Financial program with true multitag function

kistonewa

Can anyone recommend a personal financial program that implements true multiple tags correctly? Just got off of a chat with Quicken. Was told that Quicken can not handle multiple tags as multiple tags. Instead Quicken creates a new tag which is a conglomeration of the "multiple tags." Using Windows.

Jim_Harman

What exactly do you want to do with the multiple tags?

q_lurker

Also, what deficiency do you see in Quicken’s implementation?  I think you are saying if you have tags of NY and 22, then you are seeing Quicken treat the multi-tag NY:22 as another single tag. Do I have that right?

Chris_QPW

Quicken certainly doesn’t treat create a new tag, that is for sure.

Sometimes when generating reports surprises people because they don't understand how tags work, and maybe because of the lack of "logical operators".

For instance, this statement is not correct.

q_lurker said:

Quicken treat the multi-tag NY:22 as another single tag

Quicken certainly doesn't either create a new tag for NY:22, or treat is like a single tag.

If I select NY as the filter tag in a transaction report I will get all transactions that have NY as a tag.  That would include NY by itself, NY:22 or NY:WHATEVER.

If I have both NY and 22 as the tags to filter by I will get all the transactions that have NY and 22 including NY by itself, 22 by itself, NY:WHATEVER, 22:WHATEVER, ...

What you can't do is select NY:22 and get only transactions that have NY:22 and exclude transactions that have other combinations of these two.

So, if written as an if statement:
If NY OR 22 Then

As for other personal finances software, not only do I not know of any other software that treats these differently, but we also wouldn't be able to discuss them on this Quicken Inc forum.

Jim_Harman

If your goal is to show just the transactions that include Tag1 AND Tag2, see this discussion
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20247534

q_lurker

  Chris_QPW said:

For instance, this statement is not correct.

q_lurker said:

Quicken treat the multi-tag NY:22 as another single tag

Quicken certainly doesn't either create a new tag for NY:22, or treat is like a single tag. …

For the record, I agree the portion quoted is an incorrect statement.  In full context, I was trying to get to the OPs perspective for his question. 

Further I agree with @Chris_QPW that the behavior is misunderstood and that the discussion @Jim_Harman cited is very helpful. Thanks to both. 

Rocket J Squirrel

There was another thread where a user found tags apparently being combined. Validation & Repair fixed it.

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20303051/#Comment_20303051

Chris_QPW

Yes, I remember the thread, but I also tested what I posted, before posting it.  Maybe they fixed it along the way.

Oops, didn't read the last part where it was fixed by running Validate & Repair.

kistonewa

I want to thank each person who responded. Very helpful. Also more accurate than the chat support I received from Quicken. As to what I want to do with tags. Quicken or the bank supplies categories for downloaded entries. A number of these are not correct; therefore, when I review a transaction to confirm what I want an item in, I add the 0v. Also use tags for each trip, expenses for specific projects, etc.

I am still digesting some of the suggestions to better understand how quicken works.

Tom Young

"A number of these are not correct; therefore, when I review a transaction to confirm what I want an item in, I add the 0v."

I don't understand that sentence.  When I download a transaction that I've not previously entered, (An Aside: manual entry of transactions will guarantee that it has the proper Category and Tag), then I change the Categorization and the Tag (if any) that shows up in the register.  So what's "the 0v" you've mentioned and why do you add it to each transaction you change?  Is that a Tag?

Even if you don't manually enter transactions - transactions that will be "Matched" when it's downloaded - creating memorized transactions can cut down on the amount downloaded transactions with improper coding.

kistonewa

Yes, Ov is a tag I use to confirm that a transaction is correctly categorized with any pertinent tags added. I have found that Quicken's matching a transaction with prior transactions often autofills incorrect category and tags. For example our Fred Meyer may be our groceries, may be Father-in-Laws grocery, electronics, house hold items, garden items or a number of other categories. I wouldn't expect Quicken to correctly divine the correct category.

UKR

Transaction download problems with matching and adding new transactions correctly

First please ensure that all optional settings in Quicken pertaining to recall, memorization, automatic categorization and renaming of payee names are enabled. You find those settings in Edit / Preferences / Data Entry & Quickfill and also in Downloaded Transactions. Additional settings for the detection and processing of transfer transactions can be found in Edit / Preferences / Transfer detection.

 

Are you automatically accepting downloaded transactions into your registers?

If you are relying on Quicken to "automagically" fill your account registers from downloaded transactions, you may run into problems. Despite all efforts by the Quicken programmers, the "Autopilot" (that's my name for the part of the Quicken program which processes downloaded transactions and converts them into new register transactions) is not infallible. For that process to work 100% of the time one would need a crystal ball because the information downloaded from the banks often is just too terse and cryptic.

You should, at least for a while, turn off the "automatically accept downloaded transactions into registers" setting to gain better control over what is downloaded and what to do with it. Click on and review each downloaded transaction, make changes if necessary (e.g., to get a payee name = "Starbucks" instead of "POS TRANS 070119 STARBU", "POS TRANS 070219 STARBU", "POS TRANS 070319 STARBU" or to assign a category or tag) before you click to accept each transaction.

Any changes you make to downloaded Payee Names are remembered in Renaming Rules.

Any other changes you make (add/change Category or Memo text) are remembered in the Memorized Payee List.

Next time the same transaction for this Payee comes along, Quicken should remember and give you a better new register transaction.
Paper checks you write should be recorded in Quicken as you write the check (and BEFORE you download transactions which might contain the cleared check). That gives you a register transaction with correct check number, payee name and category. No matter what information is downloaded from the bank, you already have a correct register transaction which the downloaded data cannot mess up.

 

In case you have issues with transfer transactions not being generated correctly:

For best results manually enter transfer transactions into your register BEFORE you download transactions from the bank which contain the transfer confirmations. For recurring transfers use scheduled reminders and enter them a day or two before the due date.  (This also includes Cash Withdrawals if you record them as transfers from Checking to a Cash account register)
Be sure to use distinct Payee Names for each transfer / credit card payment to avoid confusing Quicken - memorized payee entries.
That takes the guesswork out of the Autopilot's process. Because a correctly entered transfer transaction already exists in your account registers, the Autopilot should just match the downloaded transfer transaction to the existing one in both accounts.

 

Where are the "Auto-accept downloaded transaction" settings?

There are two places where this is controlled in Quicken for Windows:
 - Globally, for all accounts, in Edit / Preferences / Downloaded Transactions
 - For each account individually, the global setting can be overridden from the Edit Account Details screen, Online Services Tab. Look for blue text "Automatic Entry is: ON / OFF". Click the text to change the setting.

Jim_Harman

Here are the factors and settings that control how a downloaded transaction is automatically renamed,  categorized, and tagged:

The first step is to standardize the Payee name, so that for example Starbucks is always Starbucks, not STARBUCKS #12345 or whatever. Renaming of Payees is controlled by your Renaming rules and if none applies, automatic renaming as enabled by the settings in Edit > Transactions > Downloaded transactions. The automatic renaming has changed recently, mostly an improvement I think, but it still  sometimes makes mistakes.

After any renaming, Quicken tries to match the Payee and assign a Category and/or Tag, in this order:

1. A matching but uncleared transaction is already in your register. This could be manually entered or a Reminder you have accepted. This requires [edit - correction] that the Payees after any renaming must be identical identical amounts and close dates. The Category and splits if any and Tag(s) in the register are retained.
2. If the Payee after any renaming is found in your Memorized Payee List, the Category and Tag information in the Memorized Payee are applied.
3. If enabled in Edit > Preferences > Downloaded transactions, Quicken recognizes the Payee in its built-in list and assigns a Category. This does not assign Tags. 

Like @UKR, I review each downloaded transaction and make any needed corrections before accepting it. Thus the only transactions that appear in the register are ones I have already reviewed and thus there is no need to tag the ones that have been reviewed.

There is also a mode where you can auto-accept transactions and it puts a blue dot next to the ones you have not reviewed. I do not use this.

Chris_QPW

kistonewa said:

Yes, Ov is a tag I use to confirm that a transaction is correctly categorized with any pertinent tags added. I have found that Quicken's matching a transaction with prior transactions often autofills incorrect category and tags. For example our Fred Meyer may be our groceries, may be Father-in-Laws grocery, electronics, house hold items, garden items or a number of other categories. I wouldn't expect Quicken to correctly divine the correct category.

When I look at this comment, I see normal/proper behavior, and no reason for all the explanations on how to do matching and such.

It is perfectly normal that any given payee can only be automatically matched to one category.

But I do have some suggestions that might make the tag unnecessary.

As the others have alluded to, Quicken has two modes for getting transactions into the register.  One is automatic transaction entry mode which is the default for new users. In this mode you will have a status column (blue dot), where transactions that have downloaded look like this (expanding the column lets you see the text):


The blue dot/New is a transaction I just downloaded.  The faded blue dots are old transactions that have not marked reviewed.  (I'm no longer using Quicken and as such I'm not keeping these properly up to date.  Normally I would have reviewed them before they faded away like this).

If I click on one of those status icons I get this menu.


Select "Mark as reviewed" will clear the status icon like this:


Also note that if you go in and change anything (like the category) of a transaction, that will also clear this status.  So, this status serves the same purpose as your tag.

So, the process is like look at each transaction with the New/New Match status and either correct the category or mark it reviewed.  Note also running reconcile will clear the status of each transaction the reconciles.  So, the way I tending to do it was scan all the new transactions and make sure they are correct and then run a reconcile, which would in turn clear the New statuses without having to go to each one.

Also, you can sort by the Status column to bring all of these transactions together if you need to.  This really useful if reset your account connection or such and get duplicates you need to delete.  And a warning, if you have transactions that might be off of your screen because they are really old, this sorting will ensure that you don't miss one way back like a check that was written a month ago that just got cashed.

Now for doing it when not in automatic transaction entry mode:


In this mode your transactions first go to the Downloaded Transactions tab at the bottom of the register.  As you click on a transaction in the Downloaded Transaction tab it also shows that transaction in the register. You can then either just hit Enter if it is correct, you change the category in the transaction in the register and then select Enter.  Since you are entering transactions one at a time you don't have a need for "tagging them".  Note you shouldn't use the Accept All unless you have already checked that they are all correct.

Now for a hint on the use of the memorized payees.
If you have a payee that is "never right" you have two choices in my opinion.  One is memorize the one that is most used and lock it so that when you enter other categories it doesn't change which one is picked for that payee. Or you can select "Never Auto-categorize" for that payee and be sure to lock it.
That way it will have a blank category and will be easier to spot.  I purposely never had Quicken's guessing of new payees on so that I would catch them in this manner.  And it works really well when this is what I have on my home tab:


Like I said I'm not maintaining Quicken anymore and that is why there are a lot of uncategorized transactions, but this is a really good check because even if I messed up and didn't see a transaction that didn't get categorized, it will show up here and I can click on the button to take me to the Spending tab filtered for just these uncategorized transactions, so that I can fix them.