Bank of America - Pending Transactions included in OnLine Balance - but not downloaded QMac

michael1212

Bank of America includes "Pending Transactions" in the Online balance when you update. But...the "Pending Transactions" themselves are not downloaded into the register (only cleared transactions) Thus...in you have any pending transactions, your online balance will never equal your Quicken Balance (making accurate Reconciliation of the account impossible). In contacting Quicken Support, they confirmed that "Pending Transactions" should not be included in the OnLine Balance sent by the bank. Does anyone have a view on this? In order to reconcile, I have to wait until I have no pending transactions (in which case everything will match, but its rare that I don't have any pending), or, log into Bank of America Bill Pay, write down the pending transactions and then subtract that amount from the Quicken balance to make sure everything balances. I don't recall having to do this in the past, so I am thinking this is a change in the protocol that BofA is using to communicate with Quicken. Put simply, should pending transactions be included or not included in the Online balance sent from the bank? Thanks in advance for any help on this....

Quicken Kristina

Hello All,

Thank you for taking the time to visit the Community to report this issue, though we apologize that you are experiencing this.

We have forwarded this issue to the proper channels to have this further investigated. In the meantime, we request that you please navigate to Help > Report a problem and submit a problem report with log files attached, a screenshot showing the pending transactions on the financial institution website, and (if you are willing) a sanitized copy of your data file in order to contribute to the investigation. Please also include in the description the name of each affected account along with the dates of the pending transactions in each affected account.

While you will not receive a response through this submission, these reports will help our teams in further investigating the issue. The more problem reports we receive, the better.

We apologize for any inconvenience!

Thank you.   

(CTP-6922)

PattiG

I've been having the same problem with BofA downloads/reconciliation for a week or so. I'm afraid I don't have a solution except to check the known pending transactions as cleared in the register and then it will reconcile—not ideal, of course. Hopefully someone in Quicken will see this post and address the problem.

michael1212

Thanks Patti....Thought I was losing it when I noticed this was happening. Thanks for confirming that this is just not my misunderstanding. I will submit a problem report using the Help menu in Quicken. Quicken doesn't have a very effective way [Removed-Speculation]. Perhaps if you do the same that would be at least two problem reports.

Quicken Kristina

Hello @michael1212 and @PattiG,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community and telling us about this issue.  I'm sorry to hear you're running into this problem. Quicken displays the information provided by the financial institution. From what you are describing, it sounds like the financial institution is including the pending transactions in the online balance they're sending to us, but the transactions themselves don't download into Quicken until they post. Have you spoken with Bank of America about this issue (you would generally want to ask for a supervisor or higher tier of tech support since they are the ones most knowledgable about support for 3rd party applications like Quicken)?

Depending on how active the account is, there are a couple work arounds when reconciling the account:

1. Wait for all pending transactions to post, then reconcile.
2. Reconcile using the Statement Balance option so that you are not comparing to the Online Balance.
   

Thank you.

PattiG

I just spoke with BofA online help folks and was told it's a Quicken problem. They have not made any changes to their software or procedures and so they say it's not them?? I think it's a Quicken issue. Quicken may "display the information provided by the financial institution" but HOW that info is used or manipulated within the program is what's at issue. I'm going to try to submit a report through my register and see what happens. BTW--this is happening in my Adv Checking account, but my credit card & savings don't regularly have pending transactions, so I'm not sure if there is a problem with them.

PattiG

@Quicken Kristina, I have spoken with BofA (above post) and also sent a report to Quicken but have had no help or resolution yet. BofA acts as if I am the only one with this problem & that it's a Quicken issue and Quicken gives me "work arounds". None of these are the answer I'm looking for. I hope Quicken staff are working on this and if needed they will talk with BofA to get you both on the same page. Thank you.

Quicken Kristina

Hello All,

Thank you for taking the time to visit the Community to report this issue, though we apologize that you are experiencing this.

We have forwarded this issue to the proper channels to have this further investigated. In the meantime, we request that you please navigate to Help > Report a problem and submit a problem report with log files attached, a screenshot showing the pending transactions on the financial institution website, and (if you are willing) a sanitized copy of your data file in order to contribute to the investigation. Please also include in the description the name of each affected account along with the dates of the pending transactions in each affected account.

While you will not receive a response through this submission, these reports will help our teams in further investigating the issue. The more problem reports we receive, the better.

We apologize for any inconvenience!

Thank you.   

(CTP-6922)

michael1212

I have placed a detailed problem report (along with numerous screen shots) of this issue using the "report a problem" function in Quicken. I don't know if this is a Quicken Issue or a Bank of America issue but I suspect, either way, Quicken has the recourses to work with Bank of America to sort it out. I understand that reporting a problem this goes to development and not to expect an answer. That said, its inexplicable to me why someone at Quicken can't seem to take ownership of this issue and at least confirm one way or the other - is this a Quicken issue or a issue with Bank of America (and the other banks experiencing this issue). Come on Quicken - have someone take ownership of this issue - work it to resolution and, at the very least, communicate with the numerous customers having this issue.

PattiG

@michael11212, Quicken has communicated with me about this issue and providing them with more info/detail. So my take is that they are working to solve the problem but it is going slower than many would like, probably including them. Since the issue is apparently with other banks as well as BofA, I expect Q is very concerned about this.

michael1212

Thanks Patti….I appreciate the update and trust (based on your comments) that Quicken is working to resolve the issue. I wish they could figure out a way to be more transparent in their efforts to resolve the issue. But again, thanks for the update. It is appreciated. Regards, Michael

Burt - Q17 H&B

I think the issue here is what the FI reports that Quicken calls the "Online Balance". BofA seems to report the "Available Balance" which takes into account transactions in a Pending or Processing state. This is nice to know if you are considering a transaction that might overdraw your account.
But, there is also a "Posted Transactions Balance" that ignores any Pending transactions. This balance is useful for comparing against your register's Current Balance. The solution might be if the FI's could report both the "Available Balance" and the "Posted Transactions Balance" and then have Quicken report both these balances. Then, you use the one most appropriate for your situation. This would require that the FI's report both of these balance and then Quicken could report both.

michael1212

Absolutely….this would be the best of all worlds. In this way, you could reconcile using the Posted Transactions Balance but check the Available Balance just to insure your account has sufficient funds etc. Hopefully Quicken Product Managers will take this excellent suggestion to improve the product.

Suz4Him

So glad others have had the same frustrating issue - well not glad. It is frustrating. I have several accounts, all very active and I must go online, MANUALLY enter the pending transactions then receoncile. HORRIBLE design. I understand the importance of knowing your available balance but not when you are reconciling cleared transactions.

Nuke

I sent the below/attached to Quicken. Did the CEO get it ????

The CEO sent a update (by email) to Quicken users on April 20 2023, where he spoke about a "reintroduction of the ability to see pending transactions when downloading from banks"

The help files, shows this ability in the preferences, except it does not really appear in the preferences.

Letter to CEO of Quicken.pdf

jacobs

@Nuke I don't think anyone here can tell you if CEO Eric Dunn read your letter. I don't know where/how you sent the letter, but he, like most company executives, have a team around him to read and (sometimes) reply to questions/comments from customers. The Quicken moderators on this site don't have direct access to the CEO to find out if he saw your letter.

In terms of the substance of the letter — Quicken's ability to handle pending transactions and pending account balances — I think all we know is that it remains a work in progress. The changes were pushed on Quicken by the financial services industry coalescing around a data exchange standard called FDX, which in turn has led various financial institutions to discontinue Quicken Direct Connect. Quicken first introduced a feature last year in Quicken Windows to allow users to see downloaded pending transactions, but they quickly pulled the feature because it wasn't providing accurate data due to the complexity of the way pending transactions are handled by different financial institutions. It seems clear their programming teams have been working on it but haven't yet gotten it handled correctly. (For what it's worth, Quicken Mac users haven't yet been offered this functionality, but face the same issues with seeing the mismatch between posted transactions and pending balances.)

Quicken's company culture is not to comment on work in progress, so there's no way for us as end users to know where they stand on resolving this — other than knowing they are aware of the issue and working on it. It's frustrating, but that's the reality.

Paul Barry

Glad to know I am not the only one. I have been pulling my hair out trying to figure out why, after doing so every day for more than 20 years, I suddenly can't reconcile my checking account. Very frustrating.

michael1212

So today, July 12th. Went to reconcile my BofA accounts and noticed, that for the first time in a long time, the Quicken Balance and the Online Balance were exactly the same. This could mean one of two things. 1) there were no pending transactions on the BofA side (a rare case) or 2) the issue has been resolved. In checking with BofA - there were, in fact, 2 pending transactions. So….this means that the issue, at least at this moment in time, has been resolved. That is to say, pending transactions at BofA were no longer included in the online balance, allowing for a successful reconciliation.

Has anyone else on this thread noticed that the same? Hoping that this is not just an anomaly and, in fact, it has been permanently resolved. Regards, Michael

kevindneus

Happy to hear that perhaps relief is on the way. But maybe just BofA?

Unfortunately, as of July 12, US Bank continues to have the pending trasaction/reconciliation problem

PattiG

I have been able to reconcile my BofA account for a week or so. Very happy about it and hope it's a permanent resolution.