How to Cancel Check Pay Transaction

QknUserSince1993

I'd like to cancel a Check Pay check which has already been sent to a vendor. The vendor was unable to cash it at its local bank and has destroyed the Check Pay check. I paid them with a traditional check. Now, in my bank register, the Check Pay transaction remains and Quicken will not let me VOID the transaction without first canceling it. However, Quicken does not let me cancel the transaction because the check has been processed.

So, the transaction cannot be voided or canceled. Banks allow checks to be canceled at anytime. Why doesn't Check Pay have this function?

Quicken Kristina

Hello @QknUserSince1993,

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. To force Quicken to delete the transaction, you can follow the steps from this article on deleting online payments and payees:

1. Open the account register with the payment.
2. Right click to select the payment you want to delete.
3. Choose Delete from the list.
4. At the Delete Current Transaction prompt, click Yes.
5. Quicken displays a message, "This is an online payment that is due on [payment date]. To delete it, choose Edit menu > Transaction > Cancel Payment, then send it from the Online Center." (The exact wording of this message may vary).
6. When you see the message described above, press and hold the CTRL key and click OK.
7. Quicken displays a message, "Do you want to delete the transaction anyway?" (The exact wording of this message may vary). Hold CTRL and click Yes.
8. If Quicken displays subsequent messages regarding this same payment, hold CTRL and click Yes (or OK).

If the above process fails to remove the transaction:

1. Open the account register to select the payment.
2. Hold CTRL + Shift and click the Delete button on that transaction.
3. Keep CTRL + Shift held down while responding to all messages.

I hope this helps!

UKR

Hi, @QknUserSince1993,
have you been able to get rid of the Check Pay transaction using the instructions above?

I sure would like to know why "The vendor was unable to cash it at its local bank". What was wrong with the check?

Because a Check Pay transaction is considered an Online Transaction in Quicken, it's non-cancellable the moment it was sent off to the Check Pay server.
Voiding it after the fact should, IMHO, have been possible, given the fact that the check was not immediately subtracted from your bank account.
Worst case, one can always create a "Vendor Name - check not cashed" transaction to offset the check amount and get the balance back in line.

QknUserSince1993

Thanks. The response is helpful to "delete" a transaction. However, the check will not be canceled that way. A canceled check means that it cannot be presented to a bank to be cashed in the future.

It's disappointing that Quicken is offering a bank-like service with Check Pay without the services offered by a bank. Previously, I was able to use Quicken to direct my bank to pay a check on my behalf, but Quicken and/or the bank decided to discontinue that service. That's why I have started to use Check Pay.

Thanks for your help.

QWinUser

@QknUserSince1993 - Another option, if this ever happens again, is to have the payee return the check to you and then you can deposit the check back into the account it was drawn. You would endorse the check with "Not used for purpose intended".

UKR

Please remember: The current incarnation of the Check Pay service does not take money out of your checking account.
All they do is print a paper check drawn on your bank checking account and mail it.
Only when the check was cashed and clears your bank account will money have changed hands.
So, if a Check Pay paper check was returned to you or otherwise could not be cashed, you're not out any money.
Other than reversing the check transaction in Quicken, to put the money back into your Quicken register, there's nothing else you need to do.

But, if you're worried that "there's a check out there in the wild" which might be cashed, by mistake or fraud, you can always instruct the bank to put a "Stop Payment" order into their system. They'll gladly do so, for a small fee.

Randy 415

First, I love the "secret menu" way of deleting this transaction. But I understand where the OP is coming from. They want a record that a check was sent and then "Cancelled, destroyed, etc". Hence the "VOID" terminology used in banking systems. With "Delete", there is no record. So it appears one would have to manually enter a "Void" transaction to track it. Alternately, enter a transaction, and VOID it. I have, on rare occasion, had to do that. With "Void", the amount is set to zero, so sometimes, I will enter the original amount into the Memo column. After all, in the old days, when you had a voided check, you still knew what the original total amount was.