Transfer detection turned off, still doing it

lellis1936

For some time, transfer detection was turned on (Transfer detection: Scan downloaded transactions for possible transfers was checked) in my settings.

Then I discovered that the wrong matching accounts were being chosen sometimes, so I set the radio button "Confirm possible transfers before entering into register". This seemed to do nothing for me (no confirmation prompts were happening). So I took the next step…

I unchecked "Scan downloaded transactions for possible transfers".

But even so, my downloaded transactions are being linked without my taking any manual steps. There is no confirmation prompt, the downloaded transactions just already have the transfer account filled in in the category field.

Is this broken? How do I stop this from happening?

UKR

If you have issues with transfer transactions not being generated correctly:
IMHO, 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 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 automatic accepting process. Because a correctly entered transfer transaction already exists in your account registers, the program should just match the downloaded transfer transaction to the existing one in both accounts.

Chris_QPW

One possibility is that you have one or more memorized transactions that are transfers and they are kicking in.

It is very "problematic" for using memorized payees for transfers because there isn't anything limits it to one account.

Example I have two Chase credit cards. Naturally they will have the same payee when the bill is paid. And I have a memorized payee that is a transfer to my checking account. This works out because no matter which credit card account I'm in I use the same checking account and so the category of [Checking] is correct. But if I was paying these credit cards with different checking accounts it would always be wrong. And if I tried to memorize the payee from the checking side then I would always be wrong too.

lellis1936

I cannot reply directly to the suggestions above (due perhaps to some bugs in this web site).

So I will respond here.

UKR: Thanks, I agree this might be helpful, but the transactions in question are not manually generated. I have several automatic monthly transfers scheduled at Ally bank that are set up for the entire year (example: a self-funded property tax escrow account). So having to manually do this would eliminate the benefit of Ally's scheduling capabilities.

Chris_QPW: Yes, I think this is definitely the problem. I see memorized payees set up for the transactions that are giving me trouble, and they have the transfer category filled in. A fix might be to either remove the category from all such memorized transactions, but perhaps a better solution is to simply turn of the feature to memorize new payees. Thoughts welcome.

Chris_QPW

@lellis1936 This forum only lets you add comments at the bottom. You can refer to someone by typing the @ and then their username.

Personally, I have the preference to automatically memorizing new payees off. I think that once you have Quicken for a while you have most of your payees memorized and there isn't many new ones and it is better to memorize the ones that you are going to actually use. You can enter the details into a new transaction and then select Ctrl+M to memorize it.

For transaction I don't want Quicken to fill in like when the payee is Check, I memorize without a category and then select the "lock" checkbox for that payee entry in the memorized payee list.