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Quicken Update 7.3.1 Breaking Auto-Categorization

user1997

After updating to the recent 7.3.1, my auto-categorization suddenly quit working. When I download new transactions, the category is empty and has the default placeholder, Uncategorized.

I tried restoring from an old backup from July, when the auto-categorization was definitely working, and then downloaded all of my bank transactions, and the categories did not auto-categorize. Even though the file is from an older backup, the Quicken version is still 7.3.1 which is running the file. So, I think there is something definitely related to the recent update affecting the auto-categorization behavior.

Is anyone else having this same issue, please share?

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Comments

jacobs

Check your Settings > Connected Service to see if the checkbox for "Automatically improve the quality of downloaded payee name and categories" is checked. Sometimes after updates, the Preferences file inexplicably undergoes some changes. Restoring a backup file doesn't restore an old Preferences file, so a messed up Preferences file won't be fixed by restoring a backup. If that box isn't checked, check it and see if you start getting auto-categorization again.

Also: do you have any saved QuickFill rules, and if so, are those being ignored when transactions are downloaded?

user1997

Thank you for this recommendation. I had to reset my Quicken Cloud service earlier and re-setup all of my bank accounts to download, and now the setting for "Automatically improve the quality of downloaded payee name and categories" is indeed available and checked. I don't know, obviously, if this was checked the last few days, after the update, and leading to the lack of auto-categorization.

I will see if new transactions now start auto-categorizing again. The tricky part as well as there were no QuickFill rules saved within the Payees and Rules this morning, so I don't know if the update changed the setting above, as well as wiped out my QuickFill rules, or the auto-categorization was auto-populating from something else in the past, as I've never had this issue.

You know a lot more about the workings of Quicken than I do, but I've had other issues in the past with version updates, one of which wiped out my ability to download transactions and I was never able to get it working again in the file I had with 20 years of data, so I had to start over.

Thanks again and I'll see what the behavior is like going forward.

jacobs

I'm fortunate to be able to say I've never had a Quicken update lose or corrupt my data file (knock on wood). But I take a safe, although more labor intensive, approach of (a) not enabling Sync to Quicken Cloud, so my data exists only on my local file, and (b) entering most of my transactions manually rather than downloading them. I found I spent almost as much time tweaking Payee names, categories, entering splits, etc. when I downloaded as I do if I enter them exactly the way I want manually. But I'm not broadly recommending that approach; it only works if you have a modest amount of monthly transactions in your accounts. I do recommend leaving Sync turned off, and resetting your Quickn Cloud file, if you aren't actively using the mobile app or web interface; I've read too many tales of woe with mangled data due to syncing problems between desktop and Cloud data. (Yes, Quicken should do better to make this work flawlessly, but I'd note it's complicated because downloads can happen both at the server level in the Cloud file and in the desktop file, local edits can be supplanted by a new download to the Cloud file if the timing is just so, and it is just genuinely complex to keep everything perfectly synced.)

Anyway… in terms of auto-categorization, it happens at two levels. One is server-based categorization, which occurs as your downloaded transactions come through Quicken's servers. Quicken applies automatic categories based on rules it has built based on millions of aggregated user transactions (e.g. artificial intelligence before AI was a thing!). This is part of what is controlled by the ""Automatically improve the quality of downloaded payee name and categories" setting; in theory, if the box is unchecked, Quicken shouldn't be doing auto-categorizing… although I've read scattered reports that it persists for some users even if the box is unchecked. I'm guessing that's because they get auto-categorized in a user's Quicken Cloud database without it knowing the setting in the user's local preferences — but that's just a guess about where the problem might lie.

The other categorization is if you have local QuickFill rules, which you can see in Window > Payees & Rules > QuickFill rules. These should always take precedence over any general server-based auto-categorization. So if the automatic categorization ms-categorizes one of your transactions, you could create a QuickFill rule for that Payee with the category you want, and that should subsequently be applied for that Payee. This isn't something you have to do as some big project all at once; simply as you notice a transaction come in uncategorized or mis-categorized, if it's a Payee that you will generally assign to one category, create a rule for it.

Note that in Settings > Register, you can turn on or off whether you want Quicken to automatically create QuickFill rules for every transaction as you go along. If you're manually entering a transaction, or editing the existing category of a transaction, there's a pop-up checkmark which appears above the Category field, where you can override the global setting (e.g. if you have the global setting not not create QuickFill rules, then you can check the pop-up box when editing a transaction where you want it to create a QuickFill rule; conversely, if you have the setting turned on to create QuickFill rules automatically, you can uncheck the pop-up checkbox on a transaction is you don't want it to create a QuickFill rule).

It can get a little complicated if you intentionally or inadvertently create multiple QuickFill rules for the same Payee. You can edit one of the rules and check the box to "Use this as the default rule if more than one rule exists"; otherwise, Quicken will apply the rule most recently used. It may take you some experimentation with QuickFill rules to evolve an approach that best meets your needs.

user1997

Like you, I am also particular with my Quicken file and only use my main computer, a laptop, to keep my Quicken file and download new transactions. I also turned off the sync feature, as I don't want the mess that will inevitably occur by attempting to utilize this feature and have it work perfectly or even mostly correctly. I do miss having one file, with 26 years of data, but as mentioned that was corrupted on some level, and I am not good with not having downloadable transactions.

I adjusted the register settings to create new rules when I change them, and I'll be more deliberate about creating and adjusting the category rules manually, even though this seems crazy to me to have to do with modern software. That was the suggestion, when I called earlier about my rules all disappearing after the recent update, and I thought that the software should at least remember my new category settings by payee and perpetuate that going forward. Your suggestion, on the register settings, should lead to this behavior though.

Thanks again and I think I should be back on track from here, albeit with all new category rules!