Download Functionality in Mac version vs Windows version

Frank DeMello

30 year Windows user running dual Win/Mac before converting to the Mac version

I feel the windows download functionality is better for one reason: if for some reason you enter a transaction wrong (prior to download) you end up with 2 of the same transaction. And there is no way to correct/match after that forcing some manual work to clean up. In windows with the separate download queue you could easily correct before posting

Any plans to add this option for users?

I also do not like that the blue dot against the account goes away just clicking on it and not when all blue dot transactions are reviewed. Wish Quicken would fix that

Otherwise I like the Mac version and getting closer to migrating over

jacobs

@Frank DeMello Well, I can solve one of your problems right away, and maybe the other as well! 😂

For the latter issue: in Settings > Sidebar, there is a choice about when the blue dot shows/disappears; if you select "Highlight accounts with unreviewed transactions", then the blue dot will remain until you have marked all transactions reviewed.

For the first issue: if Quicken Mac auto-matches a downloaded transaction and manually-entered transaction, you can undo the auto-match with one step: Control-click on the merged transaction, and from the pop-up menu, select "Reject Automatic Transaction Match". This splits the transaction back to the original manual transaction and the downloaded transaction, so you can manually match the download to a different transaction, or edit or delete the manual transaction. I think that gives you the flexibility you're missing from Quicken Windows.

There are no announced plans to build a Windows-like quarantine area for downloaded transactions. I'll repost this from an earlier discussion of this issue if it's of any help:

Actually, Quicken Windows has an "Automatic" mode that works similarly to Quicken Mac, but longtime users probably may not be aware of it since you'd have to select it somewhere in settings. In Quicken Mac, you rely on the symbols in the Status column of registers to guide you through which transactions have been downloaded, matched, and marked as reviewed, rather than having a separate holding pen for downloaded transactions. I know it's a big change, but if you give it a little time and learn the symbols and how you can mark transactions as reviewed (or flag them for review), you might find you like it.

Here's a post by a longtime Quicken Windows expert describing it in Quicken Windows:

Chris_QPW

Dec 22, 2020

The SuperUsers and you might not like my answer, but my suggestion would be to turn on Automatic transaction entry mode.  It is different and has the word "automatic" in it and as such gets very little respect from the long time users, but it has some advantages.  And to prove that it is a viable way to do this it is the only way to do it in Quicken Mac and is the default for new users in Quicken Windows.

I do believe that the not selecting of the next transaction is some kind of bug, but all the rest is because the "Downloaded Transaction tab" isn't the register.  There is a ton of features built into the register, and basically what you (and others) are asking for is for the developers to duplicate all those efforts in the Downloaded Transactions tab.

But even if it got all of the multiple select features and such I believe the workflow is just wrong.  The problem with it is that you can't see what categories are going to be assigned until you click on a transaction in the Downloaded Transaction tab and it takes you to that transaction in the register.

Compare that to the workflow of Automatic transaction entry mode.
All the transaction appear in the register with the status column having the status New or New Match (be sure to expand the status column so you can see the words and not just the icons).

So right off the bat you can scan all the new transactions and make sure they have the right categories.  And in the case of the Matching that the matched the right transaction, and also for transactions that should have matched, but didn't.

This alone removes most of the work and gets you down to working on the transactions that really need your attention.

This process uses "review" instead of "select and accept".
Basically you are working to clear all of the New/New Match statuses by reviewing them.

Here is an example of my downloading of transactions into one of my credit card accounts.


All those categories are correct.  But let's imagine that one of them isn't.  If I go in and change the category the New status will go away, because I have "reviewed it" by the fact that I have changed it.  That is one way to clear the status.


The next way I can "review" is by clicking on one of the transactions "New" status.


As you can see I can mark that one transaction reviewed (the New status is cleared) or all of the transactions.  In this case since everything is now correct I might select Mark all as reviewed.  But in fact I use a third method for clearing the statuses when I'm sure all the transactions have the right categories, splits, matching and such.  I reconcile the account, and that will clear all the New statuses from transaction in that reconcile.  Note it is VERY important not to use automatic reconcile with Automatic transaction entry mode.  If you do it will go right into the automatic reconcile right after the download and if all the amounts line up the reconcile will be done and all the New/New Match statuses will be cleared.  Reconcile is working on the amounts, and cares nothing about the categories, and as such shouldn't be done before you make sure the categories are all correct.

Here is an example of a missing category.


This one I actually need to change the payee and category.  I used PayPal to send a gift and took the money directly from this account.  And in this case just typing in the name fills in the category too, and then enter and I'm done (and then on to the reconcile).

And I'm going to reset and setup something that happens all the time to me for transfers.  That the reminder of a credit card payment doesn't exactly match the downloading transaction (if you right click on the image you can display it in another tab to see is better).  This happens because even if I have the exact statement amount in the reminder, returns after the statement change the actual payment.



So how do I resolve this one?
First I need to make the amount of the manually/reminder entered transaction the right amount (automatic entry mode only matches to the exact amount, this almost entirely eliminates the long "possible matches" that you might get with using the matching in the Downloaded Transactions tab).


Next I click on the "Uncleared" status.

Select Match to a download transaction:

Hitting Enter is all I have to do here.
And the result:


With all of this you will notice that I didn't address how to edit multiple transactions and the other things you talked about.  Why?
Because you are in the register, you can do anything it allows.  You have a lot of new transactions and they are mixed up with old ones?
Sort by the the Status column (needed for all those nasty cases where you download duplicate transactions after a reset of an Express Web Connect account).
Need to change multiple transactions?
Use multiple select or find and replace, ...

And another post by the same user in a Quicken Mac thread about the workflow in Quicken Mac, and why he thinks its actually superior:

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20222695#Comment_20222695

(Read that post and the few which follow it.)

Frank DeMello

Thanks so much Jacobs. This helps a lot. Appreciate it!