Duplicate transactions downloaded from Bank of America

Question

When I download transactions from my various BoA accounts, I get duplicates of transactions already downloaded.  This seems to be a recent problem and it is vert time consuming to try to find duplicate transactions especially since I have may active accounts that are downloaded.  Am I doing something wrong, di I have a filter turned off or what?

mshiggins · Answer

The key to Quicken's ability to distinguish duplicate downloaded transactions is a field in every downloaded transaction known as the "Downloaded ID".

That Downloaded ID must be unique for each real-world transaction downloaded from a specific real-world account (generally, it is the financial institution that is responsible for creating those Downloaded ID's). Quicken retains that ID with each downloaded transaction. When Quicken processes each newly downloaded transaction, it compares its Downloaded ID to the Downloaded ID of all transactions in the same Quicken account: if the downloaded transaction has an ID equal to that of an existing transaction in that Quicken account register, the user will never see the duplicate downloaded transaction.

But if the same real-world transaction is downloaded multiple times and each time it has a different Downloaded ID, there is no way for Quicken to tell it is a duplicate.

For downloading to Quicken, there are four "Connection Methods" (methods used for downloading to Quicken):

1.) Web Connect (WC)

2.) Direct Connect (DC)

3.) Express Web Connect (EWC)

4.) Express Web Connect+ (EWC+)

[Web Connect requires the user to logon to their real-world account and initiate the download from there; the other 3 connection methods employ One Step Update.]

In the past, BofA offered 3 Connection Methods: DC, WC and EWC. Both DC and WC assigned the same Downloaded ID to the same downloaded transaction.

BofA no longer offers DC or EWC downloads - currently BofA offers only EWC+ and WC. And ECC+ and WC assign different Downloaded ID's to the same downloaded transaction!

The upshot is: if a user downloads transactions from BofA using EWC+ and WC into the same Quicken account for the same (or an overlapping) time period, there are going to be duplicate downloaded transactions that Quicken cannot detect.

To confirm the reported problem, have Quicken display the Downloaded ID column in the BofA account register (click the "Register Columns" icon directly above the register vertical scroll bar and put a checkmark beside "Downloaded ID" (the ID is only visible for downloaded transactions that have been "Accepted").

The only options I see are:

- do not use WC and EWC+ for the same Quicken account

- when initiating a WC download, select a date range that does not overlap any previously downloaded transactions

- manually delete the downloaded duplicates (either in the Downloaded Transactions tab or in the register after Accepting)

-JP

NotACPA · Answer

@kcprofessor, for any 1 account, how many txn are you expecting?  Would it be feasible, for a smaller download, to save the downloaded file and look inside it to see how many txn are being sent?

This would help to identify the culprit as BofA vs Q.

kcprofessor · Answer

Christina:  I am running Quicken Home, Business & Rental Property Version R52.20 Build 27.1.52.20, which is the most current.  The issue occurs both when I use One-Step Update or download directly from the Bank of America website.  It doesn't seem to make any difference.  After I do either I have to find all the duplicate transactions, some of which may be from several weeks earlier.