nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

RBC Transaction download - Debit trans say "Purchase"

Paul Makulski

Quicken Classic (Canada), R56.9, Build 27.1.56.9 on Windows 11

I have been using Quicken forever. And downloading transactions from RBC for at least a decade.

Sometime in the last month or two, downloaded transaction no longer have any useful information in the description field for debit transactions.

It used to say something useful, like the vendor name. Now it just says "Purchase".

My Quicken version was a bit out of date (R54.something). I updated to the latest, but it did not fix the issue.

Nothing has changed on my end. Is it a change on the RBC side?

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Arctic Hare

Are you using Web Connect or Express Web Connect?

smayer97

Not sure if it is related but this kind of thing is showing up when logging into and viewing the account online also.

Arctic Hare

Note: the reason why I asked the OP whether they are downloading transactions via Web Connect or Express Web Connect is that I am presently getting different results (Payee and Posted Date) depending on which method I use and the difference in Payee can be very significant, i.e. entirely dissimilar.

As an aside, I've lost confidence in Express Web Connect being a viable download method as it gives me incorrect data for both RBC and BMO, which are the two financial institutions from which I want to download transactions. I'm not happy with the overhead of using Web Connect, buy I've decided that getting correct data is more important that easy data.

BigSpender69

I have the same issue downloading from RBC.

On Sunday and Monday, no downloads are available but on Tuesday you can download via EWC but the transaction names will not list, only purchase and visa (for me).

However, if you were to wait to download until Wednesday, I think that the correct names will download. I think I tried that once and that was the case but I can't remember 100%

Paul Makulski

Yeah, not sure of the name of the method I use to download.

I used to download a file from the RBC On-Line banking. Opening that file caused it to be loaded to Quicken.

But that was quite a few years ago. I pull the information from the bank by using One Step Update. Quicken holds my login credentials in the vault. This is the method I have used for maybe 3 years now?

Arctic Hare

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20445885#Comment_20445885

If you are using One Step Update (which is Express Web Connect), do you have multi-factor authentication (i.e. trusted device) switched off in your online banking profile?

Arctic Hare

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20445851#Comment_20445851

What you are describing sounds like the difference between a pending transaction and posted transaction.

Paul Makulski

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20445886#Comment_20445886

Two factor authentication is on, and Quicken is a trusted source. (At least, I don't get challenged on the downloads).

I have gone back and looked at my online transactions. Today (Monday) the three most recent transactions are described as "Interac Purchase". One on Monday, and two on Saturday.
If I look back at my downloaded transactions, transactions that were downloaded as "Purchase" were all on the weekend. But those transaction on the on-line banking have fuller descriptions now. e.g. "Contactless Interac purchase - 1392 SAM'S VARIETY"

So what I seem to be seeing is today's transactions (or weekend transactions) are not fully described yet, but are the next day.
I believe that these "undescribed transactions" didn't used to get downloaded. This seems to be a change at RBC.

Chris_QPW

"undescribed transactions"

Sounds like pending transactions to me.

Arctic Hare

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20445891#Comment_20445891

Two trains of thought here…

#1) The change in behaviour may very well be because Quicken recently (last Canadian release, I think) added new functionality that supports downloading pending transactions. There is a switch that enables you to turn off the pending transaction feature, but there is a possibility that it isn't working 100%. I suspect that the change in behaviour is due to Quicken adding pending transaction download functionality versus a change by RBC.

#2) I am very interested in understanding how you can download from RBC with MFA enabled. I can't. What I experience with MFA enabled is the following:

I am only able to successfully use Express Web Connect to download transactions from RBC Royal Bank when I switch the Trusted Device MFA to OFF in the RBC online banking site. When I have the Trusted Device MFA turned on, I get the following sequence:

Initiate One Step Update
Receive a notification of login attempt via the RBC Mobile App on my Trusted Device
Immediately click on the attempted login notice and approve it in the RBC Mobile App on my Trusted Device
Mobile App tells me that the approval of the login timed out (and therefore wasn't approved), even though I approved the login attempt within seconds of it appearing.
Mobile App tells me that there was an unsuccessful login attempt on my account and requires me to indicate whether it was me who made that attempt
I confirm that I made the failed login in attempt
One Step Update completes but no transactions download
Rinse and Repeat with the same result - no transactions ever download.

If I switch the Trusted Device MFA to OFF from withing the RBC online banking site then I can successfully download transactions from RBC Royal Bank via One Step Update. In summary, it seems that with RBC Royal Bank and Quicken I can either (i) have MFA enabled for enhanced security; or (ii) be able to download transaction data using Express Web Connect and One Step Update; but, I can't have both simultaneously.

Do you use the Quicken mobile App?

BigSpender69

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20445887#Comment_20445887

Yes but my pending transactions is set to OFF. It shouldn't be doing that.

Chris_QPW

One of the things I remember noting about the pending transactions feature is that it was official announced for Quicken Windows US, but not for Quicken Window Canada, and that it was showing up in versions of Quicken Windows US that were released before that official notice.

By the time they did this last official notice of the pending transactions feature it was the "third attempt". So, my belief is that they never took out the old code for the pending transactions and seeing it or not was some setting on the server.

The question in my mind has always been then does that mean that people without the newest change are running code from the "old attempts"?

Don't know. But I do know these things. 1) The old code didn't work properly and was quickly turned off. 2) The new code behaves quite different from the old code. The major problem with the old code had to do with the balances and actually getting the "pending balances" and such. The new code upholds the old standard (when it works right) that the "online balance" should only include posted transactions. Without that you can't properly reconcile (one should never reconcile to a balance with pending transactions in it that will go away).

Arctic Hare

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20446276#Comment_20446276

I concur that it shouldn't be downloading pending transactions if the "download pending transactions" feature is switched OFF; however, I can attest to having that very problem downloading from BMO recently. That particular issue with BMO is now resolved, but for several months I was getting pending transactions from BMO with the pending transaction feature switched OFF. My point is that the behaviour of that features seems to be not entirely as intended/designed; i.e. there seems to be some bugs/issues that are still being worked out. I'm presenting this as one possible explanation for the issue you are experiencing.

Shannon101

I too am having the same issue with RBC accounts. I was hoping the latest update R58.9 would fix it, but it hasn't. What good are a bunch of transactions downloaded that just say Purchase? When I log into my online banking the details are all there. The other thing I notice is quicken now also crashes often while doing the One Step Update, often with no crash report.

Arctic Hare

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20448030#Comment_20448030

Generally speaking, these types of issues are not related to the Quicken application itself and, hence, do not get resolved by updates to the Quicken application. In other words, I would have been very surprised if the R58.9 release fixed this issue.

I could offer some suggestions as to the best options to get this issue addressed, but I remain unclear as to the exact process the people who have posted here are using to download transactions. In particular, it is absolutely critical that when you post on this issue, you indicate whether you are getting the problematic data only when using Web Connect or only when using Express Web Connect or when using both download methods.

I have to assume that very people are using Express Web Connect with RBC because you can't use RBC's multi-factor authentication with a trusted advice and use Express Web Connect. They are, unfortunately, incompatible.

It is also important to note whether the vague descriptions are for all transactions or only for specific types of transactions.

Some screen shots would be hugely helpful.

I do bank with RBC and have multiple clients cards and accounts and could verify the issue… but, specifics are critical.