Why is Invalid Instance Date error given when editing marking current instance transaction?

Question

Long time Quicken user.  This appears to be a bug and is very unintuitive.  I don't recall this working like this across 20 years.   Why is this happening?  Customer support said it's a feature or the way it works, but there's no explanation.  To me it's an ongoing annoyance.

I created a scheduled transaction to have me manually move money from one quicken account to another.   I missed the date due to vacation, but this also happens if I purposely decide to delay.

The transaction is now listed with the red clock reminder.  I then open up the transaction, where I can edit the amount and click Mark as Deposited but I can update the date later than the originally scheduled transaction.  If I enter today's date, which is beyond the original, then I get the Invalid Instance Date error.  I have to first Mark as Deposited and the reopen the entry to edit the date.  This doesn't make sense.

tcarr05 · Answer

Regarding how to duplicate the error, you can schedule a simple one-time bill 1 or 2 days in the past and then double-click on the entry and fill in the date and amount and then press Mark as Paid/Deposited to get the error.  I can set the date to one in the past and Quicken allows me to do that and change the amount, but I can't change the date past the original schedule unless I do what has been stated; ie, first Mark as Paid/Deposited and then edit the transaction.

What's unanswered is why can't we just change the date in all cases when we're first editing the current transaction and never see this error when marking as paid?  Is there something that Quicken is trying to prevent or is it a quirk or bug in the code that can be fixed?   Seems like a bug.  Also, if you don't mark it as paid (by using the context menu button underneath the row) you can change the date past the original schedule date and set the amount without getting an error by simply pressing the ENTER/RETURN key and then click Mark as Paid/Deposited elsewhere in the UI.

As a critique of this particular UI quirk that I've never liked as a software developer and user, as implemented the Mark as Paid/Deposited context button is really a double purpose button that means 'Mark as Completed and Edit the Completed Transaction' even though in most cases by pressing the Mark as Paid/Deposited I'm really done with the transaction after having finalized the date and amount, as the interface allows me to do.  Instead, as pointed out in some of the other comments, there's a hitch in the UI in that it now opens up the other fields for edit and I'm forced to press the extra ENTER/RETURN key in order to complete the transaction that I thought I had already completed.

When  this particular UI changed a few years ago I thought it was combining a little too much and was kind of violating the single responsibility principle.  At minimum I'd rather have seen Completed/Paid/Deposited as an editable field along with other data when the transaction row is being edited or better yet to simply mark it as paid/deposited when I click the ENTER/RETURN key on the transaction same as when I enter a manual transaction.  Once a currently due scheduled transaction has been edited, completed and  entered into the transactions what's the point of having it marked as past-due or needing to be marked as paid/deposited?  It's now an actual instance in the account after editing it.

Anyway, back to the original question.  Why aren't we allowed to change the date without an error, whereas we can do that if we press the Enter/Return key without clicking on Mark as Paid?  Seems like a bug that should be fixed.

jacobs · Answer

Perhaps I'm confused about why this presents a problem. You're trying to edit the next instance of a scheduled transaction to change the date and amount, and then mark it paid/deposited; why not just do the same steps in reverse: make it paid/deposited, then change the date and amount? It's the same amount of work.

I'm also unable to replicate the problem. I have a scheduled transaction for every two weeks. It contains a split which includes a transfer. If I double click on the next instance and change the date by a few days, Quicken accepts the change and saves the scheduled transaction instance. For me to try to replicate what you're experiencing :what is the frequency of your scheduled transaction? It looks like it might be monthly on the last day of the month? Are you trying to change the date until after the next scheduled instance? In my testing, I only get that dialog if I try to move the next instance to a date after the following instance.