New Match Icon/Status Purpose

aDail

In the Quicken Help it describes the New Match Icon as follows:
A transaction is a "New Match" after it has been compared to and accepted as a match to a downloaded transaction or a manually entered transaction. This transaction has not been reconciled.
If the manual transaction has been matched to a downloaded transaction (from bank) then why doesn't it just become "cleared"? I'm missing the point of this status.

Chris_QPW

The status column is mainly for when you are using automatic transaction entry mode.  As in the transactions go directly into the register instead of through Downloaded Transactions tab.

One should always review their transactions to make sure things like the categories are correct.
When the transactions are going through the Downloaded Transactions tab one is supposed to select each transaction in the Downloaded Transaction tab, make sure it is OK and then accept into the register.

The process is similar for using automatic transaction entry mode.  The transactions go into the register and the status column will have New or New Match.  New Match means that the transaction match a manually entered transaction that was already in the register (which can also be entered by a reminder) and the two were merged together.  New is a downloaded transaction that isn't matched to one that was manually entered into the register.

For this mode you are supposed to scan the New/New Match transactions making sure they are correct and then you can click on the status icon to mark it reviewed.  This will clear the New/New Match status.  Making any change to the transaction will also mark it reviewed, and so will reconciling that transaction.  Note that automatic transaction entry mode and automatic reconcile don't mix!  Reconciling only looks at the amounts which can be correct even if say the categories are wrong.  So, it is important to always review your new transactions to make sure they are correct.

I tended to scan mine by eye to make sure they are correct and then do a reconcile to mark them all reviewed.

Now I will also point out that a manually entered transaction gets a red pencil/uncleared status in the status column.  Given that there is also the Clr column all of this might seem confusing, but the Clr is all about if the transaction has cleared the financial institution and if it has been reconciled.  But there is bit of a difference.  When you download a transaction Quicken marks it with the c in the Clr column, but at that point you have yet to confirm that the transaction is OK.

aDail

Thanks for your quick reply. I do not have automatic transaction entry mode enabled...anywhere. I manually record almost every transaction and am used to seeing the red pencil/uncleared on those in the status column of the register. When downloading transactions from my financial institution, I review the match and new items, reviewing them at that point. When I accept the downloaded matches/new items, then any uncleared/red pencil marks disappear AND the "c" is added to the Clr column. I have started noticing this "New Match"/blue pencil status on manually recorded items after a download that didn't have a matching transaction in the download, but don't really see what it is telling me. I do have Quicken Mobile enabled for this account.

Chris_QPW

Your last sentence is exactly what I was going to ask you.

Quicken Mac, Quicken Mobile, and Quicken Web all only have automatic transaction entry mode, no Downloaded Transactions tab.  So, they follow pretty much the rules that I mentioned for Quicken Windows automatic transaction entry mode.  And given that you are syncing that information it isn't surprising that it is coming up in Quicken Windows.