Merrill/Bank of America download problems

JayDC

Recently, I have been unable to connect Bank of America to Quicken to download my transactions. I have three accounts with Bank of America. One is a traditional Checking Account and this connects and downloads fine. The other two (one for me and one for my wife) are CMA checking accounts. For some reason, these two will not connect. Any thoughts on this? There have been recent changes with B of A regarding Quicken and this may have caused the problems. Even though I treat them as checking accounts and go through the recent new B of A authorization problem, they still do not show up. Is anyone successfully doing this?

Quicken Anja

Hello @JayDC,

Thank you for taking the time to report your issue here in the Community, though we apologize that you are experiencing this.

Based on the issue you described, it would be better suited for you to please reach out to Quicken Support directly for further assistance and possible escalation if they see fit.

We apologize for any inconvenience! Thank you.

SuzieBonney

I am also having terrible problems with Bank of America accounts and Quicken. It's eating my time like crazy. I can't get new transactions for my credit cards and I cannot add my savings account. When I go to add the savings account I get checking account transactions. Every time I go through this it has to send a code to my phone :( I am not happy. Please please fix this NOW!

JayDC

Anja...thanks for the response. I have talked to Quicken Support about this and they referred me to Bank of America. Neither worked. Further research has revealed that the checking account that my wife and I have with Merrill/Bank of America is a CMA account. These types of accounts can actually buy securities or CD's or similar instruments. As such, perhaps the problem is that I have this under a "Checking" account rather than and "Investment" account. Is there a way I can simply change it to and Investment Account? I note that Investment accounts have the option to add a Check Number under the Payment and Deposit option, so, in that sense it might work...and it might download transactions. Thoughts on this?

JayDC

So, I figured it out! A CMA account is an investment account, not a checking account. Start here, if you are starting from scratch. If you already have this as a checking account, it will not download from Merrill/BofA. So, you can save a backup, create a new investment account called "your checking (but different name). Then download the last few transactions. Then make sure they don't duplicate any that are already in your old checking transaction register. Then drag the transactions from your old checking account to the new investment account. You may have to do this in batches. Up to half a year seems to work, but for some reason a few transactions don't want to transfer. You can manually enter them in the new investment account and delete them in the old checking account. The only issue that I have is that the new CMA checking is out of balance by a strange amount. I have printed out a check register and compared every transaction moved and they are all correct. All other linked accounts have a proper balance. You just have to add an adjustment dated the date of the first transaction in your checking account. From that point on, the account reconciles and you can purchase CD's etc, in the account and they show up as part of your portfolio.