (BOA to BOA payments), but it it works fine for me. Anyway, when you update Quicken Bill Manager it pulls in the current CC statement and when I go to pay it, it gives me the option to pay the statement minimum amount or the statement balance (to pay bill in full, not current balance) or any other arbitrary amount I want. So far seems to default to the minimum payment and I have to select the pay in full statement amount, but maybe there is a preference to set the default. I just haven't had the time to look yet.

All in all Quicken Bill Manager is working for me. I basically have all bills auto paid to the BOA credit cards (expect one or two rouge ones that only allow eCheck auto payments). Then I use Quicken Bill Manager just to pay the BOA credit cards when and how much I want. But I always pay off the balance in full these days

Chris_QPW

@DreamKiller Thank you explaining what Quicken Bill Manager lets you do.  With the ability to pay any amount that does make it usable.

denmarfl

But again; as I undersatnd Quicken Bill pay...you are allowing the Quicken 3rd party Bill payer to have your ID and PASSWORD that you use to log into the Payee site.  This would seem fine if that site is ONLY a Bill pay.  However at that site if you have accts....ie Credit card, Checking and Savings accts....keep in mind the Quicken 3rd party Payer....has access to all those accts.  I am not suggesting that the Quicken Bill Payer will perform anything other than paying the Bill...I am merely providing the details and what the Quicken Bill payer has access to......

DreamKiller

> @denmarfl said:
> But again; as I undersatnd Quicken Bill pay...you are allowing the Quicken 3rd party Bill payer to have your ID and PASSWORD that you use to log into the Payee site. 

I think we all understand that, but it is something I am comfortable with. If you do anything online, there is a level of risk involved from hacks, data breaches, etc. Even using your CC in person is a risk these days with skimmers and what not. I don't see this as much different or higher risk IMHO. I had a friend that had his entire eTrade account drained because he accessed his account from a hotel business office computer even though he checked the warning about public computers, closed the Web browser and cleared all cookies and history before he got off the computer. He was able to recover his money though with some effort. The convivence is worth it to me and I just knock on wood and pray it never happens to me. Its everyone's decision to make based on their risk tolerance.

Robert Ralyea

> @Chris_QPW 

My downloads paid in Q bill manager we’re all paid on time. BUT all the downloads are still in processing state with no way to reconcile them and you can not pay to those bills in the future. What status do your download have . They should be in Paid status. Mine are all in processing status.

Chris_QPW

Robert Ralyea said:

> @Chris_QPW 

My downloads paid in Q bill manager we’re all paid on time. BUT all the downloads are still in processing state with no way to reconcile them and you can not pay to those bills in the future. What status do your download have . They should be in Paid status. Mine are all in processing status.

Definitely sound like a Quicken bug to me.
You should consider reporting it as bug with Help -> Report a problem, and by contacting Quicken Support.
Managing Bank Bill Pay and Transfers after Direct Connect Discontinuation

BarryGraham

mshiggins said:

BarryGraham said:

mshiggins said:

BarryGraham said:

Mark1104 said:

@L_K - a few things

so why spend the money to provide additional capability to download these transactions THAT HAVE YET TO OCCUR? 

So you don't go overdrawn. I don't know if this change will affect this but I rely on my credit card payments being downloaded ahead of time. I pay them by eBill from the Bank of America website but I don't keep all my money there.

Barry, 

BofA bill pay has the ability to link other “pay from” accounts for paying bills. I have both Fidelity and Ameritrade linked as “pay from” accounts, so when I pay a bill on the BofA site, I can choose to pay from my BofA account or from any of my linked “pay from” accounts. Helpful if you don’t keep all your cash at BofA.

That doesn't really help, since you still need to know where the funds are to pay the bill and also not all types of accounts can be "pay from" accounts.

You don’t have all your accounts in Quicken? I know at a glance at my Account Bar the balance for each account.

In order to pay future bills you need to know future variable transactions for that account. It's worked perfectly well up until now.

BarryGraham

Mark1104 said:

@BarryGraham - so this is what I mean by 'tools'.  if you use the BofA app, ask "Erica" if you will overdraw your account.  It will provide a 7 days forecast of your checking account balance based on your prior usage and upcoming scheduled bills.  What you want Quicken to provide you, BofA is already providing via their app.  All you have to do is verbalize the question to Erica, you don't even have to type it. 

If we think about it from BofA's standpoint, they already give you a tool that provides a forecast, have investing money in that, which engages you as a customer, so why spend money to provide future bills to Quicken? 

the ebills will no longer download to quicken "ahead of time" - that is the 'shock' of the new Quicken experience. they won't download into Quicken until they are paid. 

I am familiar with Erica. Erica doesn't know what your next credit card payment is going to be.  That's why not having the eBills downloaded in advance is a huge issue. That was the only benefit to me of using eBills.  Without the ability to download the next payment, you might as well use the credit card company's autopay - which is exactly what I do with Chase since it doesn't support eBill - and then use Bill Manager to enter the payment - which is fine when Bill Manager is working properly.

BarryGraham

Gopher651 said:

BoA bill pay also includes functions "e-bills" and "notifications". All but two of my normal payees support e-bills. The payee sends my bill to BoA and BoA sends me an email of a bill due. When I visit the website bill pay, there us a bill set up with payee, due date and bill amount. I can change date and amount if needed. I click pay. Don't have to search payees. Quicken could even make this easier. They could include a bank web link attached to the Quicken account and even log you in if credentials included in the Quicken vault. Maybe even scrape the bill pay web screen for an entry in Quicken.

The way I have been using eBill I don't have to click anything to pay.  It happens automatically - and until a few days ago, it would download that future payment into my register.

Chris_QPW

I find it really interesting on how many people have reported that they didn't initiate bill paying from Quicken but were using the fact that the same system would sync the information from the financial institution's bill payment system to Quicken when they initiated the payment on the financial institution's website.

It isn't something that jumped out at me until people mentioned it going away (both on Chase and Bank of America).

I remember that I was very happy 30 years ago when I used it with Wells Fargo that it didn't matter which I did it on they would sync to each other.  It meant even if Quicken messed up somehow, I would be able to fix it on the financial institution's website.

dnag

I appreciate Quicken defenders. Heck, I've been using it since the early '90s. Obviously I like it.

But, sorry - I simply don't care what the difference is between "Direct Connect " and/EWC... if you can do it one way... that means you can do it....... Figure it out.......... don't explain to me how it's not your fault.

come to me with solutions not excuses - I'm the customer

Greg_the_Geek

@dnag, complain to your bank, they made the change.

mshiggins

dnag said:

I appreciate Quicken defenders. Heck, I've been using it since the early '90s. Obviously I like it.

But, sorry - I simply don't care what the difference is between "Direct Connect " and/EWC... if you can do it one way... that means you can do it....... Figure it out.......... don't explain to me how it's not your fault.

come to me with solutions not excuses - I'm the customer

There are no decision makers here, just other Quicken users. If you don’t like how Quicken Inc handled this change, you should consider contacting Eric Dunn. 

Jon

nm...

denmarfl

Interesting Statistics "among Quicken users, most weren't using Direct Connect; and among Direct Connect users most weren't using Bill Pay. So you're a minority within a minority within a minority within a minority."  Is there a source for this information?  Quicken has tracked and collected these Statistics and they are available for review?  When I read Postings in this community...and I have for many years, been using Quicken DC, Bill Pay since 2001....I always got a sense for at least those that Post here and respond here, most used these Quicken features.  If this is so, and this is my opinion, changing banks for DC would be only a short term Fix.  I would have thought the Number of Quicken users is quite large given the Size of Quicken, its IT team, Develope team and Support...that we Quicken users using the Software, the majority used DC and the Banks Bill Pay thru Quicken.  

Chris_QPW

dnag said:

I appreciate Quicken defenders. Heck, I've been using it since the early '90s. Obviously I like it.

But, sorry - I simply don't care what the difference is between "Direct Connect " and/EWC... if you can do it one way... that means you can do it....... Figure it out.......... don't explain to me how it's not your fault.

come to me with solutions not excuses - I'm the customer

Personally, I don't consider this defending Quicken.  I consider it stating the facts.

And as for solutions, many have already been stated, but people want what isn't available.  Fine, see how that works for you in the world.