How Quicken Deals with transfers

nhmartens

I’m still having some issues understanding how Quicken works with downloaded transactions from my bank. However, I think I can actually describe my last two issues intelligently, this time.

First issue. Let me describe at a high level. You might not even have to look at the details to give me an explanation. Each month I transfer $150 from my Primary Savings account to my Vacation
Fund. When I import the transactions from the bank every thing looks good. Except, I don’t like what appears in the Payee column. So, on my Primary account I change the Payee to ‘Vacation’. I blank out the category. I leave the other columns alone. Now to the Vacation Fund. I change the Payee to ‘From Prime, blank out the category and leave the other fields alone. Here’s what happens. When I change the row in the Vacation Fund, Quicken deletes the transaction in the Primary Savings account. Why does it do that? Could this be related to the fact that this is a transfer between these two accounts? If so, I still don’t understand why changing the name on one side of the transfer should cause the other side to be deleted. Is there a way that I can prevent this?

For this issue I have copies of the rows in question from the two accounts
immediately after import and then after modifications.

Second issue. I also transfer funds from my Primary Savings account to a House Fund each month. This time, Quicken failed to import a transaction yet I can see it in the QFX file.

Here’s what the screen looks like after importing but prior to accepting:

You can clearly see there is only one transaction. But in the QFX file there is another.

Here’s my suspicion but I can’t explain it. The Quicken screen says it only processes ‘cleared’ transactions. I compared the code between and for both transactions. I can’t determine how Quicken identifies an ‘uncleared’ transaction. I don’t even know if this is the reason Quicken chose to ignore the second transaction.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Edited to Remove PDF File to Protect User's Privacy and Security]

Chris_QPW

It really would have been better if you had just copied the text into the post, but I will just repeat some of it so it is easier to have the context.

First issue. Let me describe at a high level. You might not even have to
look at the details to give me an explanation.
Each month I transfer $150 from my Primary Savings account to my Vacation
Fund.
When I import the transactions from the bank every thing looks good. Except,
I don’t like what appears in the Payee column.
So, on my Primary account I change the Payee to ‘Vacation’. I blank out the
category. I leave the other columns alone.
Now to the Vacation Fund. I change the Payee to ‘From Prime, blank out the
category and leave the other fields alone.
Here’s what happens. When I change the row in the Vacation Fund, Quicken
deletes the transaction in the Primary Savings account. Why does it do that?
Could this be related to the fact that this is a transfer between these two
accounts? If so, I still don’t understand why changing the name on one side
of the transfer should cause the other side to be deleted. Is there a way
that I can prevent this?

To solve the first problem, use a Manual Bill reminder to pre-enter the transfer into the register just before the downloaded transaction. Ctrl+J:

Note selecting an account in the Transfers section changes the category to [That Account] this is the syntax for creating a linked transfer between two accounts. You might also want change this setting:

Now with that transaction pre-entered into the two accounts (transfer creates transaction in both accounts) when you download the transactions Quicken will match it to this one that is already in the register. It will keep the payee from the existing transaction, and the category will be correct (don't blank it out).

On the second problem the first thing you need to do is delete that PDF in your post!

It has your account number in it!

I will look at the OFX data and give you my opinion on that in a bit, but wanted to state this first.

When posting QFX data blank out the:

<INTU.USERID>

And the:

<ACCTID>

Chris_QPW

By any chance did you import before and then delete the transaction that is now missing?

I imported your QFX file with no problems and got both transactions:

Quicken records the unique Ids for each transaction and will not import them again if it sees that unique Id on a transaction. It does this to prevent duplicates. If you change the <FITID> (say add an A at the end) it should import into Quicken.

nhmartens

Regarding the transfers. I think I've solved my problem (sort of) using a different method. First, I don't need Quicken to manage inter account transfers. I don't have that many in the first place and when I'm downloading transactions I'll get both sides anyway, just not in the same QFX file (I'm working with my bank to fix that). Instead, I was looking a little deeper into options under 'edit/preferences/transfer detection'. I unchecked the option to 'scan downloaded transactions for possible transfers'. I can now download my transactions and I can even change the names as I described above without the other part of the transfer getting deleted. It seems to work for this issue but like most things, I might have inadvertently caused another issue. Can you think of any gotchas to this solution that may have escaped my?

Regarding the missing uploaded transaction. I think you hit the nail on the head. I couldn't remember if I had deleted that transaction but I did another download this month. However, when I saw the transaction in the holding area for recent downloads I thought something was wrong so I deleted them (BEFORE I accepted them). Further investigation showed I was imagining things so I tried to re-import the same QFX file. NONE of the transactions showed up. If this was because I deleted the previous transactions I hope someone can explain to me WHY this behavior is accepted? It seems wrong to me. And why doesn't Quicken tell me I'm attempting to import previously deleted transactions? But, to make it really make sense to me I would hope to be given one or both of these options: 1) view/recover deleted transactions, 2) accept the transactions again and have them replace the deleted ones. It appears now I'll have to manually enter all of those transactions. Fortunately, there aren't that many, this time.

Thanks for your help.

NotACPA

Is the "Vacation Fund" an account? Or a Savings Goal? Or what?

nhmartens

The Prime, Vacation, Car and House funds are all simple accounts but I use them to fund my various activities. Does the type of account make a difference?

Thanks.