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

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....

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.

spud

Am trying to reconcile my May bank statement and Quicken insists I include an outstanding check or it won't balance!

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.