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Is Transfer Detection Broken?

twrice88

In the past couple weeks, I've noticed a new behavior on transfer detection. Instead of asking me before entering a transfer between accounts during transaction download, Quicken just assumes the latest transfer was to the most recent account. Example: I transfer funds from checking to an investment account at Vanguard. A couple days later, I transfer funds from checking to a different checking account at another institution. Instead of asking me if the matching transactions between the two banks are related, Quicken just makes a transfer between the first checking account and the investment account at Vanguard again. I've attached a screenshot of my preferences so you can see exactly which setting is not working. Also another screenshot of my Quicken version.

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Tom Young

I have no idea why things are working (not working) here, but I guess the first thing I might try is to uncheck that Transfer detection box, close Quicken, maybe even reboot the computer, then open Quicken again change the Preferences again, back to your desired settings.

It's been known that updates sometimes, for reasons unknown, change a user's Preferences setting. While these changes typically are "visible" to you - you can see that settings have been changed - this might a situation where, behind the scenes, a Preference has been changed without being visible.

UKR

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

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. This also applies to transfers between banks where one bank's transfer confirmation arrives several days after the other bank's.

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 at least 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.

Chris_QPW

@UKR I wish you would stop posting this incorrect information about the automatic transaction entry mode. If you don't know how it works you shouldn't be posting about it, and you clearly don't know how it works or refuse to accept how it really works.

I'm referring to this section:

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. This also applies to transfers between banks where one bank's transfer confirmation arrives several days after the other bank's.

There is no more "autopilot" or crystal balls involved in this process than when it is off. It is in fact the process that Quicken Mac uses and go ask the Quicken Mac SuperUsers if that system is "autopilot"/guessing/crystal balls.

On the other hand, I do agree with this statement:

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 at least 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.

The "automatic transfer detection" is a guess, and the better practice is probably to pre-enter them and have them be matched.

BUT one can't ignore that there is a problem here. Clearly @twrice88 has "confirm" on and as such Quicken should be prompting him/her and it isn't.

There is either a bug in Quicken or corruption in that setting their data file. For the "corruption" possibility I think @Tom Young's suggestion is the best shot at trying to clear it. In any case I would report it as a bug with Help → Report a Problem. And if the problem can't be cleared or maybe just because it is best not to rely on that guess at all just turn off automatic transfer detection and pre-enter transfers and have them be matched when downloaded as @UKR suggested.

twrice88

Thanks for the helpful answers. I will say, prior to a couple weeks ago, prompting me when the amounts were the same worked fine. There was no automagical-ness about it. Quicken would see transactions for $xx.yy amount in two accounts, let's call them account A and account B, and ask me if this was a transfer. Since then, it has just quit prompting me and automagically marking a transfer to the (usually wrong) account C.

I'm trying out Tom Young's suggestion of toggling that off, closing Quicken, reopening and toggling it back on. We'll see what happens on my next transfer transaction.

Chris_QPW

Since then, it has just quit prompting me and automagically marking a transfer to the (usually wrong) account C.

One has to weigh the number of times it gets it right; against the number of times, it gets it wrong to decide if it is really worth using it at all. It will probably be pretty good if you don't have a lot of transactions that have the same amount.

But the situation that is happening to you should never be allowed in my opinion (either by a bug or by the user choice), because it is a guess, it should always be confirmed, and especially because there isn't any "undo" for it (It really should have an undo!).

spark749

I have also had problems with non-detection of transfers on downloading transactions.

After reading the above suggestions, in addition the Tom Young's suggestion I changed the following settings in Preferences.

Select "Downloaded transactions"

Uncheck if selected

"Automatically categorize transactions"

"Automatically apply Quicken's suggested name to payee"

"Capitalize first letter only in downloaded payee names"

I don't know if this will solve the problem, as I have not done any transaction downloads since I have made the changes.

I have only noticed since the program was updated the time before last that the problem has been so pronounced.

As Chris_QPW stated "But one can't ignore that there is a problem here."

realworldChris

@spark749 I think you are on to something… I found that the 'Memorized Payee List' contained a number of common payees used for transfers (e.g. "{Bank Name} Transfer}, categorized as a transfer. It appears Quicken is using that list, perhaps the latest, perhaps random, to associate incoming transactions as a transfer. Sometimes even back to the same account. I deleted all the 'Memorized Payees' that were categorized as transfers, will see if that helps in the future.

It would be great to have an option to 'Automatically categorize transfers' and be able to disable that, disallowing any and all auto-created transfers. The detection/matching relies on too many assumptions - just the date and amount being similar or the same aren't enough to be confident both sides are a transfer.

Chris_QPW

@realworldChris said:

It would be great to have an option to 'Automatically categorize transfers' and be able to disable that, disallowing any and all auto-created transfers. The detection/matching relies on too many assumptions - just the date and amount being similar or the same aren't enough to be confident both sides are a transfer.

That is exactly what deselecting this preference does:

Chris_QPW

Here is a lot more information on automatic transfer detection:

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7944737/faq-automatic-transfer-detection-usage