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Confusion between online payees with Direct Connect and Billpay with Express Web Connect

BJB

I have used Quicken Premiere (now Classic) forever. My bank is switching from Direct Connect to Express Web connect. I know there were two ways to generate payments from within Quicken in the past. For lack of a better term, one of which used the bank's servers and you had to pay them a fee, and one where Quicken did the work. Back then you could choose which way to go based on your connection type. I think :)

I have been using Direct Connect and would setup online payees (not bill pay) and entered transactions in the register using those payees and could then transmit payments.

I believe moving to Express Web Connect this option goes away. However, with Express Web Connect am I understanding correctly that since I have Premiere, I can use "Bill Pay" and generate payments that way? Even though I am on Express Web Connect? So can still pay bills, just using a different process within Quicken?

I am sorry if I am using the wrong bill paying terms but so far the above is what I understand.

Thanks so much for your help!

BJB

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UKR

If your bank (the one that runs your checking account) recently required you to reauthorize your checking account and/or your bank has changed (or will change soon) from "Direct Connect" to either "Express Web Connect" or "Express Web Connect+" you can no longer use Online Bill Pay direct to the bank or Quicken Bill Manager's Quick Pay function. The bank no longer supports this function through Quicken.

IMHO, you have these alternatives (in no particular order of preference):

Use Quicken Bill Manager's Check Pay making sure to submit payment early enough (at least 3 weeks before due date) to allow time for delivery and processing. Note: limited number of free transactions per month.
Logon to the bank's website and schedule your bill pay payments to be executed by the bank from your checking account. In parallel to that, in Quicken use a regular Scheduled Reminder to record your payment. Repeat both actions every time another payment is due.
Bypass Bill Manager. Let the biller's (or credit card company's) computer system do all the work for you. Logon to the biller's website once and set up their Autopay, APS, Direct debit, etc. service to make the current payment and all future payments on Due Date directly from your checking account. In parallel to that, in Quicken, every month, record a regular Scheduled Reminder to keep track of your payments before they come due.
Write (or print with Quicken) a paper check and mail it to the biller, making sure to mail payment early enough (at least 10 days before due date) to allow time for delivery and processing.

I've been using method #3 for decades, since before the Internet and transaction download capabilities were even introduced. It's easy to get used to this process. And I have yet to miss a single payment.

BJB

Thanks for that! I do mostly use option 3 either recurring or on a monthly payment basis. I think the bank really wants option 2 and may be driving more to this change in interface?

However there are times when it is convenient to just use online payment, for example for certain recurring payments and when the payee doesn't support a web payment option. This is disappointing for sure….

It really reduces Quicken's functionality.

So you can use the Quicken Bill Manager Check pay feature and they generate a manual check? Okay, will look into that because probably in cases where a payee does not have a website payment option, that is what was previously being sent anyway and due date not critical usually. I think that is what I was confusing….Check Pay vs. electronic Bill Pay. Still probably got that wrong! 😀

So just setup Bill Manager and I will research how to use Check Pay for those few payments. Looks like we get 5 a month with Premier.

Thanks again,
BJB

BJB

I have a followup question. Why when switching from direct connect to web express would it change the beginning balance after the first download? Fortunately I saw posts about this from the past so I adjusted it. But my understanding is this is a simple download of transactions. Just curious technically what is it trying to calculate and do? It was not a correct adjustment. With investment accounts if out of balance, it will generate a reconciling transaction which makes sense. That is direct connect though I think. With checking and web express, it should have no idea if I have unreconciled transactions....

Thanks,

BJB

Chris_QPW

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20424916#Comment_20424916

Well, it is a bug to do it at that point, but it does have a purpose if done at the right time.

When you download transactions Quicken is given the current balance (hopefully correctly) and the transactions.

Now say you are creating a new account in Quicken and setting it up for downloading and the full history of the account isn't available to download. That means the opening balance isn't going to be zero. So, what is it? Quicken can back calculate it by starting with the current balance and using the transactions it downloaded. This is the purpose of setting the opening balance in this way.

BJB

Thanks, makes sense for a new account. However this was an existing account I linked the download to? 100% reconciled and always in balance. Kind of odd. Like I said, read about this happening in other situations. O weell, one of those quicken things.😀