Separate transactions by credit card number?

Mer978

My husband and I each have a separate credit card under one account at my credit card company. Does anyone know if it's possible (and how) to download activity from each cardholder into two separate accounts in quicken? Or if it's possible to bring in the card holder name so I can at least sort the transactions or create reports based on that info?

NotACPA

For one of my card accounts, my wife l & I have separate card numbers. The statement is subtotaled by card number, but there's only one login and it downloads from both cards … since there's only one card account and one statement.

BK

@NotACPA , We also have two different card numbers and ours did give us two logins, but the data is identical. We can sort on their website, but the download files to Quicken are the same, so no point.

BK

This is not an answer, rather adding some info. Credit card companies seem to include a field in the download file called ACCTID and it looks like this (for Capital One):
<ACCTID>1234 or <ACCTID>5678 where the numbers are partial last digits of the two different credit cards and each financial institution has a slightly different format (4 digits, 8 digits, etc).

QWin does not have a Register column to display this ACCTID field to my knowledge. Seems like QMac does not either.

Question to SuperUsers (Windows and Mac): Do you know if the ACCTID is common to all FIs? If yes, then perhaps we can turn the OP's question into a product enhancement idea. Of course the other consideration is that vast majority of CC companies unfortunately provide the exact same # for both card-holders under the same account; only a few provide distinguishable ones.

jacobs

In the case of Amex, they issue cards with different numbers to the 2 users, so that is what could make it possible (using the Statement Memo column). All my other cards (and the vast majority of others) issue a single number for both users.

CapitalOne also gives each individual a separate credit card number, even though there is only one account.

@BK I think each financial institution determines what to include in the download data. ACCTID is not a required field, and so not all credit card companies use it. As @RickO said, Amex includes the last four in the Statement Memo field. Other financial institutions may not include any identifying information at all in what they download. It's not something Quicken has any control over; it simply depends what each financial institution programs into their downloads.

BK

@jacobs , Thank you.

ACCTID is not a required field, and so not all credit card companies use it.

I think this settles it. Would've been a nice feature if Quicken could add it in for the ones who would supply it. But the benefit is probably very small. Cheers.

Chris_QPW

@jacobs said:

ACCTID is not a required field

The ACCTID field is a required field in the OFX standard. The fact that it is "optional" in Quicken Mac implies that the information supplied isn't following the OFX standard. That isn't really that surprising since Quicken Connect doesn't have to follow the OFX standard like Web Connect or Direct Connect because it is basically a hack of trying to get the data in any form that the financial institution and Intuit can agree on.

Note that it "can be in standardized" format like In OFX or FDX but isn't required for it to be in that format. It is completely up to the financial institution.

And as for what is put into that field (if it is there) is completely up to the financial institution.

I will say something else about this. I don't know how Quicken Mac handles this, but Quicken Windows does require the account id, if it isn't provided by the downloaded data, Intuit has to put in "something", because it one of the critical ways that Quicken Windows links the Quicken account to the online account.

jacobs

The ACCTID field is a required field in the OFX standard.

I shouldn't have said the field wasn't required. Instead, I should have said :

And as for what is put into that field (if it is there) is completely up to the financial institution.

When I look at a downloaded QFX file from my bank for my checking account, I see the ACCTID used to identify the full bank account number. It appears only once at the beginning of the file; it is not repeated with each transaction.

When I look at a downloaded QFX file from my Capital One credit card account, I see the ACCTID repeated with each transaction, displaying the last four digits of the credit card used; my wife and I have different card numbers for the same account. I cannot see those four digits in any field in Quicken Mac.

When I look at a downloaded QFX file from my Amex account, I see the ACCTID only once, with the last five digits of the primary credit card; my wife and I have different card numbers for the same account, and the ACCTID field is not used to identify which is which, but the Statement Memo field contains either my name + last 5 digits or my wife's name + last 5 digits to differentiate who made each transaction.

So although the ACCTID field must appears at least once in a QFX/OFX download, exactly what data it contains and how it is used is a free-for-all for each financial institution. One included a full account number; two included the end of the account number. One included the last four digits of the card used as ACCTID information for each transaction, while another used the MEMO field for that information.

In Quicken Mac, as best I can see, information a financial institution includes in an ACCTID field for each transaction is not automatically mapped to a visible Quicken Mac field. But the field mapping (implemented by Intuit as part of their connectivity service for each financial institution) may be different from one institution to another.

That's a more complete answer than the quick one I made previously. 😉

Chris_QPW

The OFX/QFX files have a standard structure and the ACCTID will only appear once per account, but there can be multiple accounts in one OFX/QFX file, but that is seldom done by financial institutions. It is definitely not in the OFX spec to have the account per transaction.

The only requirement Quicken has is that the ACCTID be unique.

And I will have to say that the financial institution's choices for this almost always makes perfect sense even if it isn't what the user might want. Some of it has to do with security (not actually using the whole account number) and some of it has to do with how the financial institution views that account (as one account with multiple credit card numbers that need to be combined, or as separate accounts).

For example, my wife and I share a credit card account. In this case, the number on it is exactly the same. So, it doesn't matter if Quicken accesses the information using my online account or hers, Quicken is going to get the exact same information. This shows that it isn't the "username and password" that controls what the financial institution considers one account.

It gets a bit more twisted when the credit card account numbers are different, especially if the accounts are considered "business".

Imagine you run a business and want to have different employees have different credit card numbers, but you need to be able to see all the transactions. Clearly, one might want to view them separately, or combined, and there isn't "clear winner" of which is the best to use.

This shows up in Quicken at times where people want them separated, but the financial institution downloads them into Quicken as one. But it also shows up the other way around where the financial institution has separated them out by credit card number and the person wants them all in one account.

Ideally the financial institution would have different reports for the different use cases, and options for downloading transactions, but I don't think I have ever heard of any financial institution that has given the user this choice.

It really isn't possible for Quicken to separate the transactions, there just isn't the needed information to do so. As of combining them, I suppose that would be somewhat possible, but very complicated, there just isn't that big of a need for it.