Why is it so difficult to import statements into Quicken?

krohrbacker88

This isn't a new program; it's been around for a long time yet the only way I can import my bank statements (from an account that I can't link to live) is to pay $20/mo to a "seperate" company to convert my files? What kind of **** is this, it's not worth the money you pay for it if it's going to be this difficult.

Jon

Quicken has to have some kind of voluntary participation from the banks in order to import financial information, and they have no power to force banks to participate if they don't want to.

I think it's highly unlikely that Quicken will ever have the ability to import data directly from a PDF statement. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any competing program that supports that either.

If the ability to import transactions is that important to you, I suggest you move your money to a bank that has better Quicken support. I don't think there's any better solution available to you.

jacobs

You didn't state why you can't link to the bank account to download transactions, or download a QFX file from the bank to import into Quicken. I'd simply note that there is a financial industry standard for downloading transactions in that way — but there is no such standard for downloading and parsing PDF statements. As Jon said, expecting Quicken to somehow do this when banks don't support it is an unrealistic expectation.

RalphC

Simply said, it's not at all difficult to import statements into Quicken. If you can't download a statement from your bank, Quicken has a scan import routine for your paper statements.

jacobs

@RalphC I think the original poster was referring to downloading a statement AND parsing it into usable transaction data, not just storing a PDF.

Ps56k2

@krohrbacker88 - it is extremely difficult to setup a system to scan thousands of separate and different “images” to look for and transcribe transactions. Even TurboTax has consistently missed the Ally Bank end of year 1099 - because the 1099 format changed …

And as mentioned - Quicken is a service business and financial institutions must setup a contract with Quicken for a certain level of downloading support.