Why are all of my bank check number the same?

Oldbear68

I am a new Quicken Classic (Windows) user. I seem to have properly downloaded all of my financial information, but my bank check numbers are all the same and it is hard to correlate them with check dates (I have 5 similar charity donations and my dates do not correspond to the posted dates). How do I fix this?

UKR

What does your bank download for paper checks you have written?

IMHO, Paper checks you write should be recorded in Quicken as you write the check (and BEFORE you download transactions which might contain the cleared check). That gives you a register transaction with correct check number, payee name and category. No matter what cryptic information is downloaded from the bank, you already have a correct register transaction which the downloaded data cannot mess up.
If all checks have the same amount, matching a downloaded transaction to the correct check may not be possible strictly based on downloaded data. A correctly entered manual register transaction with all the details will help.

Transaction dates should be used for these checks. If you write a check for a tax deductible donation for tax year 2023, it should be dated no later than 12/31/23. It doesn't matter when it actually gets posted and clears your account days or weeks later or in the new year.

Oldbear68

This was my first download/install and I am a new user, so this is what I have.

All of my check numbers are the same (e.g. 2637, 2637, 2637, 2637), this is how they were downloaded from the bank.

I had about 5 charity checks for the same amount and it is difficult to figure out which is which with the same number and posted dates that don't match my check dates.

Should I try uninstalling that bank and down-loading them again?

UKR

Deleting the checking account, together with all its transactions, shouldn't be necessary.
I suspect that a Renaming Rule was created by mistake which now renames all downloaded transactions for paper checks to "Check 2637". Locate this Renaming Rule and delete it.

Please review the following:

Transaction download problems with matching and adding new transactions correctly

First please ensure that all optional settings in Quicken pertaining to recall, memorization, automatic categorization and renaming of payee names are enabled. You find those settings in Edit / Preferences / Data Entry & Quickfill and Downloaded Transactions. Additional settings for the detection and processing of transfer transactions can be found in Edit / Preferences / Transfer detection.

Are you automatically accepting downloaded transactions into your registers?

If you are relying on Quicken to "automagically" fill your account registers from downloaded transactions, you may run into problems. Despite all efforts by the Quicken programmers, the "Autopilot" (that's my name for the part of the Quicken program which processes downloaded transactions and converts them into new register transactions) is not infallible. For that process to work 100% of the time one would need a crystal ball because the information downloaded from the banks often is just too terse and cryptic.

You should, at least for a while, turn off the "automatically accept downloaded transactions into registers" setting to gain better control over what is downloaded and what to do with it. Click on and review each downloaded transaction, make changes if necessary (e.g., to get a payee name = "Starbucks" instead of "POS TRANS 070119 STARBU", "POS TRANS 070219 STARBU", "POS TRANS 070319 STARBU" or to assign a category) before you click to accept each transaction.

Any changes you make to downloaded Payee Names are remembered in Renaming Rules.

Any other changes you make (add/change Category or Memo text) are remembered in the Memorized Payee List.

Next time the same transaction for this Payee comes along, Quicken should remember and give you a better new register transaction.
Paper checks you write should be recorded in Quicken as you write the check (and BEFORE you download transactions which might contain the cleared check). That gives you a register transaction with correct check number, payee name and category. No matter what information is downloaded from the bank, you already have a correct register transaction which the downloaded data cannot mess up.

In case you have issues with transfer transactions not being generated correctly:

For best results manually enter transfer transactions into your register BEFORE you download transactions from the bank which contain the transfer confirmations. For recurring transfers use scheduled reminders and enter them a day or two before the due date.

Be sure to use distinct Payee Names for each transfer / credit card payment to avoid confusing Quicken - memorized payee entries.

That takes the guesswork out of the Autopilot's process. Because a correctly entered transfer transaction already exists in your account registers, the Autopilot should just match the downloaded transfer transaction to the existing one in both accounts.

Where are the "Auto-accept downloaded transaction" settings?

There are two places where this is controlled in Quicken for Windows:
- Globally, for all accounts, in Edit / Preferences / Downloaded Transactions
- For each account individually, the global setting can be overridden from the Edit Account Details screen, Online Services Tab. Look for blue text "Automatic Entry is: ON / OFF". Click the text to change the setting.