CIBC and Quicken - Transaction vs. Posted Date (leads to balance mismatch)

FA_Qkn

Hello,

After agonizing for several weeks now, I am starting to understand an issue that has been plaguing me in the form of a mismatch between my online banking balance and my Quickbooks register, which is infuriating.

I bank with CIBC and use "One Step Update" to download transactions directly from my bank to Quicken. As a matter of being clear, here are places where you might pull transaction information from and the dates shown:

-CIBC Website (this shows the *transaction date*)
-CIBC Excel Download (this shows the *posted date*)
-CIBC Statements (this shows the *posted AND transaction date*)
-Quicken Register (as discussed below, this shows the *transaction date* under both the "Date" and "Posting Date" in the register columns, even though based on what I've read on these forums it purports to show the posting date)

Currently, my VISA balance is -$1,134.45. This is what shows up on the CIBC website, and this is also that shows up on my Quicken register as the "Online Balance". GREAT :) this is what we want. However, my "Ending Balance" in Quickbooks is -$1,456.93 (don't worry - my opening balance on the VISA in Quicken is correct, I have checked). This is BAD :( - because I only use "One Step Update" and do not use any manual transactions, my ending balance and online balance should always be the same. There are a few things that are causing this to happen:

(i) rarely, a transaction doesn't download to Quicken at all. This is understandable, but sure is a pain, but when Quicken has missed a transaction I will add it in manually (it's only happened once and I will concede that perhaps I deleted or something). However, I wish Quicken would use the actual posted transaction date in the register, because then I could download my CIBC Excel data and very quickly identify issues. Instead, everything is wonky and out of order and sometimes doesn't show up in the right month. Sure, I can use the CIBC website which shows the same date as Quicken, but this is a pain compared to a spreadsheet; and
(ii) often, Quicken has not actually pulled the most recent data from my bank even after updating "One Step Update". For instance, right now there is a $246.40 debit on my VISA that has been *posted* (only recently, probably this morning), but it is not showing up in the Quicken register yet.

The consequences is that I can't reliably use Quicken to do my personal financial planning, which is the whole point of the tool. Further, because Quicken isn't using the posted date for transactions (or, at the very least, does not appear to have downloaded them correctly into the "Posting Date" column of the register), it's a total pain to figure out where any balance mismatches are coming from.

I hope this might help other people facing a similar issue. If someone from Quicken reads this (or someone knowledgeable comes across this) is and:
(i) knows how to get Quicken to use posted transaction dates (rather than transaction dates) for the "Posting Date" column in the register when downloading transactions from CIBC; or
(ii) believes I am engaging in user error of some sort

Please let me know!

Chris_QPW

Some what you described doesn't line up with what I know about how Quicken works, or you are switching terminology.

Given that you are not manually entering transactions, and you aren't using Quicken Mobile/Web (which currently has a bug in it) the ONLY date that Quicken has is the posting date from the download data, and therefore it is used for both of the dates in Quicken's register.  Example:


Note he blank posting dates in this account is because for a time I didn't download this account and these entries were just to bring it back in line with balance at the time (this is an account that gets very little use).

I notice that CIBC only uses Express Web Connect.  This makes pretty much impossible to find out exactly what where a given field comes from on the financial institution.  In other words, Express Web Connect is an "agreement" between Intuit (Quicken Inc's aggregator) and the financial institution on how to download the data.  Since we as users have no idea what that agreement is we don't know if it is Intuit's "scripts" are pulling data from this field or that on the website or if the financial institution is handing them a data file that they convert to what Quicken needs.  But it is supposed to be the posting date, and not the transaction date.

As for Express Web Connect messing up, well it has been doing that especially for some financial institutions since it was created.  But to address the now downloading of transactions that have posted.  There are two possible causes that I can think of.  First off, Express Web Connect isn't billed as "real time".  It is entirely possible that even if the financial institution's website has a transaction marked as posted, they haven't made it available to Intuit, or have rules that say that Intuit can't pick up the data more than once a day at a certain time.  The other possibility is that at times I have seen Express Web Connect get "stuck" and in general using the Reset Account on Account Details -> Online Services tab will force it to do the download.  A good indication of this last problem is if the update date at the top of the register is older than your last update.