Erroneous data and problems when adding a new bank account

Randy Haber

Windows 10 Pro; event on July 14, 2023, US Bank (no error msg)

I am Randy Haber, an experienced 20 year user of Quicken, I added one new account to many others at US Bank. The add account function of Quicken identified the new account, suggested to add it while keeping the other accounts linked as before. Perfect. When executed, the new account was added properly, but many erroneous other things occurred.

1. a second "main" account was added with duplicated transactions selected from 2022 and 2023.
2. the account number for an unrelated bank was actually changed to US Bank with an erroneous bank account number... very odd.
3. a transfer of funds from my main account was duplicated in one of my credit card accounts with a different bank... very odd.
4. Four of my closed accounts with zero balances received 4 to 12 duplicated transactions from 2002-23.
5. All of my US Bank accounts were duplicated in my online UFB Direct Axos account but without money... just data.

I only survived because I'm familiar with Quicken, but my trust in Quicken's accuracy is shaken. This is a devasting event for most people. I will send this to the Quicken community. I need a response indicating what Quicken will do about this. Thank you.

Quicken Kristina

Hello @Randy Haber,

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. Based on what you describe, it sounds like when adding the new account, some of the existing accounts were linked to incorrect accounts or added as new.

There are a couple options to clean it up.

1. If it's a big mess that would take a lot of work to straighten out, then the simplest way to correct it is to restore a recent backup from before the issue happened. In the newly restored file, you would go through the process to add the new account again, being careful to ensure everything on the Add/Link screen is correct (if there are a lot of accounts, sometimes you have to scroll down to review all of them).
2. If the mess isn't too bad and its mostly just accounts connecting to the wrong names in Quicken, then you would want to backup your file, deactivate the incorrectly linked accounts as well as delete the accounts that got added as new when they should have linked to existing, then go to Tools>Add Account and follow the prompts to get your accounts reconnected. Pay careful attention on the Add/Link screen to make sure that Quicken is seeing the correct Action and the correct Nickname in Quicken for each account to connect to.
   

If you need to reconnect multiple financial institutions, you would need to go through the Add Account process for each financial institution.

I hope this helps!

Randy Haber

I will deactivate as you suggest. If I go back to a previous version, then I will have to add the new bank account again, and the problem will repeat, right? This created the problem in the first place. I found that Bank of America, Amer Express, and Capital 1 accounts were all changed to US Bank accounts in the Tools/Account page. Really??? I'm afraid to add any new account to my current list. Is this being fixed? Randy

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

Usually, what causes the problem you encountered is when you're on the Add/Link page, if Quicken sees the wrong nicknames to link accounts to, and you hit the Next button without correcting it, then you can end up with your accounts suddenly linked to incorrect accounts in Quicken. Prior to adding an account, it's a good idea to backup your file. Go to Tools>Add Account and follow the prompts. When you get to the Add/Link screen, it's important to carefully check to make sure Quicken is seeing the correct information so that you know it is linking up correctly, and if it is wrong, make sure to correct it before clicking Next.

The Account column is the account name as it comes in from the financial institution. Nickname in Quicken is the account name in Quicken that it will be linked to or added as (or what Quicken thinks its already connected to, if the Action shows as "Don't add to Quicken"). If Quicken is seeing an incorrect account to link to, you can click the Action dropdown, select Link to existing, and it should give you a list of available Nicknames in Quicken to link the account to. (Note: if it shows "Don't add to Quicken" and there is no dropdown, that means Quicken thinks the account is already connected; if you need to change what its connected to, you would need to deactivate the account, then re-add it.)

I hope this helps!

QWinUser

@Quicken Kristina - there is an issue I discovered with EWC+ on my own accounts that can easily cause a mismatch of online links with an FI using EWC+.

I have accounts with Amex that changed to EWC earlier this year. When I went to link some of my Amex account with the new EWC+ process, one of my accounts wanted to link to my Optum HSA account.

As you can see, the "Optum HSA-Cash" is very faint and easily missed. Luckily I caught it before I finished linking my accounts. This mismatch issue seems to only affect accounts using EWC+