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Beware of Bills with Zero Balance

Ray

If I enter a bill with a credit equal to the payment, the balance is zero. Quicken gets confused with zero and can’t tell if it’s a payment or a deposit. If it thinks it’s a payment, the payment remains positive and the credit negative. But if it decides it’s a deposit, it reverses all the signs making the payment negative and the credit positive. The sign change occurs after you save it. If you don’t reopen the transaction, you won’t know this happened. See screenshots 5 and 6.

06 - After payment, sign on all amounts reversed.jpg

When I found it reversed all the signs in screenshot 6, I changed them back. Screenshot 7 shows the correct signs again.

07 - Had to edit to change signs back.jpg

What is even more bizarre is what happened. Look at the credit account in screenshot 8. Paying the bill with credit should have reduced the balance in the credit account – but it increased it by $22.04.

08 - PG&E Credits should be Decrease - wrong.jpg

Out of curiosity, I reduced the transaction’s credit to leave a balance of $0.01. Quicken then asked if it was a Payment of a Deposit. It’s a payment as it’s a bill. Look at screenshots 9, 10, and 11. Compare 11 to 8. You’ll see that the $0.01 changed the credit account from an erroneous increase to a correct decrease of $22.03.

09 - Pay most of bill with credits again.jpg

11 - PG&E Credits is now a Decrease - correct.jpg

Additional editing to get a zero-balance transaction with correct signs and a correct credit account entry was futile.

Quicken “Validate and repair” doesn’t detect or correct these issues. This has occurred on 3 different data files. It doesn’t happen on all zero-balance transactions, but I haven’t figured out why.

I’m using Quicken Business & Personal Version R57.26 Build 27.1.57.26 with Windows 10 Pro. Everything is up to date. This has been happening for months, but I haven’t had time to investigate and document it. Creating a Reminder on a zero-balance transaction may pop up a message you don't need the negative sign. This will reverse the signs making it wrong.

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Comments

Quicken Kristina

Hello @Ray,

To help troubleshoot this issue, please provide more information. Are you editing/entering a bill reminder and having this issue happen, or are you putting the split transaction directly into your register (without using a reminder)? Does this happen only when the credit is depicted as a transfer in your Quicken?

I look forward to your response!

Ray

I wish Quicken would send an email notification when there's a reply to my issue.

This happens when entering a bill paid from a credit balance account so the net amount is zero. (I have to create a separate account for the utility credit balance.) It will sometimes change the sign of all amounts in the bill. The balance is still zero but charges become credits and credits become charges. So instead of paying for electricity, I get a refund and instead of reducing my utility credit balance, it increases it. I only find out when I look at a report.

It also happens when memorizing a transfer between accounts. If I create a transaction to pay my credit card from a checking account, then create a reminder for future months, when saving it Quicken will say I don't need the negative sign and will remove it. When I use the reminder, the signs are reversed. Also, it often has lost the checking account leaving it blank.

I'm not sure how to answer your last question. I hope the screenshots can answer your question. This happens on 3 different data files so I think it's an old bug in Quicken and not something in a single data file.

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

If you don't have email notifications turned on, you should be able to turn them on by editing your notification preferences.

The issue you mention with creating the transfer reminders for future months sounds very similar to an issue which has already been reported. Are you setting up the reminder from the receiving account, rather than the sending account? If so, then the issue is already reported (CTP-10284).

To clarify, this issue with $0 bills happens when the bill is functionally paid by a credit balance on the account?

Thank you!

Ray

The screenshot shows the sending and receiving accounts for the transfer. Mine lose the receiving account. When this happens, I edit the Memorized transaction but days later, the receiving account is gone again.

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

Due to the nature of the original issue you posted about, I recommend contacting Quicken Support directly for further assistance, since they have tools we on the Community don't have access to, and they're able to escalate the issue if needed. The Quicken Support phone number can be found through this link here. Phone support is available from 5:00 am PT to 5:00 pm PT, Monday through Friday. If Support isn't able to help with the issue, please let us know and we'll see what we can do to pursue the issue further on our end.

For the second issue you brought up, just to clarify, is it the memorized transaction or the reminder that is losing the checking account (category column)? Is this issue happening in all 3 data files also, or is it limited to just one file? Is the checking account the receiving account or the sending account in the transfer?

Thank you!

Ray

I contacted support and spoke with a supervisor. He said it was a known problem and to report it with Quicken's Report a Problem which I did. I've reported it periodically since December last year. I hope it's worth my time to report issues. Most have been reoccurring for months and I've never been contacted, hence, using the Community pages. My only workaround on this issue is to split my zero-balance bill into two transactions: one to pay the bill and a second, to transfer the payment amount from my utility credit account. The bill might be $50 and the transfer $-50.

Another observation is the memo field information in the PG&E Credits. The dates shown are not the same as those in the split transaction. Where did they come from?

Your last question. I use the memorized for non-periodic transactions if they pop up when I enter the Payee. Memorized with a destination of a bank account are the ones losing their destination. I use reminders and sometimes copy and paste an existing transaction for monthly bill payments. Any of these can have the sign reversal issue if the total is zero.

Chris_QPW

Just an observation. I have followed Quicken forums for many years, I have seen many reports over the years that Quicken has problems with zero balance splits.

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for the update,

I have gone ahead and submitted a bug report for this to our Development and Product teams for further investigation and resolution.

Unfortunately, we won't have an ETA on this. However, once a solution is created it will be made available as part of a future update release.

Thank you for your patience and for bringing awareness to this issue!

(CTP-10773)

Ray

I'm wondering if Quicken is confused by split transactions if both a positive and a negative amount use the same category. Attached is "Payment or Deposit.png" that appeared even though the total was not zero. This makes no sense to me as payments are positive amounts that transfer money out of the account. Deposits are negative amounts that transfer money into the account. Quicken should delete the popup and process the amount in each line as written.

I selected Payment and saved it. I opened it again, added the PG&E credit to make the total zero, and saved it. When I reopened the transaction, all the signs were reversed. I save the non-zero payment and added another transaction for the PG&E Credit, both are fine. The deposit cancels the payment. Quicken gets confused when both are in the same transaction.

I haven't heard anything from Quicken Support. The case number the supervisor gave me is #11230991.

Payment or Deposit.png

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for the follow-up,

I reviewed your interaction with Support; they did not promise a call back. I can see that you called and spoke to Support for about 45 minutes before you had to go. The supervisor provided you the ticket number for reference and told you earlier in the call that the primary issue you called about was already a known issue (QWin-22772). Additionally, the issues you reported in this discussion were reported to our teams via CTP-10773. When I check, I can see both tickets are open and in work.

If you haven't already done so, please go to Edit>Preferences>Setup and make sure that New Subscriber settings is not selected; if that setting is on, it may be causing some of the issues with signs changing in splits.

Screenshot 2024-09-08 at 12.05.12 PM.png

Thank you!

Ray

I checked both data files and neither have the box checked. It's bad enough that Quicken switches signs but even worse, it sometimes will switch all the signs except the PG&E Credit. There are clues that the programs need to investigate. One is the "Payment or Deposit" popup message. Another is the "It's unnecessary to have a negative sign" popup message when I create a reminder for a transfer transaction in one account to another account. There's a 3rd issue in that these reminders occasionally loose the target account information.