Quicken is automatically creating transfers when I don't have TRANSFER DETECTION turned on

Choppy

- SORRY ACCIDENTALLY POSTED IN WRONG DISCUSSION AND CAN'T FIND DELETE BUTTON.

Quicken is automatically creating transfers when downloading transactions when I don't have TRANSFER DETECTION turned on. Anyone else seeing this issue? I had to turn TRANSFER DETECTION on and set it to CONFIRM BEFORE ENTERING IN REGISTER so I would not have so much clean up.

Jim_Harman

Do you have Quicken set to automatically accept downloaded transactions? You may want to turn that off, so that you can review and if necesary edit each transaction before accepting it.

Also the transfers may be being entered via Memorized Payees. When a Payee, potentially after renaming, matches one that is on the Memorized Payee List, it applies the Category and other info from that list. Go to Tools > Memorized Payee list and edit or delete any that you do not want. You should also turn off the option to automatically memorize new Payees at Edit > Preferences > Data Entry and Quickfill

Choppy

I don't have AUTO ACCEPT on, but let me check the memorized payee to see if that is there. thx

Choppy

There were a couple but not sure why they were even in there. I don't have AUTOMATICALLY MEMORIZE NEW PAYEE on.

Chris_QPW

I have not had this happen to me.

The only possibilities I can think of is if you are using Sync to Mobile/Web and that is messing up things, or as @Jim_Harman stated, you have a memorized payee with the category set to be a transfer.

Let me state something about how transfer matching works. In reality I believe that it really only applies to when the user is using automatic transaction entry mode.

The matching only works after the "second side" of the transfer has been entered into the register.

Let's imagine that you aren't using automatic transaction entry mode and your transasctions go through the Downloaded Transactions tab. You download, and the transactions for two different registers download and one of them in each is a transfer between the two accounts.

In the first account you go through each transaction, and you get to the one that is a transfer and click on it in the Downloaded Transactions tab and it shows you the transaction in the register. Given no matching payee the category should be blank. At this point you should be entering the category as [Other Account], and then accepting that into the register.

If this is done, then when you get to that transfer in the other account, the transaction should show up in the Downloaded Transactions tab as a match to the one you just entered. And all you need to do is accept that match.

At no time in this has "automatic transfer detection" been used. For automatic transaction mode to work when using the Downloaded Transactions tab, you would have had to accept both sides of that transfer into the register with an empty category. Automatic transfer detection doesn't kick in until after both transactions are in the register.

Now compare that to a person using automatic transaction entry mode. If both sides of the transfer are downloading into two registers, they are now subject to automatic transfer detection. But I will also note that say your transfer is between to different financial instituiton and there is a lag between when each is recorded/downloaded. Then the first one is going to go into the register without a category, and should be caught when you review your transactions, and fixed so that when the transaction downloads in the other register it is matching an existing transaction.

Also on the proper setup of memorized payees and pre-entering transfers. Quicken's memorized payee matching is global, that means that say one financial institution uses the payee "transfer" (or you have a renaming rule that converts what they send to "transfer" and you memorize the payee to have a category of [Savings]. If you first download that payee in your checking account then this might be right, but if you download that transactions in your savings account first you will have just created a balance adjustment in the Savings account (transfer from Savings to Savings).

For this reason any transfer payee that you memorize should be recorded without a category and locked. So that you or transfer matching can actually fix it when it comes in.

BUT OVERALL one has to understand that Quicken is just guessing that the two transactions are a transfer. So, the best results might be to do as a lot of the SuperUsers suggest and pre-enter transfers so that they are just matched when they are downloaded.

Choppy

Thanks, alot to digest there and still taking it in. I should state that I do pre-enter all of my scheduled monthly transfers to other accounts and I pre-enter them in both accounts (ie saving money for future car, or paying another account where a bill get from etc). I even pre-categorizing them but lately, Quicken can't even match to them and says "oh must be a transfer". Note: ive been pre-entering and categorizing for years with no issues. Thanks again.

Chris_QPW

I'm a bit confused. In your original post I thought you said that even though you have "confirm on" that it was creating automatic transfers. In your last comment it sounds like it is prompting you. If it is prompting you, but just for the wrong "match" that is a different problem than ignoring the confirm setting.

And as I explained, if you are pre-entering transactions and they aren't matching, well that is yet another kind of problem.

Choppy

Also, there was only one or 2 random MEMORIZE PAYEE that were categorized at XFERs. But I was getting alot more than the 3 that were shown in the MEM list

Choppy

> @Chris_QPW said:
> I'm a bit confused. In your original post I thought you said that even though you have "confirm on" that it was creating automatic transfers. In your last comment it sounds like it is prompting you. If it is prompting you, but just for the wrong "match" that is a different problem than ignoring the confirm setting.
>
> And as I explained, if you are pre-entering transactions and they aren't matching, well that is yet another kind of problem.

Sorry for the confusion, I was stating how I had to "fix" the issue.

Chris_QPW

Oh, OK, that makes sense. First off let's clarify something, are your using automatic transaction entry mode where the transactions go directly into the register?

Choppy

Once i set up the CONFIRM XFER setting, it's been working fine (not categorizing as XFER) but I would rather not have to use that method. Quicken can be so buggy, it's frustrating. Thanks again for all the help, much appreciated.

Chris_QPW

Well, Quicken doesn't really have the information it needs to be sure about a transfer, so it is always going to be a guess, it can't improve on that. But if you are pre-entering transactions automatic transfer detection shouldn't even come into the picture provided that they are exact matches, as in the amounts have to be exactly the same an in about the same date range (I think it is within about 30 days).

One could also turn off automatic transfer detection completely. In my case my most common transfers are payments for the credit cards. I have them setup as reminders because that gives my a way to predict cash flow, but almost never are they exactly the right amount because of returns. So, I end up with a reminder entered into the register, and when the transfer downnloads I get another new transaction. And so I change the amount on the pre-entered transaction and then do a manual match to combine the two transactions.

If I wasn't using a reminder/pre-entered transaction I probably would never encounter a case where automatic transaction entry mode kicks in because I download every day, and the two transactions hit the two registers on different days. As such I would be getting a blank category on the first transaction, which while reviewing I would set to [Other Account] and then when the second one downloads that would exactly match.

I do leave transfer detection on though because it does work fine for transfers between accounts at the same financial institution. This is just me being lazy. If I was pre-entering the transfers I would probably just turn it off "just in case".

Every once in a while I do get prompted for "non tranfer guesses". How often that is going to happen really depends on how many transactions you do that are the same amount (and appear in the opposite amount in another account). And probably it depends on how frequently you download. The longer you go in between the more likely there will be two offsetting transactions in two different registers.

Choppy

> @Chris_QPW said:
> Oh, OK, that makes sense. First off let's clarify something, are your using automatic transaction entry mode where the transactions go directly into the register?

No, AUTO TRANSACTION ENTRY was never on, I have always reviewed first.

Chris_QPW

Then I can see how you would ever encounter using transfer detection unless you are using "Accept All" (without going through all the transactions and making sure that the have the right categories assign). When using the Downloaded Transactions tab and accepting each transaction into the register, fixing any categories/transfers accounts as you go, you should never setup the conditions for transfer detection. Accepting all transfers in the second account should be matching existing transactions that were created when the accepting the transaction into the first account.

Like I said before the only place that I see transfer detection has any purpose would be with automatic transaction entry mode. Without it, I see no reason why not to just turn off automatic transfer completely off (even though it shouldn't be activated in the first place).