Citizens Bank (MA)--balances on OSU show available, not actual balance

erwiest

When downloading a checking account from Citizens Bank of MA, only completed (not pending) transactions download (as I want), but the downloaded balance reflects pending debit card transactions, forcing me to do a manual reconciliation. No big deal, but is there in anything in settings (on either end) that I should be looking at?

Quicken Jasmine

Hello @erwiest,

When did this issue begin to occur? Did is show the actual balance previously? Are you receiving any error codes or messages when downloading form Citizens Bank (MA)?

Let me know!

erwiest

About 2-3 weeks. No error codes. FWIW, this is my only Citizens account with regular debit card activity.

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

First, please check Edit>Preferences>Pending transactions. Is it turned on? If it is, and you don't use it at all in any account, then please turn it off, restart your Quicken program, and check to see if the issue persists.

If you have the feature turned on and do want to use it in some accounts, then click the hourglass icon near the bottom of the register (typically just to the left of Ending Balance), and make sure that the pending transactions options are unchecked in that account register.

Once you have made sure that Pending is unselected for the account you're having this problem in, please restart your Quicken program and see if the issue persists.

I hope this helps!

erwiest

Pending tranasactions has been off. What seems to be happening, even after restart, is that Citizens is reporting available funds after pending and uncleared debit card purchases as the current balance without downloading pending transactions (and this longtime user considers downloading pending credit/debit card transactions to be a bug, not a feature). [I don't do debit card with other Citizens' accounts I watch on Quicken]. My guess is that its Citizens' coding, not Quicken's, is the problem—but given Citizens was slow to permit OSU updates using any protocol and my experience in trying to talk to Citizens' tech support, I don't expect to get far with the bank. 60 extra seconds to go to the bank website, check the balance per books, then reconcile manually may be the only solution for now.

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

Depending on how active the account is, waiting for pending transactions to post may be a viable work-around. When you say reconcile manually, are you referring to reconciling using the statement balance? If so, that would also be a work-around since that option doesn't use the online balance.

Thank you!

erwiest

Manual reconcile using online balance is what I have been doing (with 4-5 debit card transactions a day occassionally, I have to look at the bank site in any case). Still, it's a nuisance . . .

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

Due to the nature of this issue, I recommend that you contact Quicken Support directly for further assistance as they can walk you through troubleshooting steps in real-time and escalate the situation as 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.

I apologize that I could not be of more assistance!