Missing Transactions after refreshing

Stephanie452

Hi I'm new to Quicken and it looks like it will be great for what I need, however I did an refresh of accounts and a bunch of transactions went missing. It's possible I did something wrong. I've deleted and started over. I have a few questions.

• When Payees are downloaded, it downloads a check number, can I update the Payee with a Name the check was for or could that mess things up?
• I also do a lot of transferring of money between accounts. I notice a lot of the categories have auto categorized as the account name. When I change them it says "You are recording back into the same account. Save anyway?" Do I not change those?
• Does anyone know what might cause transactions to go missing?

Any help is appreciated.

Tom Young

"When Payees are downloaded, it downloads a check number,"

I assume by that statement you are downloading transactions and the check number, instead of the payee's actual name, is showing in in the Payee column of the Register?

If that's correct then yes, you certainly can - and should - edit those transactions to get the payee's name correct and, assuming the check number is correct, enter that in the check number field. You'll probably get some sort of pop up window asking about renaming rules but you can simply dismiss that at this point. But really that should not be happening so what's the name of the bank and what method is being used in the downloading process? (That information should be presented to you in the upper right corner of the Account Register right below the Account's name.)

"I notice a lot of the categories have auto categorized as the account name."

First, you really cannot rely on Quicken picking up Transfers properly. The absolute rock-solid, can't miss, works every time method to have transfers properly recorded is to enter the transfer manually at the time you make the transfer. That way you know the transfer is properly reported and each side of the transfer should be found as a "Match" in subsequent downloads.

This also shines a light on the point that you really cannot, cannot, rely on downloads to "do your accounting for you." Quicken helps "you do your accounting" so I'd suggest - others might disagree - to not have your Accounts set up to automatically put the downloads directly into the register. Instead I'll think you'll have better long term results by having the downloads settle in the "Downloaded Transactions" window where you can look at them and then decide if you'll let them into the register.

But, to your point, I think you are seeing downloaded transactions - one side of a transfer - where the "Category" is actually the name of the Account , surrounded by square brackets, where the transaction is posted? ( [Checking Account Name] ) These are what some people call (erroneously) "one sided entries" or "self-referring entries." This is a program trick in that entries posted this way do not affect any other Account or any Category in your file. It's a bit of "magic", if you will, and it's not really a one-sided entry because the other "Account" that's affected, one that you can't see, is your Net Worth.

Quicken at it's heart is a regular "double entry" accounting system where transactions dollars you post in your register are offset by an entry or entries in some other Account, some Category, or maybe both. So routinely you shouldn't be making these one-sided, self-referential entries, and that's what the warning ("You are recording back into the same account. Save anyway?") is all about. But that doesn't mean you can't make that entry if it suits your purposes.

If you start recording your transfers manually when you make them, you'll never see that warning again.

"Does anyone know what might cause transactions to go missing?"

I don't know exactly what you mean by a "refresh." People typically try to attack downloading problems by either Deactivating and then reactivating Accounts from downloading (not generally recommended, but sometimes it works) or by "Resetting" the Account. The latter should not affect anything in your file (so Quicken says) and the more common problem with Deactivating is entries get duplicated.