Comenity Bank AAA Visa - Bill Manager Availability?

DexterB

Our Comenity Bank AAA Visa credit cards are correctly set up in Quicken, and we can successfully download transactions into Quicken. We used "AAA Advantage Visa CC" to successfully set up the downloads.

According to Account Details > Online Services, the Connection Method is "Express Web Connect" -- no plus sign or other characters.

Theoretically, should I (and others) be able to set Comenity up as a Biller in Bill Manager, so we can pay our bill via Quick Pay? When I search on the word "Comenity", the website returned is for "Bread Financial", whom I believe owns Comenty. I also tried "AAA Advantage Visa CC", which I used to set up the account in Quicken, but it is not recognized.

Any idea, thoughts? Thank you!

Frankx

Hi @DexterB

To answer your question, which was "Theoretically, should I (and others) be able to set Comenity up as a Biller in Bill Manager, so we can pay our bill via Quick Pay?" the answer is a clear - Yes.

However, there is no "connection" between being able to download transactions from one's credit card that uses the "Express Web Connect" method and making a payment to that same entity - bill payment through a Quicken "account" (like a bank account) only works for Direct Connect accounts - (or indirectly through Quicken's outside service provider).  And the problem with making payments using Quick Pay, and perhaps other payment methods, is exacerbated by all the names that these mega-credit card outfits use, for their different clients (I think Comenity has close to 100 credit cards that it maintains/services for outside companies - mostly retailers).

So, my best advice would be to contact Comenity directly and have them provide you with the name that you need to use for payment purposes.

Let me know if you have any followups.

Frankx

UKR

To avoid missed or late payments I recommend you do not use Quicken Bill Manager to initiate a payment transaction. Instead logon directly to the biller (the credit card website) and authorize them to direct debit (aka PAC Draft, Autopay, APS, etc.) the next and all future payments from your checking account. The biller will do all the work for you and make an electronic debit on the due date and you don't have to worry about being late.

In Quicken just record a scheduled reminder which does not execute as an online payment into your account register on or before the Due Date and before you download transactions from the bank or credit card containing the payment transaction. That will allow Quicken to match your register transaction to the downloaded data and not cause any further issues.

Frankx

Hi @DexterB

To answer your question, which was "Theoretically, should I (and others) be able to set Comenity up as a Biller in Bill Manager, so we can pay our bill via Quick Pay?" the answer is a clear - Yes.

However, there is no "connection" between being able to download transactions from one's credit card that uses the "Express Web Connect" method and making a payment to that same entity - bill payment through a Quicken "account" (like a bank account) only works for Direct Connect accounts - (or indirectly through Quicken's outside service provider).  And the problem with making payments using Quick Pay, and perhaps other payment methods, is exacerbated by all the names that these mega-credit card outfits use, for their different clients (I think Comenity has close to 100 credit cards that it maintains/services for outside companies - mostly retailers).

So, my best advice would be to contact Comenity directly and have them provide you with the name that you need to use for payment purposes.

Let me know if you have any followups.

Frankx

UKR

To avoid missed or late payments I recommend you do not use Quicken Bill Manager to initiate a payment transaction. Instead logon directly to the biller (the credit card website) and authorize them to direct debit (aka PAC Draft, Autopay, APS, etc.) the next and all future payments from your checking account. The biller will do all the work for you and make an electronic debit on the due date and you don't have to worry about being late.

In Quicken just record a scheduled reminder which does not execute as an online payment into your account register on or before the Due Date and before you download transactions from the bank or credit card containing the payment transaction. That will allow Quicken to match your register transaction to the downloaded data and not cause any further issues.

JDT

Why can't Comenity Bank get this set up so that I can pay my bill using Quicken Online Bill Pay? For years, I was able to pay my AAA Visa through BOA with no problems and now cannot. I will not allow Comenity or any other bank to draft my bank account. I am now considering cancelling my family membership with AAA that I've had for 45 years as well as my account with Comenity unless this is fixed.

DexterB

> @Frankx said:
> Hi @DexterB
>
> To answer your question, which was "Theoretically, should I (and others) be able to set Comenity up as a Biller in Bill Manager, so we can pay our bill via Quick Pay?" the answer is a clear - Yes.
>
> However, there is no "connection" between being able to download transactions from one's credit card that uses the "Express Web Connect" method and making a payment to that same entity - bill payment through a Quicken "account" (like a bank account) only works for Direct Connect accounts - (or indirectly through Quicken's outside service provider).  And the problem with making payments using Quick Pay, and perhaps other payment methods, is exacerbated by all the names that these mega-credit card outfits use, for their different clients (I think Comenity has close to 100 credit cards that it maintains/services for outside companies - mostly retailers).
>
> So, my best advice would be to contact Comenity directly and have them provide you with the name that you need to use for payment purposes.
>
> Let me know if you have any followups.
>
> Frankx


Thank you, Frank! I may do just that. But to be honest, I believe that I will probably be moving away from Quicken's Bill Manager application over the next couple of months. I cannot use Quick Pay with the majority of my biller now, because these companies are using connection systems that Quicken doesn't support (i.e. Express Web Connect +, etc.) --- or they have additional security features, like e-mailing you a code to use, etc.

Unfortunately, this also prevents me from being able to download monthly statements, which is a nice feature, regardless of how I choose to actually pay the bill. (I like having the statements at my fingertips when I'm using Quicken.)

I am paying more bills on the billers' websites now than I'm paying thru Quicken.

Dexter

DexterB

> @UKR said:
> To avoid missed or late payments I recommend
> you do not use Quicken Bill Manager to initiate a payment transaction. Instead logon directly to the biller (the credit card website) and authorize them to direct debit
> (aka PAC Draft, Autopay, APS, etc.) the next and all future payments from your
> checking account. The biller will do all the work for you and
> make an electronic debit on the due date and you don't have to worry about
> being late.
>
> In Quicken just record a scheduled reminder which does not execute as an
> online payment into your account register on or before the Due Date and before
> you download transactions from the bank or credit card containing the payment
> transaction. That will allow Quicken to match your register transaction to the
> downloaded data and not cause any further issues.

This is pretty much what I am doing now for a majority of my billers. Exceptions - ones that are set up for AutoPay. and I only do that for billers that offer an incentive to do so, (i.e. Verizon) or ones that it's more convenient.)

Dexter

UKR

DexterB said:

Unfortunately, this also prevents me from being able to download monthly statements, which is a nice feature, regardless of how I choose to actually pay the bill. (I like having the statements at my fingertips when I'm using Quicken.)

I am paying more bills on the billers' websites now than I'm paying thru Quicken.

Dexter

On the biller's website there should be a function to send you an email when a new statement has become available. Once that's been enabled, click the link in the email and you'll be able to find and download the statement PDF on the biller's website. That's how I get all my notifications.

DexterB

Thank you! This is what I have been doing. Question: One of the nicer features of the Bill Manager feature is that (when it is working correctly) is that you have as "history" of sorts of your statements - i.e. the PDFs that are downloaded stay in Bill Manager. If I opt to stop using Bill Manager, is there a way to attach a statement PDF to a payment record?

Frankx

Hi again @DexterB

Yes, you can attach a pdf to any transaction in Quicken (Windows).  Just open up the account where the payment transaction is located and click on the payee field for that transaction > look right below the "Date" field and you'll see a "paper clip" icon > click on that icon and in the "Transaction Attachments" pop-up window - simply click "Add" > then "add file" > and then locate the pdf file on your computer and click "Open" > then click "Done".

Let me know how that goes or if you have any followups.

Frankx