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Categories are not downloaded from any of my banks

spiceman1627

None of the transactions downloaded from my banks (checking and credit cards) are assigned a Category in my newly installed Quicken Classic. In the Preferences, the box for Automatically Categorize transaction is checked. And, yes, my bank has categories assigned to the transactions on their site. Any suggestions? Thank you.

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Quicken Anja

Hello @spiceman1627,

To clarify; are you experiencing this with all your accounts across different financial institutions, or with accounts from one financial institution in particular?

Check back and let us know! Thank you.

UKR

Categorizing transactions at the bank's website is a feature for people who don't use Quicken or other financial money management software. The bank's category does not appear a component of the QFX protocol for transaction downloading. If it were, the banks would / should have made the category part of the transaction download data files.

If you do need to / want to categorize your transactions in Quicken, without spending time categorizing them at the bank's website first, please be sure to manually review your transactions during download. Review and assign proper Payee Names for each transaction, categorize them as needed.
If all Preferences are set correctly, Quicken will remember the assigned Payee Names and Categories in the Memorized Payee List.
If needed, Quicken will create and use Renaming Rules to convert downloaded payee names to meaningful names you can use in your transactions.

If you have recurring transactions, e.g., monthly credit card payments, your paycheck, regular bills to pay, set up and use Scheduled Reminders. This will help with establishing transaction registers with proper Payee Names, categories, etc. that can make things easier for you, especially when it comes to calculating and filing your income tax returns.

Chris_QPW

First off though like @UKR said, the categories selected at your financial institution are not part of the information sent to Quicken.

But Quicken is supposed to "guess" at the category based on the payee's name and some information that might be on the server when the "Automatically Categorize" option is on.

Have you changed the default categories?

If so, that can be the reason that Quicken won't guess at a given payee.

Note that this guessing is only really good for when one is first starting out with Quicken. Once you have built up your payee renaming rules and memorized payees (it is the memorized payee that picks the category) then it is best to turn off the automatic guessing, and fill in any new payee's category when they come in.

NotACPA

I buy human food, dog food, clothing, household goods, medicines, and gasoline at my local Kroger.

HOW is Q supposed to apply categories to such? All except gasoline are frequently in the same purchase.

Answer: IT CAN'T!

I'm the one who needs to apply categories when I input the transaction. Don't expect Q to read you mind.

spiceman1627

First, this is for all institutions. Now, it's good to know that Categories are not downloaded by my banks….assumed they would be. And, they are categories the Credit Union assigns, not something I do. However, given that Quicken is supposed to "guess" at transactions, I would expect that certain ones, like McDonalds and Safeway, would be slam dunks. I will explore the Renaming Rules and get some of those regular transactions (payees) covered. Thanks to all for you thoughts.

NotACPA

How is Q supposed to know WHAT category you use for McDonalds? "Restaurant" or "Fast Food"?

You can create your own categories … and the download process has no idea what they are.

And, transpose "Safeway" for "Kroger" in my prior reply and how is Q supposed to know WHAT to use???