Link existing manual account with newly downloaded transactions - how to handle dups ? (edit)

MCramer

I have an existing account (credit card) that I set up manually years ago. I am familiar with how to get things setup for "Online Services." However, when I link the account to my existing manual account, the initial sync brings in a ton of duplicate transactions. Is there any way to sync the manual account from a certain date moving forward?

splasher

No. The financial institution determines how far back the initial download goes. One way around it is to make a backup first for safety. Do the activation and accept the new transactions that are not duplicates. Put in a dummy transaction to mark the end of the "good" stuff.

Now, do an accept all of the rest of the downloaded transactions. Sort the register by "Order entered" (gear icon at upper right corner of register and select sorting) and the dummy transaction should separate the good from the dups. With the "dups" all in a bunch at the bottom of the register, select the range of transactions (using normal Windows range selection technique), right click on the selected range and select "Delete transaction(s)".

MCramer

The comment about "accept the new transactions that are not duplicates," here is my problem. Is there a way not to "sync" any duplicate transactions; how are you "accepting new transactions that are not duplicates?" I had tried what you mentioned about (bringing in the download and sorting) but still have several duplicates.

splasher

Quicken does its duplicate detection based on the FITID (Financial Institution Transaction ID) field which is unique. Your manual transactions do not have any thing in FITID (reference number in register)field, so all of your downloaded transactions pass the filter to not show them and are considered new.

NOTE: Quicken remembers which FITIDs it has downloaded into an account, so you can't delete them and get them redownloaded. Only by doing a restore of the data file, is that memory of FITIDs deleted of the recent downloads.

 "accept the new transactions that are not duplicates," means that you need to accept the transactions that are in the download that have happened since your last manual entries. Everything left then, can be deleted since you have already entered them manually.

Ps56k2

BTW - just a nit - the term "Sync" in the Quicken world relates to the Quicken Cloud & Mobile App / Web -
so… use either "download" or "link" in your discussion

… here is my problem. Is there a way not to "sync" any duplicate transactions…

MCramer

Thanks. However, either way, just seems to be a major project to start "downloading" transactions if you have had a manual setup for a while. I will just keep them as manual. I am not smart enough to figure this out. Again, thanks to all those who provided feedback.

Ps56k2

If you are moving from a manually entered account to downloading transactions (or even manually Importing) , there is no easy way for Quicken to eliminate dups -

SO…. if you have been using your manual account -
and are now moving into the online downloading,
you have to just see what "fields" you can see and use to sort and then delete as duplicates -
- sort by .. amounts - and delete the "dup" - could be a lot -
- are you manually Reconciling your account…. in other words do all the existing transactions have a "R" ??
that would be a simple sort - as all the incoming transactions would be "blank" - and could be deleted -
Any other fields that you always enter… like Memo or Tag or ?? - that could be used for the Sort ?

You just have to be a little creative to be able to sort and be able to tell which is a dup - and delete it -

MCramer

I will have to take a closer look. Before I even posted, I did sort via the "R" for the manually reconciled vs. newly downloaded (I tried sorting/filtering several different ways prior to coming here). However, each time, when I removed what I thought were all the just newly downloaded transactions, the balance was really out of whack, not even close to where it should be.

Only thing I can say at this point is thankfully I am familiar with backing up and restoring :)

Ps56k2

if the Balance is wacked - try looking at the Opening Balance -
sometimes Quicken will randomly modify that entry…
our suggestion is to go thru all your accounts
and copy the Opening Balance Amount into the Memo field - for future safe keeping -

MCramer

I'll be damned, that is exactly what happened. The opening balance from, many, many years ago was altered. Once I put that back to what it should have been ($0), worked like a charm. Thank you very much.