Half-matched reminders

as2qkn

A transfer between accounts (such as a payment of a credit card from a checking account) that has a transfer reminder often shows up days apart causing the predicted account balances of both accounts to be wildly wrong for a couple of days. When the amount is paid to the credit card a half-matched transaction against the transfer reminder should take place indicating that half of the reminder is satisfied. A few days later when the amount posts in the checking account the second half of the transfer reminder would be satisfied completing the reminder. In this way the predicted account balances for each account would be accurate over the days it takes to complete the transaction.

Now multiply this by many transfers and you can see how beneficial it would be to keep predicted account balances accurate.

Chris_QPW

Quicken would have no way to know how long it is going to take for the other side of a transfer would take to complete. What's more Quicken's transfers are "linked", as such there is only one date for both sides of the transaction.

And in the case you stated I would argue that the behavior as it exists right now is the better one.

Let me go "old school". If I wrote a check to pay off my credit card, it may take days for the check to clear the checking account, but it is always considered the best practice to assume that amount is no longer in the checking account so that you don't try to spend it on something else and overdraw your account.

This is no different than the fact that one should consider the "money gone" out of the checking account as soon as the payment goes through on the credit card account.

And even before "protected balances" existed the "uncleared/cleared" status is exactly how this was done in a check book.

You actually don't want an "accurate balance" trying to match what the financial institution (checking account) knows because "you know more" than the financial institution of the checking account does. And that should be what the protect balances take into account.

The only situation where I think this idea has some merit is the opposite. Say you are transferring in cash from one account to another and it takes a few days. When you record it in the account that it is withdrawn from as a transfer, it will show up in Quicken's other account on the same day when it really won't be there yet. This is a case were removing the "uncleared" transactions out of the protected balances would be good, but I think would be pretty hard for Quicken to manage. In the cases where I'm transferring a large amount from one account to another and it is going to take a long time and I care about this, I will use another account to sort of hide it. As in, transfer to that account, and then have another transfer to the final account.

as2qkn

In the actual processing of the transaction I agree with how Quicken manages them. But that is not the problem I am facing. Inter-account transfers that have reminders associated with them are the problem because of the time it takes to convert (register) the reminder as a transaction. Once the second-half of the transfer is recognized Quicken matches the source with the destination correctly and removes the reminder that is associated with the transaction (or you can manually). However, during the period of time that the first half of the transaction is registered the reminder causes the future account balances to be incorrect until the second half of the transaction takes place. That is the problem.

I use the predicted or future values of my accounts to manage them. With the reminders those values are very accurate and help me flag future concerns. This works great except when the first half of a transaction takes place. Then the reminder causes the value of the first account to be incorrect as the value of the reminder is essentially counted twice: the actual value of the first-half of the transaction plus the value in the reminder. Again, it is not the actual (real) transaction that is the issue, it is how the reminder interacts with those transactions.

If I skip or delete the reminder it causes the account value of the first account to be accurate but then the future value of the second account is wrong: it is missing the value of the reminder.

For a single reminder this might not be a big deal. But with multiple reminders that cross accounts (e.g. transfers) this can cause problems.

Another way to think of this is that a transfer reminder is really two independent reminders, one for each account (in and out). I'm suggesting that transfer reminders properly manage these two implied reminders separately instead of trying to keep them as a single transfer reminder. This could be done on the reminder itself. If the system matches the reminder to the transaction then it can simply (for the active instance) convert it to a simple reminder for the second account. If the system does not match the reminder then a right-click option to convert it to a simple reminder instance for the second account could be an option. Or allow the transfer reminder to be split into two reminder instances and then let me skip the reminder instances as appropriate.

Either way, this would keep the future account values accurate.

Chris_QPW

I'm not really following what you are saying, if you are using a reminder for this (and you should be), it should be a transfer reminder (or a bill reminder with the category set to [Other Account] which is the same thing as a "transfer reminder").

With that as soon as the reminder goes into the account that amount is in both registers (with oppose signs). There shouldn't be any change in the amounts after that point. Downloading of the transactions should only result in the downloaded transaction matching the one that is already in that are in each account and setting the status to cleared from an uncleared status that it would have been when entered in by the reminder. Quicken doesn't "remove reminders", or transactions for that matter (when used properly) the transfer reminder should have been entered into the register before you downloaded that one it will match with. And then when matched with the existing transaction they are "merged together" into one transaction. Taking some information from the one entered into the register and other information like maybe the memo and the cleared status from the downloaded one. If you aren't entering the reminder into the register before the downloaded one that is a mistake. Quicken will sometimes suggest that a reminder might be the one you intended to use to merge with the downloaded one and ask you to if it should be entered or skipped, but that shouldn't be relied upon.

If you insist on having Quicken deal with them as two reminders then I suggest you do exactly that, don't use a linked transfer. Use two reminders one in each account with whatever categories make sense to you. Be sure to turn off automatic transfer detection though, since that will try to combine transactions like this into one linked transfer. Or if you truly want them to be linked up eventually enter the reminders without categories and then the automatic transfer detection should kick in once the second transaction is downloaded. But definitely make sure you have the "confirm" option on because Quicken's automatic transfer detection is only a guess based on the amounts and the approximate date.

UKR

My short answer to your question / problem is:
Use your scheduled reminder to record the payment in Quicken as a manual transfer transaction.
This way you have a valid register transaction (actually a linked pair of same) in both checking and credit card accounts. Record this transaction on or before the payment due date.
When the payment confirmations download in either of these accounts, Quicken will match the downloaded transaction to the existing register transaction and not create any additional problems.
Doesn't matter how many days it takes for the actual downloads to arrive. You have valid transactions in your register which can be used for balance forecasting.

as2qkn

"If you aren't entering the reminder into the register before the downloaded one that is a mistake."

That is precisely what I am doing (not entering the transfer reminder). It would seem there are "Quicken Best Practices" I should be following in this case. Have you a reference as to where these Best Practices might be so that I can review them?

Also, reminders that are entered create a date entry in both accounts that does not correspond to the downloaded transactions. How is that fixed as I want my accounts to reflect what really happened?

Jim_Harman

As far as I know, like many Quicken features, there are no published "Best Practices" on how to use Reminders. Part of the difficulty is that there are many common variations or use cases, such as

• Deposit, payment, or transfer
• Banking or investing account(s)
• Same amount or variable amount per period
• Payment initiated manually (using a check or bank's or biller's website or app), or automatically from inside Quicken, or automatically debited from your bank account or credit card.

In general I set the Reminder due date to the date the payment will be sent. I usually make this 5-7 days before a bill is actually due, and the "Remind me" date to the date I expect to know the amount due. Almost all of these are set so that the biller takes the amount due directly from my checking account or a credit card account. I accept the Reminder as soon as I know what the amount will be. Then when the actual transaction downloads, Quicken (usually) matches it to the transaction that is my register and I accept it, adjusting the payment date in the register if necessary.

For transactions that are the same amount each time, I have them paid automatically and set them to Auto Enter 3 days before the payment date.

Chris_QPW

Also, reminders that are entered create a date entry in both accounts that does not correspond to the downloaded transactions. How is that fixed as I want my accounts to reflect what really happened?

You are never going to get this to be "perfect". If one wants to do whole lot more work, they could get it closer, but I would argue that isn't even what people should be doing in most cases.

In a perfect world your transfer would have one date in one account and another in the other account. Quicken's transfers (linked transfers) don't allow for that, they both have the same date because they are treated as the same transaction.

The "simple" solution for that is two transactions (no linked transfer). But now you have just doubled the number of reminders/pre-entered transactions, and given up linked on linked transfers. Note the main advantage of a linked transfer is that if you are on one side of that transfer you can tell Quicken to take you to the other side/account of it.

But in accounting these two are both acceptable:

Linked transfer:

Checking account:

Credit card account:

Non linked transfer (just two transactions):

Credit card account:

In a "double book" system this is perfectly acceptable. The two transactions offset each other.

But from a practical sense this isn't really viable. First off, be sides the extra work of two verses one transaction and not being able to jump between the two sides of the transfer, there is the fact that you are guessing at when the transaction is going to hit the checking account. Get that wrong and you risk overdrawing the account.

By using a linked transfer in the credit card on the date that it is posted that means it will show as that amount not being in your checking account on that date, lowering the chance that you will think that you have more in that account that you can spend.

Like I said above the only situation where I think it is beneficial to not use a linked transfer directly to the other account would be if you are transferring money into your checking or savings account and you know it is going to take some days before it gets there. Because that would be the exact opposite of what happens with a credit card payment, it would show money in the "to account" sooner than it will get there. If this is a problem you can do either what I did above, or what more people would do is this:

Account where money is coming from:

Float account (temp account that you ignore for projecting the balance):

Final account to get the money: