Savings to Checking transfers are not synching correctly

OTTBMom

This has been an ongoing problem for me since about February of 2023.

Every month, right at the beginning of the month, I transfer money from my savings account to my checking account to cover that month's bills. Both accounts are with the same institution, I've been doing this for several years, and until now it's been working fine.

Now, I keep getting a mismatch where either the transfer out of Savings does not get downloaded, or the transfer into Checking does not. And in trying to fix it, I've ended up with duplicate transactions! Right now, I have about $4400 too much in Checking and about the same too little in Savings, because I have a duplicate transfer going way back to April. And if I delete the dupe, I end up worse off. I also tried just voiding the dupe, which worked until I had to reset my account (because it stopped downloading txns completely), and now it's back to being off on both sides.

I'm sure there is a fix for this, because you have a fix for everything. (Which is why I'm here, because usually you can fix my problems.)

I have restored from backup all the way to February 15, 2023 to see if I could just fix the problem and move on, but I must not have done that correctly because it ended up way worse. A lot of transactions did not download at all!

I can provide whatever information you need to help me fix this.

Thanks so much!

NotACPA

What bank?

What's the connection method to that bank? (do TOOLS, Account List … and look in the TRANSACTION DOWNLOAD column for this info)

Are you initiating the transfer in Q? Or just recording the transfer?

OTTBMom

It's the Georgias Own Credit Union, and both checking and savings use Express Web Connect.

I update the accounts via regular download from Quicken, when I update all my accounts. And as I said, until a few months ago, it seemed to handle the transfer fine.

UKR

For best results manually enter transfer transactions into your register BEFORE you download transactions from the bank which contain the transfer confirmations. For recurring transfers use scheduled reminders and enter them a day or two before the due date.

Be sure to use distinct Payee Names for each transfer / credit card payment to avoid confusing Quicken - memorized payee entries.

That takes the guesswork out of the download process. Because a correctly entered transfer transaction already exists in your account registers, the download process should just match the downloaded transfer transaction to the existing one in both accounts.

OTTBMom

Thanks for the suggestion, UKR. I will try that, but I have found in the past that when I add transfers manually, I end up with duplicates. Still, it's worth a try, and maybe the problem for me was that I was not specific enough in naming, etc. Certainly worth trying! I will post here whether or not it works -- might be a couple of weeks until another transfer.

UKR

Are you automatically accepting downloaded transactions into your registers?

If you are relying on Quicken to "automagically" fill your account registers from downloaded transactions, you may run into problems. Despite all efforts by the Quicken programmers, the "Autopilot" (that's my name for the part of the Quicken program which processes downloaded transactions and converts them into new register transactions) is not infallible. For that process to work 100% of the time one would need a crystal ball because the information downloaded from the banks often is just too terse and cryptic.

You should, at least for a while, turn off the "automatically accept downloaded transactions into registers" setting to gain better control over what is downloaded and what to do with it. Click on and review each downloaded transaction, make changes if necessary (e.g., to get a payee name = "Starbucks" instead of "POS TRANS 070119 STARBU", "POS TRANS 070219 STARBU", "POS TRANS 070319 STARBU" or to assign a category) before you click to accept each transaction.

Any changes you make to downloaded Payee Names are remembered in Renaming Rules.

Any other changes you make (add/change Category or Memo text) are remembered in the Memorized Payee List.

Next time the same transaction for this Payee comes along, Quicken should remember and give you a better new register transaction.
Paper checks you write should be recorded in Quicken as you write the check (and BEFORE you download transactions which might contain the cleared check). That gives you a register transaction with correct check number, payee name and category. No matter what information is downloaded from the bank, you already have a correct register transaction which the downloaded data cannot mess up.

In case you have issues with transfer transactions not being generated correctly:

For best results manually enter transfer transactions into your register BEFORE you download transactions from the bank which contain the transfer confirmations. For recurring transfers use scheduled reminders and enter them a day or two before the due date.

Be sure to use distinct Payee Names for each transfer / credit card payment to avoid confusing Quicken - memorized payee entries.

That takes the guesswork out of the Autopilot's process. Because a correctly entered transfer transaction already exists in your account registers, the Autopilot should just match the downloaded transfer transaction to the existing one in both accounts.

Where are the "Auto-accept downloaded transaction" settings?

There are two places where this is controlled in Quicken for Windows:
- Globally, for all accounts, in Edit / Preferences / Downloaded Transactions
- For each account individually, the global setting can be overridden from the Edit Account Details screen, Online Services Tab. Look for blue text "Automatic Entry is: ON / OFF". Click the text to change the setting.

OTTBMom

Thanks again. Lots of good info here. I'll see if it works!

OTTBMom

Still having problems. Ugh! This never used to happen, and I've used Quicken since the Dark Ages!

Now it's my checking account and my credit card account. I pay my cc in full each month, from my checking account. The txn for May has suddenly decided it's not going to be connected to my checking account (after a month of being just fine), so now my credit card account is off by 1300 dollars, and if I try to connect it to my checking account I end up off by that amount in my checking account!

Honestly, I'm about ready to give up on Quicken. If I have to pre-enter every transaction for every account, then why would I need Quicken?

UKR

Change the payment transaction in your Checking account to become a transfer to your credit card account: Category = [name of CC account in brackets]
This will create a linked copy of this transaction in your CC account with Category = [name of checking account in brackets]

You may now have a duplicate deposit transaction in your CC account, as a result of what was downloaded. This transaction most likely will not be categorized correctly. Delete it.

To avoid this problem, I still recommend you record transfer transactions like your credit card payments into your register BEFORE you download transactions from the bank containing these transfers. Quicken will match the downloaded data to the register and not create a problem.

Insisting on the "Autopilot" in Quicken to do everything right for you, automagically, is like relying on a certain car manufacturer's Autopilot: sooner or later it will drive you straight into the ditch.