Canadian bank accounts still appear in US dollars

Question

When I set up the program it showed my savings and checking accounts in US dollars, even though everything is in Canadian dollars. When I reported the problem they said this was a know problem and they were working on a solution. Was one ever found and how do I correct it. Thank you

oxcart · Accepted Answer

The bank the was the Bank of Nova Scotia

Quicken Anja · Accepted Answer

Thank you for following up.

This is a known issue with Scotiabank (Bank of Nova Scotia) that has been escalated internally, though we do not have an ETA on resolution. While the investigation remains ongoing, please refer to this Community Alert for any and all available updates.

We apologize for any inconvenience in the meantime! Thank you.

grimmt1957 · Accepted Answer

I had this this issue for over a year and somehow it resolved itself (for me) early in February.

Did you just add the Scotia Bank account and noticed the issue, or was this account added months ago and you are just now reporting the issue.

When this was an issue for me, I needed to recreate the account by _only_ using imports of .qfx downloads from the bank.   Using the manual method to create and update the account via imports created and maintained a proper CAD currency setting.   Others have also reported this works for them too.

In early February, I managed to reactivate Express Web Connect (EWC, the automated update method) and it retained the CAD currency setting.   It's been fine ever since and I update my 4 Scotia accounts daily.    2FA also seems to work correctly with EWC for me too -  it used to ask multiple times for confirmation (when the USD currency issue occurred) and now it only asks once when updating.

grimmt1957 · Accepted Answer

Have you recently tried creating a test file and adding the scotia accounts again, to see if it now uses CAD currency?
 I had the same issue with my savings and checking - and my line of credit and credit cards were also OK.

The account will not revert back to CAD currency, I had to recreate the account from scratch.   Once recreated it maintained the CAD currency.

Please note that Quicken still reports this as an issue, so although this worked for me, I suspect I may be a lucky one-off.

grimmt1957 · Accepted Answer

Make a backup of your current file, just in case.  File→Copy or Backup File.

Create a new Quicken file: File → New Quicken File.   Give it a name that portrays it as being a testScotia file so you don't get it confused with your original file.

This will create a new blank quicken environment.   You can always get back to your original Quicken file by selecting it when opening Quicken or after you open Quicken and using File → Open Quicken File and selecting your original file.

With the new blank quicken test file, use add account to add your Scotia Bank accounts.

If it retains the CAD currency with valid transactions added, you can be somewhat confident the problem can also be resolved in your original Quicken file.

At this point it gets a little more complicated if you want to save your historical data (i.e. categories, transfers between accounts, etc.).  What you will need to do depends on the complexity of your Quicken environment.   Typically, it includes creating a new Scotia Bank account and transferring historical transactions across (if the transactions have aged out for download from Scotia Bank directly) - if there are inter-account transfers, it can get a bit onerous to get your balances to work out again.

The community can help with suggestions once (or if) you get here.

grimmt1957 · Accepted Answer

oxcart:

If your test file created your Scotia Bank accounts correctly with all of the Scotia Bank transactions you are interested in, then you can perform the same procedure with your original file.

QUESTION: Are your manual transactions in a non Scotia Bank account?

If the manual transactions are in one of the Scotia Bank accounts (mixed with downloaded transactions), then you definitely want to use the deactivate (rather than delete) option below.

IMPORTANT:

When you switch back to your original file make sure you perform another backup - better to have too many copies, than not enough.

Once backed up:

1) Delete your Scotia Bank accounts  (optionally, you can deactivate the accounts to retain old transactions) using the Online Services tab of Account Details.

2) Use Add Accounts and recreate your Scotia Bank accounts.  If you deactivated the accounts in step 1, ensure you create new accounts and DO NOT link back to the previous accounts.   The Scotia Bank accounts should be created properly with the correct CAD currency.

3) If the manual transactions are in a Scotia Bank account:

a) Open the old deactivated account and filter on your manual transactions (hopefully, there is commonality that you can filter on).

b) Select all the manual transactions, then right click "Copy transactions" and then select the new Scotia Bank account and right click "Paste transactions"  into the register.

c) Once all done with the manual transaction copy, you can delete or close the old accounts.   Up to you - you don't want the downloaded and manual transactions (which would be duplicates) to be included in your reporting or budget calculations.

You may also need to do some reconciliation of accounts if there were inter-account transfers included in the transactions.  Some account transfers may show up as "Unknown Account" - you will need to do some bulk edits to fix these so they specify the correct account.   Doing one account at a time my make this easier - depending on the complexity of your accounts.

If you run into issues, you can always restore your backed up original file.

Arctic Hare · Accepted Answer

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20350865#Comment_20350865

This is not correct. The [CURDEF] code that is contained in the EWC dataset will change the accounts currency to match. The Quicken account's currency setting is always overriden by whatever currency is specified in the [CURDEF] included in the last EWC download. That's how the currency got switched in the first place - Scotia Bank transmitted an incorrect [CURDEF].

Also note that the account in question could be recreated within the working file as a new account - as an alternative to a test file. Then, if that works, the transactions from the "old" account can be moved to the "new" account once it is proven that the new account works. I can explain this in more detail if required. I might try a new test file just to confirm that the currency works OK in that brand new (test) environment, but after that I could take the new account in old file approach.

grimmt1957 · Accepted Answer

You are correct, that was most likely the issue in the first place (either that or Intuit was missinterpretting the code in the interface).

However, my statement is based on my experience that the problem has been fixed, EWC no longer switches the Scotia Bank accounts to USD.   oxcart has also confirmed that EWC is no longer switching his accounts to USD.

Perhaps you have an issue with "… will not revert …", I guess I should have said "… did not revert …", to reflect it was just my current experience.  You are correct that Quicken will allow EWC to change the currency if it receives a wrong [CURDEF], even if transactions have been posted in another currency.   Oddly though - EWC did not change it back to CAD once whatever was wrong, was fixed (again, in my experience).