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Tutorial and Renaming downloaded transactions

Thaddeus Severy

First Question: Why are there not online tutorials like Microsoft Excel? I really wish quicken would do that. If they have can someone provide me with a link?

Second Question: and this is my real issue…. I cannot figure out how to have quicken rename transactions when they are downloaded…. I keep playing around with the renaming rules but I can only seem to get it to rename downloaded transactions manually.

Example: I frequent a local store sometimes 3 times daily… When I download transactions quicken keeps calling it "exxon" because that's what it is from my bank. downloaded memo shows the stores name, but I cannot get quicken to read the memo and rename the transaction

Thanks for any help

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Jim_Harman

I would love to see a clear and accurate tutorial that includes manual and automatic renaming, memorized Payees, and automatic Categorization.

For your second question, the following settings in Edit > Preferences > Downloaded transactions affect renaming and auto categorizing

Use my existing renaming rules enables and disables your renaming rules

Automatically apply Quicken's suggested name to Payee If checked and none of your renaming rules applies, replaces the downloaded Payee name with the name supplied by Quicken's server, if any.

Automatically Categorize transactions If the Payee after any renaming is not found in your Memorized Payee List, add the Category supplied by Quicken's server, if any

Renaming rules are supposed to consider both the downloaded Payee and Memo fields. "Contains" in Renaming rules refers to words (technically tokens) separated by white space or punctuation and in the given order, not substrings. So for example, Contains Home Depot will not match to HOMEDEPOT.

Please let us know if this resolves the issue for you, and if not, provide an example of the downloaded Payee/Memo combination and your current Renaming Rule that you think should apply.

Boatnmaniac

Perhaps this will be of some assistance regarding your 1st question: https://www.quicken.com/support/help-getting-started-quicken/ . It includes a form to set up some 1x1 help in getting started with Quicken. It also includes links to the Quicken Start Guides for Windows and Mac that are found in Help.

2nd Question: The Renaming Rules apply only to the downloaded Payee name. There is no way to link what is in the downloaded Memo field to Renaming Rules. Not every financial institution downloads data into the Memo field and what is sometimes downloaded there is often not anything that would be of much use to or make any sense to the user.

But I must ask: Why should the Payee (Exxon) be different based upon what is in the Memo field? Would it not make more sense to let the Payee always be Exxon and then assign the Category based upon what was purchased? I think most people use the Memo field to manually enter more specific details about the purchase.

As an example of what I do:

When I shop at Walmart it can be for a variety of different things: Auto Maintenance, Auto Supplies, Prescriptions, Yard Supplies, Groceries, Clothing, Electronics, Office Supplies and a number of other categories. Often these multiple-category things are purchases in the same single transaction, but not always.
What the credit card companies download is the Posting date, the Payee (Walmart) and the dollar amount but nothing else that is of much value. It certainly does not download any details of what was actually purchased. Regardless of what I purchase, the Payee is always "Walmart" and generally does not change based upon what I purchased (one exception includes Costco Warehouse and Costco Gas).
The financial institution does not download category nor purchase details information. If your Quicken Preferences are set for it, Quicken will enter a pretty generic Category such as "Shopping" or it will enter a more specific Category that you previously used for that Payee from the Memorized Payee List. When something is downloaded into the Memo field it is generally pretty meaningless to me. or anyone outside of the financial institution.
When I make a purchase of this type of scenario, I will usually proactively manually enter the entire transaction with all the desired data before it is downloaded. Then Quicken will usually match the download that later occurs to that manually entered transaction.
If I don't proactively manually enter the transaction, I will manually fill in the transaction details when it is downloaded from the financial institution.
What I do not do: I never allow Quicken to automatically enter downloaded transactions into Quicken….ever. It then forces me to review each downloaded transaction as it occurs so I can ensure that is has the appropriate Category and Memo info included.

mshiggins

What is the store name?

Aren’t there two settings for payee renaming rules? One which searches the combined payee and memo?

Check to see if you have a renaming rule for Exxon. If so, delete it.

Boatnmaniac

Aren’t there two settings for payee renaming rules? One which searches the combined payee and memo?

I think there used to be one option for if the Payee starts with a specific word and another with if the Payee name contains one or more specific words but I haven't seen both of these options provided for quite some time. What I see now is one option for if the Payee name contains one or more specific words and one for if the Quicken Payee name is something.

I do not see any option for a combined payee and memo nor do I recall there having been this option at one time or another but my memory is not as good as it used to be. If there is this option I sure hope that someone in the know will pipe in here and tells us how to do that.

Jim_Harman

It may be wrong, but the Help for Renaming Rules is here

https://info.quicken.com/win/how-do-i-standardize-payee-names-with-renaming-rul

It says Quicken searches the Payee and Memo fields for the search words you specify.

In the drop-down, select Payee contains or Quicken name is to specify the type of renaming rule to create.
What's the difference?
Payee contains: When you download new transactions, Quicken searches the combined text of the downloaded Payee and Memo fields for the text you enter (in the next step). A match occurs, and the downloaded payee is renamed, if the text you enter appears in the same order, and not as a substring, somewhere within the combined fields. Examples: Parker matches Parker Supplies; Parker does not match ParkerSupplies; Parker Supplies matches Parker Supplies Company; Parker Supplies does not match Supplies by Parker Company.

I agree there is seldom anything useful in the downloaded Memo field.

Boatnmaniac

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20473534#Comment_20473534

Interesting. I never knew that Renaming Rules will take into account what is in the Memo field. But what confuses me about that is I've never seen anything in the Renaming Rules setup that gives any prompt or indication that one can enter something from the Memo field. I would imagine that you must know what is going to be included in the Memo field beforehand so you can manually enter it into the Rule. I would also imagine that it would only be an effective Rule if that word, words or number will be in the downloaded Memo each and every time that a transaction downloads for that Payee. If the words or numbers in the Memo field will be different each time (which usually seems to be the case) then the Renaming Rule likely will not work at all. I'll have to try working with this in a test file to see if I can figure out how this can be set up.

Jim_Harman

I went through my working file and enabled the Downloaded Memo field in the account Registers to see what was there. The field was usually blank, but for American Express credit card accounts, it has XXXX followed by the last 4 digits of my credit card number. This might be useful if you have more than one card for the account and they have different numbers, and Amex actually puts a different number in the Memo depending on which card was used.

Chris_QPW

For what it is worth, I never use "If Quicken name is", it has been nothing, but problems for me. Even though I agree with the statements the fact that "If payee contains" searches the memo is seldom important because the memos are almost never downloaded, I have found that sometimes "If Quicken name is" will not match some payee names. I'm assuming it has to do with the fact that "If Quicken name is" is using some kind of server table look up whereas "If payee contains" is purely local.

At any rate for sure if you use "If Quicken name is" it will not try to match the downloaded memo, you need to use "If payee contains" instead.

Thaddeus Severy

Thank you all for your answers! I hope the powers that be see this and provide better tutorials.

To answer Boatnmaniac question. My job is outside all over the state of Vermont and I stop at a lot of stores, mostly Exxon/Mobiles. But My store that is next to my house I stop at the most. My bank does include a lot of information in the memo field, and I am just trying to see how much I spend at this particular store… Not only that, but the memo field also shows some special characters whenever I purchase fuel, If I can get the renaming figured out, perhaps I can get it to categorize the transactions between fuel and food&drink. Thats why I want the renaming to work the way I hope it works

Jim_Harman

What I often see in downloaded Payees is a company name combined with something that identifies the store, like

STOP & SHOP 0653 WESTPORT CT

My Renaming rule for this is

This will put purchases at any Stop & Shop store into the same Payee.

If you want to separate out your local store, you should be able to use a rule like this

In theory Quicken would use the second, more specific rule for your local store and use the more general rule for other stores in the same chain.

Boatnmaniac

If you are using Renaming Rules then you might not be seeing the downloaded Payee names. To see what the downloaded Payee names are as well as what the downloaded Memos are (if the financial institution downloads Memos), click on the columns table icon above the Balance column in the account register. Then check the boxes for Downloaded Payee and Downloaded Memo and click on Done. This will add a column and fields in the account register for them. Then you should be able to set up the Renaming Rules to include the additional data shown there….especially note the store numbers that are unique to some Payees.