A *Possible Fix for EWC+ Problems
Good Day, All,
I hope this post will help to resolve the issues that some of you have been having with downloads via Express Web Connect+. I see many posts from users frustrated with Discover, and Chase, which were my pain points - perhaps this will help with other institutions as well. Quicken support has been attentive, and thorough, although up to now quite ineffective at providing a lasting resolution. I have been terse, and indignant, having put up with this issue for far too long, in fact my last rant was not published (and I can't really blame the community mods). To their credit, I will now admit that the problem seems to have been at least partly self-inflicted, and if they will take the time to read this info and do some testing then perhaps the product can be improved. Now, to the crux of the biscuit:
If you have a transaction in your register with the payee as "Opening Balance" and a non-zero amount recorded back into the same account, it may be the source of your problem - as it was with me. I encountered this with both Discover and Chase. I've been using credit cards from these banks for over 20 years, and way back when I started recording them in Quicken I probably changed this first transaction from a zero entry, to the then-current balance on the card. I noticed that each time I tried to download transactions with EWC+, this "Opening Balance" would be altered by exactly the amount of the newest transaction I was trying to download. Mindlessly, I would repeatedly fix this amount to correct the ending balance in my register, and then subsequent downloads would seemingly fail - because as far as the bank was concerned, I'd already downloaded everything. It didn't occur to me that I was causing this, because the behavior had never been seen in all the years I've used .QFX downloads.
The fix was simple, and I'd like to report that downloads for these two banks have been trouble-free ever since. Change your "Opening Balance" transaction. Alter the payee to something bogus if you have to, I entered "My Favorite Restaurant". Now, change the category to a valid entry, naturally I chose "Dining". And of course, leave the non-zero amount of this entry untouched. Do not try to re-create an "Opening Balance" entry in your register. Once you've changed your "Opening Balance" transaction entry, de-authorize your EWC+. Now, I suggest you wait until you're sure you have transactions waiting to be downloaded from your financial institution, before you re-authorize the connection. This way you'll immediately be sure that the data is being added to Quicken correctly, and if so then it should continue to work consitently from that point.
Fingers crossed that this works for you. In spite of my ire regarding this problem, I'd like to thank Quicken support for being timely, professional, and sincere, and encourage them to work with the info in this post to validate the problem and my solution.