Issues downloading American Express cc transactions to register.

Dan Miller

October 5 2022 is the last AEX cc transaction downloaded to my AEX register.  However, there are 7 transactions on my online AEX account between October 18, 2022, and November 5, 2022, that fail to download to Quicken when I do the One Step Update, which I do just about every day.  All other accounts download transactions without issue.  Any idea why AEX won't download transactions from the online account to Quicken Register?  

Thank you,
Dan

UKR

So, after all that, if you're still missing some old transactions, I'm afraid you'll just have to manually enter them to bring your account register up to speed.
From now on, for future transactions, click on and review each downloaded transaction, make changes as needed before you click to accept each transaction.

NotACPA

Please do TOOLS, Account List and tell us what shows in the "Transactions Download" and "Financial Institutions" column across from your AMEX account.

Dan Miller

Transactions Download says Direct Connect, Financial Inst says American Express                                      Thanks,
Dan

UKR

Are you automatically accepting downloaded transactions into your registers?

In that case I would guess that these particular transactions might have downloaded, but were automagically matched and accepted to an incorrect transaction which already existed in your register.

A review of the download log file (if you know how to do that) might answer your question.

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 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) 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.

Dan Miller

thank you UKR,
I checked all optional settings as you recommended and they were all turned on.
I also turned off Auto accept downloaded transaction setting
I then closed and reopened Quicken, then ran One Step Update and there were no new AEX transactions down loaded to the register
Dan

UKR

So, after all that, if you're still missing some old transactions, I'm afraid you'll just have to manually enter them to bring your account register up to speed.
From now on, for future transactions, click on and review each downloaded transaction, make changes as needed before you click to accept each transaction.