Important Bank of America clarification

dz709

Quicken sent around an email today announcing that Bank of America was going to discontinue its direct connect functionality in quicken. I just spoke to a BofA rep who said that existing Bank of America Quicken users would not be affected - they will be grandfathered in. The Cut off will only apply to New users.

Jim_Harman

I will believe that when I see an email from Bank of America that corrects what they sent earlier today.

Rocket J Squirrel

dz709 said:

Quicken sent around an email today announcing that Bank of America was going to discontinue its direct connect functionality in quicken. I just spoke to a BofA rep who said that existing Bank of America Quicken users would not be affected - they will be grandfathered in. The Cut off will only apply to New users.

You wish. I wish too, but phone reps are not always fully and correctly informed.

Jim_Harman said:

I will believe that when I see an email from Bank of America that corrects what they sent earlier today.

Me too, brother.

Chris_QPW

Rocket J Squirrel said:

dz709 said:

Quicken sent around an email today announcing that Bank of America was going to discontinue its direct connect functionality in quicken. I just spoke to a BofA rep who said that existing Bank of America Quicken users would not be affected - they will be grandfathered in. The Cut off will only apply to New users.

You wish. I wish too, but phone reps are not always fully and correctly informed.

Jim_Harman said:

I will believe that when I see an email from Bank of America that corrects what they sent earlier today.

Me too, brother.

You might also believe it when the cutoff date for the change over comes and goes and Direct Connect is still around.  

But personally I agree, the most likely one that is wrong with such conflicting information is the phone reps.

dz709

@Jim_Harman can u please clarify: was there an email from Bank of America? I only saw the one from Quicken.

Jim_Harman

I received 2 emails from Quicken yesterday.

One was a joint announcement with BoA titled 
Coming soon from Quicken and Bank of America
It has "Learn More" link that says among other things
This change will impact all Bank of America Direct Connect and Express Web Connect accounts, including Direct Connect Bill Pay; we will be contacting Bill Pay users directly with more information. 

The second email was titled

Urgent! Changes to your Bank of America connection in Quicken

and it says in part,

Bank of America is changing the way it connects with personal finance management solutions like Quicken. To keep Quicken connected to your Bank of America account, you'll need to switch your connection method on or before October 10, 2022.

Once you change your connection, you won't be able to access Bank of America Bill Pay in Quicken. Any scheduled or recurring payments you've already set up will still go through. However, to schedule new payments, make changes, or make account transfers, you'll need to use Bank of America's website or mobile app.

If you’d like to continue to pay your bills within Quicken, you can still use Quicken Bill Manager, which is included with your Quicken subscription.

Use Quicken Bill Manager to make payments at no additional charge—up to 12 electronic payments using Quick Pay and 5 checks using Check Pay each month.

Plus, to thank you for being a loyal Quicken customer, we’ve given you FREE upgraded access to 4 additional checks using Check Pay each month until October 31, 2023.

Please note that Quicken Bill Manager does not provide a connection to or make payments through Bank of America Bill Pay, so you will need to re-establish your payees in Quicken Bill Manager. You can set up and try out Quicken Bill Manager in parallel with Bank of America Bill Pay to see if it meets your needs.

I certainly take that to mean that Bank of America's Bank Bill Pay will no longer be available with Quicken for existing customers like me.

gmpizzuto

Contacted Bank of America's digital Services last night, and they didn't know anything about this. They advised me to contact Quicken. Here we go, round and round. As a many, many year Quicken customer, I am very unhappy about this change. It sounds messy, and labor intensive, when the current method of using Direct Connect was seam

gmpizzuto

i believe the grandfather statement related to ongoing setup payments, where you never change details, or never add new payees. But, I hope I am wrong.

dz709

> @Jim_Harman said:
> I received 2 emails from Quicken yesterday.
>
> One was a joint announcement with BoA titled 
> Coming soon from Quicken and Bank of America
> It has "Learn More" link that says among other things
> This change will impact all Bank of America Direct Connect and Express Web Connect accounts, including Direct Connect Bill Pay; we will be contacting Bill Pay users directly with more information. 
>
> The second email was titledUrgent! Changes to your Bank of America connection in Quicken
>
>
> and it says in part,
>
> Bank of America is changing the way it connects with personal finance management solutions like Quicken. To keep Quicken connected to your Bank of America account, you'll need to switch your connection method on or before October 10, 2022.
>
> Once you change your connection, you won't be able to access Bank of America Bill Pay in Quicken. Any scheduled or recurring payments you've already set up will still go through. However, to schedule new payments, make changes, or make account transfers, you'll need to use Bank of America's website or mobile app.
>
> If you’d like to continue to pay your bills within Quicken, you can still use Quicken Bill Manager, which is included with your Quicken subscription.
>
> Use Quicken Bill Manager to make payments at no additional charge—up to 12 electronic payments using Quick Pay and 5 checks using Check Pay each month.
>
> Plus, to thank you for being a loyal Quicken customer, we’ve given you FREE upgraded access to 4 additional checks using Check Pay each month until October 31, 2023.
>
> Please note that Quicken Bill Manager does not provide a connection to or make payments through Bank of America Bill Pay, so you will need to re-establish your payees in Quicken Bill Manager. You can set up and try out Quicken Bill Manager in parallel with Bank of America Bill Pay to see if it meets your needs.

Thanks. We’ll certainly find out in October won’t we?
>
> I certainly take that to mean that Bank of America's Bank Bill Pay will no longer be available with Quicken for existing customers like me.

Okayish

This sucks. plus Quicken will start charging for Quicken Bill Pay and Quicken Check Pay.

Okayish

Go to Help, Manage my Subscriptions, My Quicken Account, Subscriptions. Bill Manager Promotion-Extra, *look down at the bottom of the box and* Buy More Payments

Okayish

I already have more that 12 Quick Pay per month. 5 (+4 more for Quicken Premier) but I don't like having to rely on USPS to deliver payment checks on time, every time.

Okayish

That 5+4=9 Check Pay.

bwentzel13

I also received the two emails referenced above and I'm confused how they will impact me. We use Quicken and BoA to pay all our bills and I'm not thrilled with the need to change that process. Does this mean I can no longer use Quicken as my sole interface to create and manage payments and deposits in our BoA account? I don't want to speak too soon without knowing the facts but if that is the case it is so-long BoA.

Monte Bliss

bwentzel13 said:

 I don't want to speak too soon without knowing the facts but if that is the case it is so-long BoA.

I'm in exactly the same boat as you and I agree with every one of your statements except this one.  I am thinking why use Quicken anymore? I will be forced to determine the value of using Quicken.   I want the process to be easy.  I already have all of the payees set up in BofA and will be forced to either pay them from there or start setting up most of them as autopay either at BofA or at the business' website. I know some of the longtime experts here in the community have advocated those strategies anyhow as the Online Biller functions are buggy.  I won't pay Quicken for Quick Pay or Check Pay and why would I pay from BofA and then turn around and enter it again in Quicken.  I don't want that extra step.  The whole Chase Connections thingy was already changed on me this month and I can no longer use Quicken's Online biller function effectively with that bank.  I am hoping the direct connect doesn't change and this possible looming decision is a moot one. 

Eli Sherer

So here's my question:
I do NOT use Quicken Bill Pay OR Quicken Bill Manager. All of my online bills are paid using "Bank Bill Pay" (that's what the setting is called under the Quicken payment method in Online Services setting).

When Quicken debuted Bill Manager a while back, I got into a song-and-dance with the rep telling me how Bill Manager and Bill Pay work together, but I needed to change blah-blah-blah. At some point in the conversation I mentioned that the setting said "Bank Bill Pay" and he said, "oh... then you don't really need to change anything because that's all done through "signaling" to the bank!

So now the question is: Will this new Quicken+BoA change mean anything to me? It seems silly to have to jump all around as long as the bank still gets the signal to send the payment.

Am I missing something?

Jon

bwentzel13 said:

Does this mean I can no longer use Quicken as my sole interface to create and manage payments and deposits in our BoA account?

Yes, that's what it means. Without Direct Connect, you'll have to log in to the BoA web site if you want to use their Bill Pay service or transfer funds between accounts.

if this is really a deal-breaker for you, you can try to find another bank that uses Direct Connect but most banks don't. The last time I checked (about a year ago) only 10% of the financial firms that Quicken can interact with supported Direct Connect and it appears to be trending downward. Chase and BoA have been high profile cases of banks dropping Direct Connect but I wouldn't be surprised if other smaller banks were also doing so with less visibility.

BK

To add to the previous comment, I setup all my billing directly thru BofA's website perhaps back in 2005, I set it and forget it, and any changes in Quicken will have no impact on me.

bwentzel13

> @Jon said:
> Yes, that's what it means. Without Direct Connect, you'll have to log in to the BoA web site if you want to use their Bill Pay service or transfer funds between accounts.
>
> if this is really a deal-breaker for you, you can try to find another bank that uses Direct Connect but most banks don't. The last time I checked (about a year ago) only 10% of the financial firms that Quicken can interact with supported Direct Connect and it appears to be trending downward. Chase and BoA have been high profile cases of banks dropping Direct Connect but I wouldn't be surprised if other smaller banks were also doing so with less visibility.

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I have been using Quicken for much the same way for over 30 years. Initially I printed checks but since the advent of electronic bill payment I have been using some form of that ever since and Quicken was always the sole interface. For example, I reconcile a credit card account and a few button clicks later the payment is sent to BoA; I set up a recurring payment for a car loan and Quicken/BoA take it from there. What is the best way of doing this from now on with Quicken as the primary interface?

Jon

bwentzel13 said:

What is the best way of doing this from now on with Quicken as the primary interface?

You'll need to either switch to using Quicken's Bill Pay service (which will cost you money if you're not already paying for a Premier subscription), or switch to a different bank that still offers Direct Connect (with no guarantee that they'll continue to do so).

bwentzel13

@Jon,

Thanks again. Based on these comments my understanding is:
- Quicken and/or financial institutions are deprecating Direct Connect (DC)
- Since I am a Quicken Premiere customer, I can switch over to Quicken Bill Manager (QBM) and stay with BoA at no additional cost.

I'm not familiar with QBM. Does that function the same as Direct Connect? Are there additional/fewer capabilities? I assume there's a document somewhere describing the steps to migrate from DC to QBM.

Does Quicken have a publicly available list of financial institutions that support DC?

Thanks

Jim_Harman

bwentzel13 said:

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I have been using Quicken for much the same way for over 30 years. Initially I printed checks but since the advent of electronic bill payment I have been using some form of that ever since and Quicken was always the sole interface. For example, I reconcile a credit card account and a few button clicks later the payment is sent to BoA; I set up a recurring payment for a car loan and Quicken/BoA take it from there. What is the best way of doing this from now on with Quicken as the primary interface?

If you are currently using Bank Bill Pay through Quicken with BoA, that will no longer work. You have 2 choices to continue paying electronically:

1. Rather than manually or via a Reminder entering an Online Payment in Quicken, you record the payment as if you wrote a paper check (Enter rather than Pay for Reminders) . Then you go to the BoA website or app and enter the payment there. You will find that online payees you set up in Quicken are already set up at BoA.
2. You set up Quicken Bill Manager to do essentially the same function as BoA's Bill Pay via Quicken's 3rd party provider. This may or may not be as reliable as the BoA bill pay, and it may be more difficult to deal with exception cases such as lost checks. 

Note that for many larger billers, utilities for example, you can set them up for Auto Pay, where the biller sends you a notice and takes the money directly from your bank account or charges your credit card when the bill is due. That will continue to work as it does today. In that case, you simply record the payment in Quicken and it is matched when the transaction clears at the bank.

Jon

bwentzel13 said:

I'm not familiar with QBM. Does that function the same as Direct Connect? Are there additional/fewer capabilities? I assume there's a document somewhere describing the steps to migrate from DC to QBM.

Does Quicken have a publicly available list of financial institutions that support DC?

I don't use Quicken Bill Pay so I'm not personally familiar with how it works. I can only point you to Quicken's online documentation. 

I'm not aware of a publicly available list of banks that use Direct Connect. Quicken does a have a file on your computer with a list of all the banks and the connection methods they support (named "fidir.txt"); I don't know offhand where to find it on a Windows PC. If you can find it, you can import it into a spreadsheet program & search on the word "DIRECT" to find the financial institutions that support Direct Connect; from there you'll need to further narrow the list down to ones that use it for banking (rather than investing or credit cards) and that also support bill pay. 

chrisfra2009

This whole roll out couldn't be more confusing. I'm a looong-time Quicken Premier user and BoA client. When I want to pay someone that I have set up as an "online payee", I go into my check register, select 'Send' as the transaction type and the payment happens. They either do it electronically if possible or mail a paper check if it's not, and as a user, I don't have to care. I don't have the slightest idea if I'm using Bill Manager or Quick Pay or Bill Pay. Now apparently I do, but I'm not clear at on whether there's actually something I need to do between now the October 10th deadline referenced in Quicken's incredibly unclear email notice.

Best I can tell, assuming I am actually using Quicken Bill Manager, as a Premiere user, I get up to 12 Quick Pay (electronic) payments per month plus 5 Check Pay (paper check) payments. Plus, as an extra bonus for being a long-time Quicken users, I get 4 additional Check Pay transaction until October 2023 So ..... if I stay under those limits, I don't have to do anything?

If that's the case, now I'm wondering, how does my prior usage compare to those limits? There are instructions on line here that describe how to see the number of payments you have remaining for the current month, but they're not working for me. I don't see a 'Payment Account' option when I click on the gear icon. I counted my online payments for last month and it was 13 (over the 12 transaction limit for Quick Pay)
https://www.quicken.com/support/quicken-bill-manager-how-many-payments-can-i-make-each-month

So what happens if I go over the limits? I found information here that says I can pay $9.95 a month to get up to 15 Quick Pay and 15 Check Pay transactions.
https://www.quicken.com/support/quicken-bill-manager-how-many-payments-can-i-make-each-month

I'm frustrated, disappointed, and annoyed, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Come on Quicken, get it together. I get that you guys need to make money, but if you're going to change something this fundamental to the user experience, at least put a bit more effort into clearly communicating the impacts.

So I guess I can

bwentzel13

@chrisfra2009, you and I are in the exact same position with exactly the same frustration. The only this I might question is whether Quicken is abandoning Direct Connect or if the financial institution (e.g., BofA) are moving away from it. It sounds to me to be the later.

Since I am not aware that I have ever used Quicken Bill Manager (QBM) I'm going to explain how I interact with BofA through Quicken and I hope others familiar with QBM can explain how I will need to change my processes:

- I have created Online Payees for everyone I pay. This includes credit card companies, auto finance companies, lawn care company, etc. and like @chrisfra2009 I don't know, and frankly not sure I care, what form the payment takes.
- The first thing I do when starting a Quicken session is do a One Step Update which downloads all the latest transactions into my various accounts including BofA.
- Whenever I need to send a one-off payment (e.g., lawn service) I use Quicken's Write Checks function. I realize some of these result in sending a check, but some may also be fulfilled electronically. Again, I'm not sure I care.
- Every month I reconcile my credit card accounts and when I finish the reconciliation, I'm presented with a dialog box that gives me an opportunity to choose how to pay. I believe the selection is Online which takes me to the Write Checks function.
- With loans, like a car loan, I create the loan in Quicken, establish the automatic payments, and then Quicken and/or BofA take it from there. Every month the payments are made, and I generally don't get involved again until the loan is paid.

BofA's use of DC is about to end and while I may not like it, I need to move on. I can do so by moving to another bank like CapitalOne but others have cautioned that their use of DC may also be coming to an end sometime soon. Or I can try to use QBM with BofA and my question to this group is how will my processes and experience change?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Jim_Harman

To tell for sure if you are using Bank Bill Pay, go to the bank account and click on the gear at the top right.
Select Edit Account details and click on the Online services tab.
If it says Yes next to Bank Bill Pay, that is what you are using for that account.

The user experience with QBM will be essentially the same as Bank Bill Pay once you have that set up, but if something goes wrong, a lost payment check for example, you will be working with Quicken Support rather than your bank to get it resolved.

I have found BoA to be very responsive on the rare occasions when a check was lost or delayed in the mail. There have been issues with the Check Pay method in QBM. For recent examples, see
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7918693/new-8-31-22-bill-manager-check-pay-account-sync-error/p1?new=1
and
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7916195/check-pay-to-chase-credit-card-not-received-and-cannot-void-or-change-the-transaction

bwentzel13

@Jim_Harman, thanks for the response. It says I have Bank Bill Pay activated which I assume is the same as Direct Connect.

I assume most of my payments are fulfilled electronically although I'm not sure how I could validate that. So, my world will not come to an end if I occasionally need to literally write a check when the Check Pay method in QBM is having a bad day. The good news in your message, if I understand it correctly, is the rest of my processes will remain virtually intact. Is that correct?

Thanks again.

Jim_Harman

Direct Connect is a communication method that is required for Bank Bill Pay to work. Near the top of your screenshot you can see that DC is your current connection method.

Since BoA will no longer support Direct Connect, their Bill pay will stop working. You are also using Direct Connect to transfer your bank account transactions and balances. That is being replaced by a new connection method called EWC+, which is a one-way connection and does not support Bank Bill Pay. You will have to make some changes in Quicken to set that up. Chase customers are currently going through this transition, with mixed results.

If BoA is currently charging you a monthly fee to use Direct Connect, presumably that fee will go away.

neilz

So ... since I did the recommended 'switch' and followed directions to move to the Bill Manager, I find that all the bills I normally pay via Quicken to BoA, still show the "Online Bill Pay" and that I still need to send them to the bank.

I really only have one bill that I mail to, and that's because its rent to a local church for use of their manse. I switched that to Quicken 'Check Pay" which is part of my subscription.

Now I'm finding that the emails from Quicken may have been a bit premature, at least, and misleading, at the most.

Someone at Quicken needs to 'officially' say what is going on. I've been using Quicken since the DOS days of the program and writing/printing my checks locally, and have not seen such an issue like this come up previously.

neilz

> @bwentzel13 said:
> @Jim_Harman, thanks for the response. It says I have Bank Bill Pay activated which I assume is the same as Direct Connect.
>
> I assume most of my payments are fulfilled electronically although I'm not sure how I could validate that. So, my world will not come to an end if I occasionally need to literally write a check when the Check Pay method in QBM is having a bad day. The good news in your message, if I understand it correctly, is the rest of my processes will remain virtually intact. Is that correct?
>
> Thanks again.

For Bank of America, I can verify the payment has been sent to the bank by going to the BoA online site, clicking on the "Bill Pay" tab, and looking at the Schedules payments on the right side of the window.

Hope that helps.

Jim_Harman

Instead of going directly to BoA, when you use Quicken Bill Manager the payment instructions are sent to a third party provider that makes the payments and takes the money out of your BoA account.