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Transaction Date not Posting Date

sussmane

When I download my credit card charges into Quicken for Windows - the date that it is showing is the posting date. I need it to be the transaction date. Anyone know what I can do please?

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Mark1104

can you please comment on what you mean by 'transaction date' vs 'posting date;

The transaction date is the date you use the card and is frequenty called a "soft post" date in the Banking industry. The date is actually is posted to your credit card (so it is no longer a pending transaction) is called the "hard post date", these dates are controlled by your bank and not Quicken.

The posting date is what is downloaded to Quicken as it is the official date that the transactions is posted to your credit card.

only thing I know to do is override the dates manually,

Curious, why does it matter to you?

UKR

If you absolutely must have the actual transaction date appear in your Quicken account register, I'm afraid, you will have to manually post a transaction into Quicken before you download transactions from the bank.
All the bank knows about your transaction is when the merchant posts your credit card transaction, usually a day or two after your purchase.

siouxbarrett

I've two questions about the way Quicken uses the posting date in the last few releases:

1. When Quicken downloads a transaction I've already entered, for example when a check posts, Quicken updates the transaction date to the posting date. Now my check numbers are out of order and I must manually update it to the date I entered the check. More work for me. Why, Quicken, why? How do I change this - is there a setting I should use?

2. When reconciling, Quicken of course uses the posting date. This is a two edged sword, as interest is often credited on the final day of the period but has a downloaded posting date the day after the period. In order to include the interest in a reconciliation I have to re-enter the interest transaction to be within the reconciliation period. Is there an easier way to do this?

Thanks for any help!

Mark1104

1) you can sort the entire register based on the check number. just click the 'num' column and it will sort to your prefered order. Frankly, I always order based on the reconciliation column, that way I know which items have yet to clear.

2) that doesn't make sense. if your bank statement cutoff is let's say November 15, are you saying the interst is credited on November 16 (which is the posting date) but it is included on the November 15 statement date? That sounds like a Bank problem and not a Quicken problem. ALternatively, you can ask quicken to reconcile as of (in my example) November 16 and not November 15th - that eliminates the need to re-enter the interest.

mshiggins

siouxbarrett said:

I've two questions about the way Quicken uses the posting date in the last few releases:

1. When Quicken downloads a transaction I've already entered, for example when a check posts, Quicken updates the transaction date to the posting date. Now my check numbers are out of order and I must manually update it to the date I entered the check. More work for me. Why, Quicken, why? How do I change this - is there a setting I should use?

Quicken should not be changing the date of a manually entered transaction to the downloaded posting date. There is already a field for the downloaded posting date.

What financial institution and download connection method is being used?

NotACPA

Q has no way of knowing the Transaction date, unless you input it.

For credit cards, the merchant might sit on the transactions anywhere from overnight to a couple of nights before the txn are submitted to the merchant's bank.

I just looked at a recent card transaction on the bank's website. It showed DATE as 11/17 ... but the credit card slip shows the actual txn date as 11/16. 11/17 was when the merchant submitted the txn.

Mark1104

@notaCPA - the posting date can be even further delayed when adding a tip to a restaurant charge, hotel charges and gas charges.....

NotACPA

@Mark1104 & @sussmane , before I was recruited by the bank's Audit Division, I was a System's Project Manager for the bank ... and credit card capture was one of my systems.

I know EXTREMELY well how the process works.

And note that in my prior reply I said "to a couple of nights".

siouxbarrett

@Mark1104 - The date difference for the interest transactions _is_ super weird. My statements have the interest listed on the last day of the period, but when downloaded, the dates are the next day (the start of the next period). I've noticed this with Wells Fargo for sure, maybe other institutions. Period close is coming up, so I will make a note to check.

@mshiggins - I totally agree, Quicken should not be updating a previously entered transaction date. Again, I notice this with a Wells Fargo checking account, but that may be because it is my most active account.

@all - thank you for your various insights; I appreciate your thoughts and responses.

Mark1104

@siouxbarrett - I suspect that is a bank issue; I use Bofa and Ally and download their transactions and do not have the issue youdrescribe.

Kathy Muench

Even though I have the Quicken (Mac) preference "Use posted date for matched transactions (instead of the date you enter manually)" Unchecked, I have noticed lately that downloaded transactions are changing my manually entered dates. This is new behavior for me me (I have version 6.10.3), and the only change I made was to set 2 of my 3 Bank of America accounts (Checking and Savings, but NOT credit card) to auto-reconcile. I had not had ANY of my accounts set to auto-reconcile prior to this.
Now... the manually entered dates are being changed in all 3 BofA accounts (not in other accounts with other FI's as far as I can tell). The reason I enter the transactions manually before download/matching is to keep a record of when the transactions occurred vs when they posted (I have the "posted" column visible in my registers). Is this a bug that the preference is not being honored, or is this the way things are programmed to work when auto-reconcile is turned on? Quicken Help does refer to the preference setting and does not mention this scenario at all in "Using Auto-Reconcile".

TedG

When matching a downloaded transaction to a manually entered transaction, Quicken has recently begun to change the transaction date to the posting date. It should not do this. There appears to be no option in the Windows app to stop this bad practice. When a credit card transaction is executed on a transaction date, a legal liability occurs on THAT date, even if the transaction is posted on a later date. Quicken: either change the program to leave the manually entered transaction date unchanged when matched to a downloaded transaction, or give Windows app users a preference option to select which date is used. This worked perfectly a couple of months ago; it wasn't broke, why did you "fix" it?

Gopher651

> @TedG said:
> When matching a downloaded transaction to a manually entered transaction, Quicken has recently begun to change the transaction date to the posting date. It should not do this.

For my CC account, my downloaded transactions date does not change from whatever date I entered.

Kathy Muench

[Removed - Mac/Duplicate]

jdhiggs

Even though Quicken claims to have fixed this, the most recent update to the program still exhibits this same behavior.

kuhawksr1

Same issue here. It also impacts budget vs actual analysis and reporting - I have a large transaction on 12/31/22, I entered it manually in the CC register. When Q syncs with CC company (Chase) it changed date in register from 12/31/22 to 1/3/23. Consequently, Q now shows an actual expense against January 2023 budget that should have applied against December 2022 budget. This behavior of Q changing dates for transactions to match posting date at financial institution needs to stop!

AlexisoftheShire

Not sure why that is happening to you. I've downloaded CC transactions for years and they never change the date of my manually entered transactions. I always manually enter transactions to ensure they reconcile correctly with the downloaded ones. I've caught mistakes both from me entering them and the CC company's version of the transaction. The transaction date I enter never is changed. There might be a setting somewhere to turn the behavior off you are experiencing. I use the default settings.

bryanhbell

I am also experiencing the issue where when I download transactions from my bank (Wells Fargo) in Quicken, the transaction date for transactions I have manually entered is getting changed to my bank's posting date. This new behavior began about a week ago and did not occur prior to that time. I am using Quicken Deluxe for Windows 11 version r45.21.

My awful workaround at this point is to screenshot my register prior to running One Step Update and then manually changing the posted dates for each transaction that was downloaded back to my original transaction date.

foster3927

> @bryanhbell said:
> I am also experiencing the issue where when I download transactions from my bank (Wells Fargo) in Quicken, the transaction date for transactions I have manually entered is getting changed to my bank's posting date. This new behavior began about a week ago and did not occur prior to that time. I am using Quicken Deluxe for Windows 11 version r45.21.
>
> My awful workaround at this point is to screenshot my register prior to running One Step Update and then manually changing the posted dates for each transaction that was downloaded back to my original transaction date.

I am having the same issue - it just started a week or 2 ago - and it's on both the check registers and credit card registers. I can't find a preferences setting to stop this.

TedG

Some have commented that this issue doesn't affect their accounts. The problem seems apply to some, but not all accounts. One person stated that he manually changes the register item back to the correct transaction date. This does not appear to work for a Check-Pay item. When I tried that, the system stated that "the payment must be canceled before you can change it". Well, the check was already processed and paid by my bank, so it is too late for cancellation! So, I am stuck with an incorrect date. Perhaps I need to delete and reenter it. I hate workarounds. We collectively pay Quicken lots of money to get things right in the first place.

Ivar

Transaction date of a previously manually entered transaction is changed to posting date when downloading from the bank. This is a NEW behavior. How do I change back to the old behavior of leaving the transaction date as entered?

Chris_QPW

I'm curious, of the people having this problem, are you using Sync to Mobile/Web?

For sure, Quicken shouldn't be changing the date in the register of a manually entered transaction. Note that this is different than talking about what date is used for reconciling and is probably the reason for some of the confusion above. Reconcile always uses the posting date if available.

Note I haven't noticed this, but I enter very few transactions manually so I could certainly miss this one.

ADDED: I don't use Sync to Mobile/Web because of all the problems it has.

kuhawksr1

Yes. Also sync to mobile.

TedG

Yes, using sync to mobile web.

bryanhbell

> @Chris_QPW said:
> I'm curious, of the people having this problem, are you using Sync to Mobile/Web?

I am using sync to mobile/web. I'm not sure what this would have to do how Quicken handles downloading transactions to the register though. To my understanding, sync to mobile/web is a separate function, though it can be included as one of the steps in One Step Update.

Chris_QPW

bryanhbell said:

> @Chris_QPW said:
> I'm curious, of the people having this problem, are you using Sync to Mobile/Web?

I am using sync to mobile/web. I'm not sure what this would have to do how Quicken handles downloading transactions to the register though. To my understanding, sync to mobile/web is a separate function, though it can be included as one of the steps in One Step Update.

Sync to Mobile/Web works in both directions. As in the state of transactions in Mobile/Web are synced back to the Quicken Desktop data file. Just looking at the problems people have had that have been traced to Mobile/Web it can pretty much do anything it wants with your Quicken Desktop data.

TedG

The problem occurs upon updating/downloading/matching--well before mobile data is synced. Started a couple of months ago. Not a word above from a Quicken rep. Radio silence.

Mark1104

@TEDG - suggest calling Support or reporting a problem through the software. While the monitors do post from time to time (and infrquently), in my view, this is a "community" board and not a vehicle to converse with the firm.

TedG

I did call support. Solution to the check pay problem described above: delete and reenter. Which permanently loses the posting date. He didn't seem interested in fixing the root cause.

TedG

Thank you for the link--I have submitted a message there. The transaction date is critical in processing a transaction in the correct reporting period. Say you use a credit card to make a charitable contribution on 12/30 and Quicken changes that date to a posting date of 1/2. Or a medical expense paid with Check Pay was changed similarly. Your Quicken tax summary report will not show those transactions until the following year. I can't understand why Quicken changed its matching behavior to change the transaction date; this was working fine until a couple of months ago.