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Bill Manager: Dealing with Billers who use 2-Factor Authentication & Other Security Methods

DexterB

I may be in the minority here, but I am finding an increase in the number of billers who are using 2-Factor Authentication whenever you sign into their websites.

Since Quicken's Bill Manager program relies on being able to connect to each biller's system to download the latest bills in PDF format and to actually pay the bills via Quick Pay, the growing use of 2FA, is actually reducing the number of billers that I can use Bill Manager for.

And note that I am talking about the Quick Pay feature, not Check Pay. (I've found that my bank's system is faster than Check Pay.) I like everything being in Quicken.

As a "work-around solution", I've had to discontinue Quick Pay with a number of billers and pay them via their website.

My Question: Is Quicken aware of this trend, and planning for a solution. If not, Bill Manager will become increasingly less useful.

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Comments

Quicken Jared

DexterB said:

I may be in the minority here, but I am finding an increase in the number of billers who are using 2-Factor Authentication whenever you sign into their websites.

Since Quicken's Bill Manager program relies on being able to connect to each biller's system to download the latest bills in PDF format and to actually pay the bills via Quick Pay, the growing use of 2FA, is actually reducing the number of billers that I can use Bill Manager for.

And note that I am talking about the Quick Pay feature, not Check Pay. (I've found that my bank's system is faster than Check Pay.) I like everything being in Quicken.

As a "work-around solution", I've had to discontinue Quick Pay with a number of billers and pay them via their website.

My Question: Is Quicken aware of this trend, and planning for a solution. If not, Bill Manager will become increasingly less useful.

Hello @DexterB,

I am sorry about this frustration with multi-factor authentication and its effects on Bill Manager. Thank you for asking about this here on the Quicken Community.

First, what is preventing you from downloading the bills in PDF form, specifically? Are you noticing error messages, or that the option to download them is not available? The PDF bills are generally provided through the financial institution and at its sole discretion, and the presence of multi-factor authentication shouldn't automatically preclude an inability to download PDF bills. Multi-Factor Authentication - To the extent that its requirement is becoming more common - and PDF bills becoming unavailable for download seem like two separate issues.

I look forward to your response.

Thank you,

Quicken Jared

DexterB

Excellent point - thanks Jared! And actually, I do get the paper-free billing option for as many of my billers that offer it. (Some even offer incentives to do this.) So, I do get a number of PDFs e-mailed to me.

As I thought about this some more, I came up with a suggestion:
Is it possible to manually attach a downloaded or e-mailed bill (in PDF format) to the entry in Bill Manager? If not, would Quicken consider this as a new feature?
That way, Bill Manager users could manually attach the latest bill PDF to billers we have to manage manually.

DexterB

I also have a second suggestion. Bill Manager only contains 2 payment options: Quick Pay & Check Pay.
May I suggest a third option: "Web Pay" (or "Website Pay").

I have made it a point to enter the website URL for as many of my billers as I can, regardless of whether I can still pay them via Quick Pay. I make sure that I enter the URL for their page where customers can make payments. I pay some billers that way every month, without using Bill Manager (e.g. Chase).

Having this option in Bill Manager would make it seamless, especially if you can also access the PDF.

Quicken Jared

DexterB said:

I also have a second suggestion. Bill Manager only contains 2 payment options: Quick Pay & Check Pay.
May I suggest a third option: "Web Pay" (or "Website Pay").

I have made it a point to enter the website URL for as many of my billers as I can, regardless of whether I can still pay them via Quick Pay. I make sure that I enter the URL for their page where customers can make payments. I pay some billers that way every month, without using Bill Manager (e.g. Chase).

Having this option in Bill Manager would make it seamless, especially if you can also access the PDF.

Hello @DexterB,

Thanks so much for discussing this matter with us in greater detail.

Are you thinking of attaching the email PDF when adding the Bill Reminder, for example? If so, this, unfortunately, is not a feature that is currently provided, but you can add your vote to the Idea thread linked here in order to add your voice to the group of users requesting this feature by clicking on the gray, 'box' icon with the numbers inside and the upward-facing arrow, featured below.

And on that subject, I want to draw your attention to the process of submitting Idea posts. You can create an Idea post using the instructions provided in this link, here. Essentially, users are able to suggest a feature that they would like to see implemented in the software, and it is then voted on by the members of the Quicken Community. If the proposal is popular enough, it is then handed off to the development team for consideration.

Thank you,

Quicken Jared

Rich Ard

Is this 2-factor authentication hindering the ability to update bills as well, I have olny 1 bill and specifically asks for the information for 2-factor auth to continuing to update by bills (LendingClub), the other accounts use it and are constantly throwing the "Will continue connecting in the background for 1 to 2 days".

UKR

About your Bill Manager issues

My 2cents' worth, if I may:

I don't use Bill Pay services or Bill Manager at all, neither the one from Quicken nor the one offered by my bank. Since time "B.I." (before the Internet was invented) I have set up almost all of my recurring payments as Direct Debit, PAC Draft, Autopay, APS, whatever the biller calls it. Using the biller's website, I authorized the biller to electronically debit each payment directly from my checking or credit card account on due date. Now I can sit back, relax and wait for it to happen. Instead of having to arm-wrestle Bill Manager into making payment on time I let the biller do all the work for me.

When I get notified of a new statement having arrived, usually by email, all I have to do in Quicken is to run a regular scheduled reminder to record the transaction. Haven't missed a payment in many years.

I recommend you do the same instead of fighting the Bill Manager windmill, missing payments and getting slapped with penalty interest rates or late fees.

As to adding PDF files to transactions in Quicken ...
I'd advise against it. All it does is bloat your Quicken data file. And there is a suspected limit to the total number of attachments which the zip-file system used by your Quicken data file can handle. Exceed the limit and things will go poof!