Quicken Classic Windows: Express Connect Loans vs. Manual Loans
Quicken version R53.16, Windows 10.
I replaced a vehicle and financed the purchase. The credit union where I bank does allow Quicken users to link accounts in Quicken to accounts at the credit union. For loans, at least, I'm pretty sure the connection method was "Express Web Connect (Direct)" but anyway, having initially set up the loan manually (no online connection), I noticed the credit-union-linked version prevented register access. The manual version permitted register access and even permit me to split the opening balance to account for the taxes and registration, etc.
If someone would explain like I am five why I can't get register access with the linked (Express Web Connect) version, I would appreciate that.
Too, once the loan was manually set up, there was (apparently) no possibility of connecting it to the linked account at the credit union, either.
Best Answer
-
LIke you're 5 (?) … because I sad so, said Mr. Quicken.
More verbosely, because it was easier for them to program that way rather than accommodate the various ways the financial institutions might send transactions that might or might not compare with and balance with Quicken's more limited scope of interest rate schemes.
Many experienced Quicken users prefer and recommend the manual approach. The usual once-a-month transaction should not be a big deal to match with the car loan specific payments.
I believe you should be able to convert a manual setup to one linked to your credit union.
1
Answers
-
LIke you're 5 (?) … because I sad so, said Mr. Quicken.
More verbosely, because it was easier for them to program that way rather than accommodate the various ways the financial institutions might send transactions that might or might not compare with and balance with Quicken's more limited scope of interest rate schemes.
Many experienced Quicken users prefer and recommend the manual approach. The usual once-a-month transaction should not be a big deal to match with the car loan specific payments.
I believe you should be able to convert a manual setup to one linked to your credit union.
1 -
Learn something every day.
Regarding the ability to convert manual to linked, I'm not so sure about that. When I set up the car loan in Quicken there was yet nothing on the credit union side, and I figured it could be linked later. But after the account appeared on the institutional side, I wasn't able to find anything in the various menus that would allow "activation." So I opened a second loan account in Quicken and logged in to the credit union side. Though Quicken finds various loan accounts at the credit union, for none of them is the "link to an existing account in Quicken" option available. Possibly an artifact of their "no register access for you" approach? Whatever.
0 -
-
[Unless otherwise noted, the comments that follow pertain to Quicken for Windows. And they don't apply to HELOC loans downloaded to Quicken credit card accounts.]
I've never been able to figure out the attraction to downloading loan accounts. Only one (rare, I assume) set of circumstances offer the user any advantage (a small advantage at that) for downloading to a loan account, while the other circumstances suggest manual loans are superior in ease of use and useful information, or at the least, a break even.
The only conditions in which Quicken online-enabled loans provide a benefit (a benefit only of saving a small amount of effort) are: when the loan is a NON-traditional mortgage loan (simple interest auto loan, for example) AND the user does not wish to track the principal/interest amounts for the loan.
Users with traditional mortgage loans will lose functionality and/or time using online-enabled loans.
And those with non-traditional mortgage loans who want to track principal and interest for the life of the loan will gain nothing by enabling the loan account for downloading. They will still have to manually adjust each Quicken loan payment transaction to get the correct principal/interest split: when the loan payment transaction contains accurate splits, it's just as easy to have the loan payment transaction "principal" transferred to a manual loan account as it is to figure out something else to do with that principal amount.
Apparently Mac users can "see and manipulate" the loan account register for online-enabled loans. Which begs the question: why should one need to manipulate the loan register for an online enabled loan?
If Intuit/Quicken can't get the online-loan account balance correct, why employ an online-enabled loan at all?
As noted above; making sure that each Quicken loan payment transaction has the correct principal/interest split, and categorizing the principal amount as a transfer to a Quicken manual loan account, automatically "maintains" the Quicken loan account, while also tracking the loan principal and interest for the life of the loan.
[NOTE 1: It's an often repeated mistake that Quicken for Windows users can not view the contents of an online-enabled loan account. While they can't see the contents in the Quicken loan account "register" as they can see the contents of other account types, the contents of Quicken for Windows online-enabled accounts are easy to see: generally any Quicken report that can display individual non-investment transactions can display the contents of an online-enabled loan. The Banking > Transactions report works just fine, for example.]
[NOTE 2: There's not much to see in a Quicken for Windows online-enabled loan account: that account only contains ONE transaction, which is the loan account balance as of the most recent download - when the download contains a different (newer) balance, the online loan account is updated with the new amount. That loan account balance amount is also readily available elsewhere, such as the Account Bar or the Home Tab widget "Loan Summary".]
[NOTE 3: If a Quicken online-enabled loan account balance becomes unreliable, the existing Quicken loan account can be deleted and a new account created: that should effectively "manipulate" (correct) the online loan account balance. Since the old to-be-deleted online-enabled account never contained anything but a single loan balance transaction (which has now been determined to be wrong), deleting that account loses nothing.]
[NOTE 4: Quicken's built-in loan payment processing relies on having an accurate loan Payment Schedule. When every new Quicken manual loan account is created, Quicken computes a complete loan payment schedule - a schedule that is only accurate for traditional mortgage loans. Quicken computes an accurate loan payment schedule for traditional mortgage loans, but not for simple interests loans (because the interest on a simple interest loan payment can only be determined when the date the payment was credited to the loan by the lender is known ... info which Quicken does not have).]
Every Quicken-created loan payment transaction pulls its principal/interest split from the loan payment schedule created when the loan was first setup. This works fine for traditional mortgage loans whose loan payment principal/interest splits do not change for the life of the loan (even if a payment is late, the principal/interest split stays as determined when the loan was created ... the user just pays a late fee). But Quicken created simple interest loan payment transaction splits can basically never be accurate over the course of the loan.
Quicken for the Mac cannot compute an accurate loan payment schedule for a simple interest loan either: it's just not possible.]-JP
Quicken user since Q1999. Currently using QW2017.
Questions? Check out the Quicken Windows FAQ list0
