Fix the Transaction Edit dialog/routine.

PerryB

Example: Changing a transaction which Transaction Update assigned the wrong Action, say Withdrawal instead of Investment Expense.

The dialog has a drop down list for Security name with (optional) below. If one is not selected, then the Enter/Done button apparently does nothing except close the dialog.

If a Security name is selected, and the Enter/Done button pressed, then reopening the edit dialog will show the transaction as Miscellaneous Expense and also the change affects the Investment Performance report. However, the Action on the Transaction ledger remains Withdrawal. The work around it is to enter a new transaction with the correct Action /transaction type and delete the old one. This is tedious, particularly since it can occur fairly frequently.

PerryB

Also, changing a deposit Action to an Income Action requires removing the dollar amount from the Miscellaneous box and entering it in one of the other boxes, like the Interest box. Otherwise pressing Enter/Done closes the dialog without changing the Action type.

The Help icon goes to a minimalist Record income topic which does not explain all the field, what the do, or what’s required. It would be good to have better Help.

mshiggins

"Example: Changing a transaction which Transaction Update assigned the wrong Action ....".

To clarify: The formatting of downloaded investment transactions is done by the financial institution.  It doesn't seem like a very cost-effective idea for Quicken to write special code to make it easier for users to correct unwanted financial institution formatting.

"The dialog has a drop down list for Security name with (optional) below. If one is not selected, then the Enter/Done button apparently does nothing except close the dialog."

Exactly. Because a Miscellaneous Expense transaction with no security specified is no different than a Withdraw transaction. 

You can see that for yourself: manually enter a MiscExp transaction with no security and a Withdraw transaction with the same date/amount/category/memo, etc. - then look at those two transactions in Reports > Investments > Investment transactions. The two transactions are indistinguishable from each other:  both have an Action value of "Cash" and a Security of "-Cash-".

"If a Security name is selected [when changing a Withdraw to a MiscExp], and the Enter/Done button pressed, then reopening the edit dialog will show the transaction as Miscellaneous Expense and also the change affects the Investment Performance report. However, the Action on the Transaction ledger remains Withdrawal."

That's true, but what specific problem is that creating for you?

The resulting MiscExp transaction that was converted from a Withdraw transaction, now has the correct security name and appears correctly in the Investing > Investment transaction report (it has the correct security name there), and it is treated correctly in other reports such as Investing Activity, Investing Income and Income/Expense by Category.

There is, what I think of as, a minor glitch in the MiscExp transaction with a security that was created from a Withdraw transaction: in some places (drilling down on the MiscExp category in reports, for example), Quicken continues to show the "Payee" from the original Withdraw transaction (even though Quicken appears to correctly apply the expense to the correct "security").

I think Quicken could address that glitch in one of two ways:  If it's decided to continue to allow the user to change a Withdraw transaction to a MiscExp transaction, Quicken should replace/remove the original Payee name and show the Security name wherever the MiscExp transaction is displayed. 
Otherwise, Quicken could choose to disallow changing a Withdraw to a MiscExp. This choice makes sense only if there is some underlying problem replacing the Payee name with a Security name which would make the change economically impractical - Quicken investment "Transaction Lists" (think "registers", but not literally the same) have proven difficult for Quicken to modify.

As I see the bottom line here; to achieve your goal you will need to prevail on the financial institution to format their downloaded transactions appropriately. Personally I don't think I've ever seen downloaded transactions with the problem you've described - the financial institution should know better.

"Also, changing a deposit Action to an Income Action requires removing the dollar amount from the Miscellaneous box and entering it in one of the other boxes, like the Interest box. Otherwise pressing Enter/Done closes the dialog without changing the Action type."

The investment Deposit Action code is comparable to investment "Miscellaneous" Income - so changing from Deposit to MiscInc correctly puts the income amount in the Miscellaneous box - Quicken has no way to determine what other investment income type a Deposit transaction might represent ... without the user's assistance. 

Once again, I think you need to prevail on your financial institution to correct their downloaded investment transaction formatting.

-JP