Downloaded category wrong. How do I correct?

knute97

Example — When I download my accounts, I start with $100 balance in a savings account and ($100 ) debit in a credit card account. Both account agree with the online balance and the Quicken balance.

Downloading shows a $10 credit to savings with the category erroneously credited to the credit card. No transactions on the credit card downloaded.

When I correct the $10 savings download to a cash deposit, the savings balances update to $110 online and Quicken, but the credit card balances go to ($100) online and ($90) Quicken with no obvious entry in the cc account to explain what happened.

How do I correct this situation (I have been making manual entry adjustments each time) and how to I get the downloads to assign the correct category?

Quicken Kristina

Hello @knute97,

To help troubleshoot this issue, please provide more information. Based on what you're describing, it sounds like the transaction is downloading as a transfer between the accounts, but when you're manually editing the category (changing the transfer to a deposit), for some reason both accounts are acting like $10 is being added (unless your credit card balance is positive instead of negative). Is your credit card balance in Quicken positive or negative (did you overpay, or do you owe)? Do you use your savings account to make payments on the credit card? If not, have you verified the payment account is correctly reflecting the payments to the card? Which financial institution(s) is this happening with?

If you haven't done so already, go to Tools>Renaming Rules and make sure there are no rules that would be automatically changing your cash deposits into transfers (for information on editing Renaming Rules, click here).

I look forward to your response!

knute97

Sorry for the delay and thanks for the response.

Currently, I have not had this problem since I changed the download category. However, I have been recently noticing that there seem to be additional problems with my downloads. Specifically:

1. A red flag indicating a downloaded transaction disappears when I try to post with no transaction posted
2. Some download accounts get posted to the wrong category.

I don't have a real handle on this as yet. Will post when I have more details

knute97

I just restored a backup file from 3 days prior and found the following:

In Brokerage1 account, there was a $53 withdrawal on 4/5 and posted to my bank account. This was correct and has been a recurring transaction for over a year.

On 4/8, however, an XOUT transaction is posted for the same $53 and reduces my Brokerage1 account erroneously by that amount. It is a duplicate transaction

I cannot delete the transaction only ENTER or EDIT it. If I edit it by changing the amount to $0, then my bank account balance is deleted by that amount and does not agree with the Online balance.

FYI - in a second Brokerage2 account a similar monthly withdrawal occurs without an associated XOUT transaction.

In my original Quicken file, the XOUT transaction occurred on 4/5 and on 5/5, so it seems to be a recurring issue.

How do I correct the XOUT transaction without changing the bank account balance. And, how do I prevent the problem in future downloads???

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your replies,

You mentioned that the XOUT transaction is duplicated. Are both transactions (the original and the duplicate) downloaded, or is one of them a manual transaction? You mentioned the duplicate gives no option to delete it? Could you screenshot the options it is giving you? Does the original give no option to delete either? Please make sure to backup your Quicken file before deleting either transaction.

If needed, please refer to this Community FAQ for instructions on how to attach a screenshot. Alternatively, you can also drag and drop screenshots to your response if you are not given the option to add attachments.

Thank you!

knute97

I went back again and restored an older file and then downloaded.

Brokerage1 (a stock account) downloaded with Transfers to Bank1 of -$67 on 4/5 and 5/6.

Brokerage2 (an IRA account) downloaded with Transfers to Bank1 of -$53 on 4/5 and 5/7

Both Brokerage accounts, when uploaded showed normal entries with no XOUT’s. Bank1 had yet to be uploaded.

When Bank1 was uploaded, I received the following messages for Brokerage2 before the uploading began:

After answering the questions and Bank1 uploaded, but the IRA Brokerage account now showed the XOUT's

I repeated this procedure with the answer being YES to the above messages with the same result!

Ps56k2

I wish folks would use the real bank and brokerage names in asking for help -
too hard to keep track of the spy names -

Have you checked all the places where transactions can get modified when downloaded -
Edit —> Preferences —> Downloaded ?

knute97

OK — Ever since around the beginning of March (update?), the following has occurred.

1. ACH transfers from my Brokerage IRA account has generated XOUT's and created deficits in the transferred Bank account when the Bank account is uploaded. These transactions occurred regularly for well over a year with no problems until March. Identical transactions from my Brokerage stock account has not encountered this problem and posts properly.
2. Some cash deposits from a specific payee to my savings account gets incorrectly debited to a credit card while identical deposits get credited correctly! Again, this has started in March. Correcting the credit card category results in incorrect balances in my savings account.
3. I have noticed, also since March, that when I download transactions and a red flag posts to my Chase Amazon card indicating pending transactions, when I accept the upload, the flag disappears and no transactions are present.

WRT to the suggestion to check the Downloading preferences, I see nothing to explain these problems, but thanks for the response.

mshiggins

Some questions:
- What Quicken Edition (Deluxe, Premier, etc.) and what Release are you using (see Help > About Quicken)
- Do you download each account individually? That is: do you use "Update Now" to download each account individually, rather than "One Step Update" to download all accounts at one time?
- What is your Quicken Preference setting for "Transfer detection"? Is it "Confirm possible transfers before entering in register"?

If you have the Quicken Preference "Transfer detection" turned off, you can skip the rest of this post until you get to the NOTES at the end.


It seems like you might be experiencing a problem with Quicken's "Transfer detection" when one half of a real-world transfer transaction arrives in Quicken when the other half of the transfer has not yet been downloaded.

The following is a long shot, based on my initial impression of a possible cause of your problem. The idea is to try to get a clearer picture of what is happening and when.

A. Test One
- Create a New (test) Quicken file
- Setup ONLY the bank account and the non-retirement investment account.
- Use 1-line registers
- Use names for accounts, payees, etc. that clearly distinguish the entities without giving away any private information: name the bank account, "Checking", and the investment account, "Brokerage", for example.
- Use the same setting for "Transfer detection" you're now using
- Plan to download to only the Checking and Brokerage accounts. 
- Use the same download approach you have been using (especially if you are using Update Now and processing all the downloaded transactions for a given account before downloading another account).
- Accept transactions one at a time, noting the Quicken account contents immediately following the acceptance of each transaction. 
- Start by Accepting one of the Brokerage transactions for $67 and note what that transaction looks like in the Quicken Brokerage account. I think it should have an "Action" value of "Withdraw" (if it had an Action value of "XOut", Quicken would REQUIRE a "Transfer account" before the transaction could be Accepted). Which would explain your comment, "Both Brokerage accounts, when uploaded showed normal entries with no .
- Before accepting any more Brokerage transactions, download to the Checking account and Accept the $67 transaction that corresponds to the $67 transaction already accepted in the Brokerage account. Note the results.

Hopefully that will provide a bit more insight.

B. Test Two
Then try deleting the two accounts in the New (test) file and re-creating them as above.

This time, download using One Step Update, while doing everything else as you did in the previous test.

After you Accept the first $67 transaction for the Brokerage account, note any possible difference in what Quicken asks and what the result is following your response.

If there is still any confusion about what is happening, try one more test.

C. Test Three
Delete and re-create the same two accounts and set them up for downloading.
UNcheck the "Transfer detection" setting "Scan downloaded transactions for possible transfers".
Download and process transactions just as you were doing when you initiated this discussion.

Otherwise, do exactly handle your downloading to "Checking" and "Brokerage" just as you were when you initiated this discussion.  Note any differences in results.


[NOTE: some of your XOut transactions appear to have algebraic signs that are not normal for XOut transactions - a further indication of something fishy going on.]

[NOTE: it might be easier to others here to grasp what is happening in your investment account,  if you have your investment accounts use 1-line per transaction,  show more of the problem transactions,  and include the Quicken heading row in your screen shot. It might also help - as suggested earlier, if you name the financial institutions involved]

-JP

knute97

I am using 2024 Deluxe.

The suggestion to turn off Transfer detection bothers me. It is turned ON and I always liked the feature. Whenever a payment was made from checking, say, to a credit card, the categories synchronized — unless I am misunderstanding the feature.

Also, I download all my accounts at once, not individually, unless there was an issue or problem.

Question — whenever I delete the XOUT transaction or change a posted category and the account totals now disagree with the Download total, what or where has changed?? I have been making manual adjustment entries to accomplish this but I don't like it. Would rather get to the root of the problem.

I would also like to emphasize that the problems occurred in the last 2-3 months. Before that, I never had a problem with the same accounts.

I am going to try and digest your more detail trials and I thank you for the response!