How do you link a transfer?
Originally, I tried to manually link transfers manually by setting a transaction category to the other account, but quicken doesn't automatically match or prompt me to match it to an existing transaction. Instead, it creates a new manual (pencil icon) transaction. This is effectively a duplicate transaction and therefore doesn't work.
When I called support, the agent said you cannot link them. Instead, she said you set the category to its own account name. For example, if the transaction is in "Checking Account A," then the category would be "[Checking Account A]." I found this a little odd, but the agent insisted, so I let it be. The explanation was along the lines of it's what you want it to be.
Continuing to setup Quicken, I noticed it was auto-categorizing some transfer transactions to different accounts. For example, if the transaction is in "Checking Account A," but quicken automatically categorized it as "[Savings Account Z]."
During the last two "Account updates," it prompted me with an "Is this a transfer?" pop-up (see screenshot below) — finally recognizing transfers and asking me to tag them. I thought to myself that there is something programmed into Quicken! Sadly, this only appeared on the new import and doesn't catch all transfers in the new transactions downloaded. So it exists, but I can't find out how to manually direct quicken to do this?
Therefore,
- How do I trigger this dialog more often or trigger it when correcting a downloaded transaction?
- Would having the category not properly pointing to the correct receiving or sending account be an issue down the line?
Currently using Quicken Business and Personal for Windows R53.16
Answers
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#1 You get that message when a transaction exists in one account with a regular (non-transfer) category and you download a transaction in a different account that Quicken suspects is the other half of a transfer and is suggesting that the two be connected.
What you are describing is that you entered the two transactions independently of each other manually (or by a reminder or download) and then want to after the fact pair them up as a transfer. That just isn't possible.
The thing to do is to only create one transaction, I always do it in the "sending" account and enter the proper "transfer" category and allow Quicken to automatically create the mating transaction in the proper account based on the category.
#2 Not exactly sure what you are asking, but not doing it correctly to start can always come back to bite you in the future.
-splasher using Q continuously since 1996
- Subscription Quicken - Win11 and QW2013 - Win11
-Questions? Check out the Quicken Windows FAQ list0 -
You were given the wrong information by Quicken Support.
The proper way to enter a transfer is the category of [Other Account]. As in, if I'm in "Account A" and want a transfer to "Account B" then I put [Account B] in the category for that transaction.
And there should be nothing that stops matching downloaded transactions to each side of this transaction. If they aren't matching and creating new transactions, then that should be investigated as to why not. One reason would be if the amounts aren't the same.
Note that if I'm in Account A and I enter a transaction and make the category [Account A] what I have just entered is a balance adjustment. Quicken uses the "nonsense" syntax of transferring money to the same account as way to say that these transactions should affect any other account/category (the amount comes/goes from outside of what is being tracked in Quicken). The Opening Balance of an account is an example of this.
Now about that dialog, what it is, why it comes up.
When used "properly" as described above it should never come up. This is the option in the Preferences:
What Quicken does for this option is as you are downloading transactions Quicken will look for a downloaded transaction in one account with lets say $XXX.XX for the amount and another account that has a transaction around about the same time with the amount of -$XXX.XX. It will "guess" that these were meant to be a transfer and provided you have the confirm on, ask you if you want to connect them.
Not only is this just a guess, but there are also some basic things to understand. The first is that match of course has to wait for the second part of that transfer to download before it can even guess at. So, let's say you make a payment to your credit card account, and it posts in that account today, but it doesn't post in your checking account until two days from now. The "transfer matching" can't happen until two days from now.
The second part has to do with the categories. Clearly if a downloaded transaction has already matched to a proper transfer transaction, that wouldn't be a candidate for this guess. That bring us to "regular categories". @splasher said that it would try to match transactions with "regular categories". I'm not sure about this. I haven't tested it thoroughly, but I thought you had to leave the category field blank for it to be a candidate for transfer matching.
The bottom line is that transfer matching should never be relied upon, transfers should be entered into the register before the downloaded transaction.
Note that there is something else in Quicken that shouldn't be relied upon. If you have a reminder that has yet to be entered into the register that "might be a match" to a downloaded transaction, Quicken will prompt asking if this is in fact that reminder. The big problem here is that this wild guess is even less consistent than the automatic transfer detection. You need to always make sure that the transactions are in the register before the downloaded one, and then match to those.
Note that if you find that a downloaded transaction didn't match your existing transaction in the register you should be able to manually match it. The most likely cause being that the amounts are different, they have to be exact.
If you are using automatic transaction entry mode where the transactions go directly into the register, then the way to do a manual match is by first correcting the amount of the existing transaction in the register if need be and then click on the red pencil/uncleared status icon (note that if you expand the blue dot/status column you can see the text not just the icon). A menu will popup and you can select Manual Match. From there it will popup a dialog and the downloaded transaction should be there to select and OK. That should merge the two transactions.
If you aren't using automatic transaction mode it is pretty similar. Change the amount of the transaction in the register and then the transaction in the Downloaded Transaction tab should change to Matched.
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Thanks Splasher. If my first question of linking the two transactions if the system doesn't catch, is not possible, then that's quite surprising and disappointing. This works on other accounting software, including Quicken's online version!
And thank you, Chris. That was very informative. The image you shared is how I have Quicken configured. Sadly, entering that account to link two transactions into Quicken Windows causes a duplicate "penciled" transaction of the downloaded transaction on the other account…but not on Quicken Online. There I can link the transactions (see above) But when checking back on Quicken Desktop, I now have duplicate transactions again and the "Ending Balance" is now way off because there are duplicate debts and credits… what?
Even more confusion: I just went to delete a penciled transaction (likely from one of these linked transfer I tried to categorize properly and it deleted the downloaded transaction — no warning about how it would impact that linked transaction or that it was an imported transaction that would be deleted too. No undo either? How should these account transfer categories even work?
If quicken requires users to manually enter and manage transactions, then should I even pay for this? It feels strange that some basic functions of quicken on the browser aren't on the desktop app or the other way around (download transactions in the background is only on the Browser?). Others appear to be broken: universal keyboard shortcuts like select all, or Ctrl-Shift-Arrow are reconfigured? Or the Online "Apply changes to similar transactions" only results in errors? There are a few other accounting programs that will assist with automatic account transaction downloads and linking transactions. Should I be reconsidering YNAB, Quickbooks, Empower, and GNU Cash?
The more I poke around in Quicken the more I find frustrating or broken. I'll keep researching this but left me know if I am missing anything regarding transfer categories and linking two.
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Well, I hate to say it, but if you bring Quicken Web/Mobile into the picture all bets are off.
Especially in the sense of any of the SuperUsers helping you. None of them use it other than casual testing for fear of it corrupting data files. What's more the Sync to Mobile/Web can basically change anything including statuses and adding and removing transactions as you noted. For instance, on Quicken Web you can "unreview" a transaction and if it was an existing transaction that was matched to a downloaded one it will split them back out, but you can't do that on Quicken Desktop. And of course, it goes the other way, there are tons of things that you can do on Quicken Desktop you can't do in Quicken Web/Mobile.
I don't even know where that "Connect Transfers" would be in Quicken Web, I have never seen it, but I also don't use Quicken Web when it is the place where the "download comes in first". Another words, even in just testing if I download at all in a file that I'm testing for Sync to Web (and I only do it for testing never in my real data file) then I download into Quicken Desktop and then sync. I don't download or wait for it to download transactions first in the Quicken Cloud dataset which Quicken Web/Mobile get their data from.
Can this "Connect Transfers" be brought by selecting something or is it something that only comes up during updates/downloads on Quicken Web?
But I will try to answer this part:
Even more confusion: I just went to delete a penciled transaction (likely from one of these linked transfer I tried to categorize properly and it deleted the downloaded transaction — no warning about how it would impact that linked transaction or that it was an imported transaction that would be deleted too. No undo either? How should these account transfer categories even work?
Whenever the category is [Another Account] you are dealing with a linked transfer and that means it is in two accounts and will definitely affect both of them. And no, there isn't any undo for this. And I tried it in Quicken Web and it seems to behave the same as on Quicken Desktop. No warning.
I didn't have any downloaded transactions, but in a sense, I would expect them to go away too.
When you have an existing transaction in the register no matter if it is a linked transfer or not, if you download a transaction and it is matched with an existing transaction in the register, they are "merged". For instance, there might be a memo in the downloaded transaction, that will now be in this merged transaction. And the category would be from the original existing transaction in the register. As such, this is now "one transaction" not two. And in the case of a linked transfer, it is "one side" of the transaction.
If you go to enter a transaction into the register and put in [Other Account] for the category, you are creating a transaction in that other account. So, if you either delete that transaction or even change the category to say Dining you have told Quicken that you no longer want that linked transfer and it will remove the other side of that transaction. If that other side of the transaction happened to have a downloaded transaction merged into it, it will go away.
On the other hand, that might not even be what is going on here. Given that things are all messed up between what Quicken Web is showing and what Quicken Desktop is showing there could be some kind of cross linking that and deleting a transaction might indeed delete what appears to be a separate transaction.
If quicken requires users to manually enter and manage transactions, then should I even pay for this? It feels strange that some basic functions of quicken on the browser aren't on the desktop app or the other way around (download transactions in the background is only on the Browser?). Others appear to be broken: universal keyboard shortcuts like select all, or Ctrl-Shift-Arrow are reconfigured? Or the Online "Apply changes to similar transactions" only results in errors? There are a few other accounting programs that will assist with automatic account transaction downloads and linking transactions. Should I be reconsidering YNAB, Quickbooks, Empower, and GNU Cash?
We (as experienced Quicken Desktop users) we can only give you what we have found to be "best practices". As you can see from above, Quicken Desktop does have "automatic transfer detection", but we don't suggest it for a couple of reasons. One, it is ultimately a guess, which is somewhat mitigated by the "confirm" dialog, but personally I would never want to transaction to go for days not properly categorized, which will happen if on transfers that are between different financial institutions and even between credit cards and checking accounts. There is no way to know/connect the transaction until the second part of that transfer downloads. At a minimum I would be correcting the category to be a transfer when the first side of that transfer transaction came in.
In fact, another possibility is to memorize a given transfer, but only if the payee is unique (Quicken's payee matching is global, not per account).
To briefly answer some of those other questions. Quicken Desktop does have a "schedule" function to download at a certain time of the day, but the computer has to stay on for it to work. There isn't any download in the background. It basically isn't possible with the existing code. Just as the Sync to Mobile/Web can basically do what it wants to large parts of Quicken the downloading of transactions is making changes to different parts of Quicken and if the user was in there doing things there would be all kinds of conflicts.
Quicken Desktop especially Quicken Desktop Windows is a "single user" never mention to "share" program/database with very old code. There are some very fundamental assumptions in how it is setup. These don't always translate to the "modern" way of doing things.
On the shortcuts, do want to know how old Quicken is? Well, it is so old that it predates all of those shortcuts (1983). And some of them were already used for functions in Quicken and the old die-hard customers would get really upset if they were changed. But do make sure that you are using the Windows ones instead of Quicken ones. Edit → Preferences → Setup → Windows standard. But some just aren't going to be there like Ctrl+A for selecting all the transactions.
If you want "simple" then maybe Quicken Simplifi would be a better choice for you. I don't use it, but it is Quicken Inc "online only" product.
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I'm going also tag moderator @Quicken Anja which might be able to understand what is going on with Quicken Web and such more.
I do have a feeling about one thing though, if one spends most of their time on Quicken Web/Mobile then they probably have to get the transfers linked properly there, there isn't going to be "second chance" on Quicken Desktop.
When using Quicken Desktop and going through its normal flow then you will have automatic transfer detection (even if we other users don't think it is the best practice), but it is part of the download process. If the transactions are hitting Quicken Web/Mobile first and you are reviewing/dealing with them there, then what is happening in Quicken Desktop isn't "downloading transactions" it is Sync to Mobile/Web. And everything is just transferred directly into the register and you, and the other download processing aren't going to be able to get in between that.
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Thank you again Chris. I should have made clear all of my efforts are with automatic transaction downloads from the banks via Quicken. I am not manually entering anything (With no disrespect to you or others, saying to avoid it. For me, if I don't have this option, then I'll go with software that can manage automation). In addition, I did not test Quicken Online until I posted here. Even then, I only tested a few actions, such as trying to match transactions. These behaviors existed prior.
For the time being, I tested some things on a friend's Quicken for Mac. I am quite surprised since this version for Mac has a much better UX, matches a bit of the Browser version, and seems to behave much better compared to Windows! Also, seems to scale properly with the display resolution. Windows is a bit blurry (I know Windows has awful scaling issues, but I already configured the usual: default display settings and properly adjusted cleartext which has corrected all apps that I ran with this issue in the past. At this point, anything blurry is the way the apps are designed to adapt).
- Syncing/updating accounts. I should have been more specific. Quicken for Mac allows for syncing in the "background" while the app is open. Freeing you up to still use the application. You click the reload icon and no pop-up appears until it finishes syncing. Then, depending on the settings, a summary of the update can pop up. Windows seems to force the account update window to be in focus, and you cannot continue to use quicken until it finishes.
- Categorizing Transfers: On Mac, when I select a transaction that is incorrectly categorized, or not categorized, then set it to be categorized to match the other register's account. Mac Quicken will prompt me to match/link a similar transaction. These transactions are not manually entered in advance. See the screenshot below. This was my expected behavior in Windows. In contrast, Windows does not have any popup suggesting a similar transaction (yes the amounts match, the dates are within days of each other, and the payees are suggestive enough). Instead, Windows Quicken, does not link any existing transaction, and quickly creates a new "penciled" transaction in the second account's registry. This creates duplicates next to each other in said registry.
- Renaming Payee Rules. I was thinking I should look into this in case this might also be an issue with my setup, but I don't have anything configured. Mac seems to like having some limited but useful logic here: enter a string of text, and any spaces or punctuation is interpreted as a wildcard. In fact, a renaming rule entered as "FCU Payment.now" appears to be read "FCU%Payment%now" where %=wildcard. I am guessing the wildcard part here, but on a brief test of this I was able to filter out similar payees while focusing on others, making me believe this is close to it. Each word must match e.g. "FC" won't pick up "FCU." Also helpful, was Mac allowed me to assign this rule right away to existing transactions and gave me some preview of it. Windows doesn't do anything beyond: enter payee, assign new name, save? I don't see anything renamed, nor does it seem to use wildcards. It's a 100% match or ignore?
- Keyboard shortcuts. After some more testing (I also confirmed the Windows keyboard shortcut settings were selected) Windows does technically use Ctrl+A for select all in a text box e.g. payee, but I don't realize this because the Accounts window pops up on top. I understand wanting legacy compatibility, but this doesn't seem to be compatible for new systems or users.
It seems like I should have bought a Mac! 😆
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Quicken Mac is a LOT newer than Quicken Windows. Intuit started a rewrite of it in 2007, but other than "Essentials" (it was called Quicken Mac Essentials) the "New Quicken Mac" sort got started with yet another major rewrite and came out in 2015.
So, you can't really compare the two. Quicken Mac has a lot newer code base and does something differently (in a lot of case in a better way, in few not so much), but the main "problem" with Quicken Mac is that it doesn't have all the features that Quicken Windows has because it just takes tons of time to get them all in there.
Quicken Windows on the other hand suffers from not only old code, but having so many features that not all of them are maintained, but I think one of the main things is it just was designed with a whole different viewpoint on how things should work. And "graphing on" "modern features" has been somewhat of a "bad idea".
If anyone follows the problems reported in the Quicken Windows categories for any length of time you will see two things pop up over and over suggested by the SuperUsers (beside the entering of transfers beforehand), and that is don't use Quicken Mobile/Web (can corrupt data file) and don't use automatic transaction entry mode (where the transaction go directly into the register). I'm probably one of few "Long time/SuperUser" people that actually uses automatic transaction entry mode (but would never use Quicken Mobile/Web on my real file).
Not using automatic transaction entry mode is another approach to this problem, but it just pushes the problem to another area. You will notice that the SupersUser will push all three together as the recommended procedure.
When automatic transactions entry mode is off all the transactions first go to a Downloaded Transactions tab at the bottom of each register. From there what the user must do is click on each transaction which temporarily shows it in the register. It is at this point that one confirms everything is OK and then hits enter to accept the transaction into the register. This is a similar process to the "review" process that should be used with automatic transaction entry mode. But you are doing it one transaction at a time. Well, if you just downloaded the first part of the transfer you can put in the proper [Other Account] syntax for the category at this point. This will create a linked transfer in the other account and when you get to that account/downloaded transaction then it will already be matched to it.
And note that "automatic transfer detection" doesn't kick in until one finishes with the transactions in the Downloaded Transactions tab (and the second transaction in the other register is in the register, which could be days later). And that is just it for transfers that take days to hit the second account might be uncategorized for days. Something that any SuperUser would never allow.
In Quicken Windows I can actually see it going through the same procedures as with the Downloaded Transactions tab but with the added thing of accepting them into the register and giving them a status of New/New Match. And at the tail end of that running automatic transfer matching if it is enabled.
Quicken Mac doesn't have this mode at all. It was designed with the "Mint" kind of ideas about how to download. But I will point out that in the Quicken Mac Idea threads one of the highest vote count is to bring the Downloaded Transactions tab to it. So, far the developers have resisted this though.
Oh, and I should mention something about Quicken Mac. When Quicken Essentials was created, they didn't have linked transfers, just regular categories, and people would just put in Transfer for the category. One of the things they added to Quicken Mac is linked transfers, but because of that history, they didn't make it mutually exclusive like it is in Quicken Windows. So, to this day I'm sure that at any given time people have "transfers" that aren't linked. This would be no different than if you categorized your transfers with a category of Transfer in Quicken Windows. And that would explain why Quicken Mac users seldom notice that there might be a delay in the second transaction that is downloaded and then matched to make a linked transfer. The same might be true in Quicken Windows too, but first off like I said the SuperUsers don't use that mode and so aren't going to suggest things like this, and the linking of transfer no matter if it is Windows or Mac is still just a guess based on the amounts, it can be wrong.
The mixing of these two ways of doing things really confuses things.
On the subject of using Payee Renaming Rules/Memorized Payees to make this work. This is a "sort of will work in a very limited use case situation". It could be used expanded to more use cases if there was one extra requested feature in Quicken Windows, but even then, it wouldn't be 100%.
There isn't anything stopping a person from memorizing a linked transfer. But one has to understand that it has "direction".
If I'm in a credit card account and memorized the payee "Automatic Payment" to have the category [Checking account], when that downloaded transaction comes in and gets that category it will automatically create a linked transfer to the checking account, which when its transaction comes in will be matched to it as an existing transaction in the register.
So, where does something like this fail? Well, to start with Quicken's payee renaming rules and memorized payees are global, so all of the "Automatic Payment" linked transfers better be to that one checking account. And Automatic Payment better not hit the wrong account first. This tends to work right for credit card payments because of the delay between the two being posted, but in the case of a transfer from say your checking to your savings account that happen at the same time, it is hard to know which transaction will be downloaded into which account first. This actually might be mitigated by using automatic transfer detection provided you don't do a lot of transfers for the same amounts.
At any rate as you can see all of this gets really complicated when you go against what Quicken Windows was designed for originally.
In some ways Quicken Inc (and Intuit before them) have made the mistake of "giving the customer what they want". What people fail to understand is that this can make everything more complicated. And in the software world "more complicated" can usually be connected with "more buggy". I hope for all the Quicken Mac users (even the ones asking for it) that the Quicken Mac developers continue to push back and not implement non automatic transaction entry mode.
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