linked house and mortgage accounts not working

enirevets

Just to be clear, this question is regarding a latent issue, not something "new" or "just started happening" or "changed" on my end.

I have in my Quicken for Windows (version 60.20) a "house" and a "mortgage" account which I haven't really been using. Last week for whatever reason I looked at them again and wondered why I'm not using them. (Seems useful, in theory… Quicken could use mortgage payments already being recorded in primary checking account to track outstanding principal balance, equity, cumulative principal vs. interest payments, etc.) So I started looking into updating and beginning to use these accounts… and ran into some questions.

In looking at what I have, I see the following:

Mortgage and house accounts which do show in Account Details as being connected to each other.

Mortgage account shows the opening loan amount from 2012 (which was long before I began using Quicken), then a balance adjustment on 8-4-20 which I suspect was an entry I made manually when I started using Quicken, then “balance adjustment”s approximately monthly through 7-4-22.

In my notes to self, I have a note that an account update failed 8-1-22, and that “reset” did not do anything, so I deactivated the account.

In the Quicken Community, today, when I searched for info on this general topic, the first couple pages of results seem dominated by various reports, mostly from 2021-22, of people having trouble with this function, and including a post from boatnmaniac suggesting that it might be better to not even try to have Quicken update mortgage accounts.

So, my questions at this point are:

1) general advice - is it worth it now, in 2025, to try to revive this function? Is the mortgage account function in Quicken working these days?

2) if so, how do I tell if my existing mortgage account was set up as “online” or “manual”? From what I see in Quicken Help, this is an important detail; but I don’t remember how I originally set it up, and can’t find it under “account details” or any of the other screens where I’ve looked.

Thanks in advance for any guidance.

enirevets

I posted about this a week ago (1-28-25) but have received no replies, so am re-posting and hopefully clarifying my question.

Approximately 3 weeks ago it came to my attention that my linked house & mortgage accounts stopped updating in mid-2022. Last week I checked a couple help pages, and checked my Account Details, without finding a solution. (And, as I said, this function worked fine for me prior to mid 2022; it then spontaneously stopped working, without my having changed anything on my end.) So, last week I also checked the Quicken Community re. this general topic; the most recent results I found were other users reporting the same problem in 2021-22, and superuser boatnmaniac suggesting that it might be better to just give up on this function - not even try to have Quicken update mortgage accounts.

So, my question at this point is: has anything changed? Is it worth it now, in 2025, to try to revive this function? Is the mortgage account function in Quicken working these days? It seems like an obvious thing that Quicken should be able to do - to use transactions that are already being entered anyway in a checking account, to track principal & interest, escrow, and current equity - but I saw no hint in the help pages I looked at, that anything has been done either to fix the problem or to provide any other workaround. Has Quicken dropped the ball on this or is there a an update/solution out there somewhere that I've missed?

[Merged Post]

Boatnmaniac

@enirevets - Sorry to hear that you did not receive any replies to your initial post. BTW if you want to help ensure that you get someone specific's attention, place the @ symbol directly in front o their ID name and then click on it to get it to show up in bold blue font. That will send a notification to that person.

So, tell me if I am correctly understanding:

1. You already have a mortgage account set up?
2. Does the mortgage account have an account register where you can see and edit payment transactions?
3. Are you wanting to download (link) the lender to the mortgage account?
4. Or are you wanting to link payment transactions (with breakdowns for principal, interest, escrow, etc.) in your checking account to the mortgage account?

enirevets

1. yes, already have mortgage account set up.
2. It does not seem to have an actual register - almost, but not quite. Here's what it does show: up near the top, under the account name, it shows 4 options: "Loan Details", "Payment Details", "Equity", and "What-If Tool". Under "Payment Details" there is what looks similar to a register - multiple lines each with 'date', 'payee', 'category', 'increase', 'decrease', and 'balance' - but there is no way for me to enter transactions. The transactions that are there each show 'payee' as "Balance Adjustment"; and they appear once/month; from when I began using Quicken (2020) through mid-2022. I don't know/remember how they got there.
3. & 4. At first I found these questions a little confusing; on further reflection, I think the proper answer is that I want to link payment transactions in my checking account, to the mortgage account. The mortgage account IS, in my mind at least, the lender. (I didn't name it "Wells Fargo", but rather "mortgage"; but under "loan details" I have it showing the original principal amount, origination date, etc., which match the original mortgage taken out with Wells Fargo in 2012.)

5. Your question #s 3 & 4 made me think maybe I was framing my question wrong - i.e, back in my post from 2-3-25, when I referred to "my linked house & mortgage accounts", maybe that wasn't what I should have been trying to do (i.e., linking mortgage to house) (even though that still seems to be what the help pages were talking about, as of approximately 3 weeks ago). Maybe instead I should have been linking the mortgage account to my primary checking?

However, I just now reviewed the Account Details for the mortgage account; and in those details I see a field for "linked ASSET account" [emphasis added by me]. If it wanted me to link the mortgage to my checking account, I would think it would ask for "banking", not "asset", account. So I'm still confused.

Appreciate any further help you can provide.

Boatnmaniac

@enirevets - It seems you are on the right track about much of this but perhaps the following information will help you confirm whether that is the case or to start asking about how you get from where your current are to this.

MORTGAGE ACCOUNT: This Loan Account, when set up as a manual (offline) account, looks like this following picture. Transactions cannot be added for future dates. Instead the Loan Reminder will populate the future dates which also cannot be edited here. Past dates will show the historical transactions and those can be edited here but it is usually not a good idea to do that here. Instead, go to the payment transaction in the checking account and make edits to the amounts there.

PAYMENT SCHEDULE: Clicking on this will popup the payment schedule showing both historical and future payments as well as the remaining balance due.

LOAN REMINDER: When you created the mortgage amount Quicken should have created a Loan Reminder for it. The Loan Reminder is what links the loan payments made in the Checking Account to the Mortgage Account. The Loan Reminder will have the total mortgage payment amount and the category will be split to show the amounts amortized for principal and interest, and if set up with it, the insurance and taxes. Each month, before the payment is actually downloaded by the bank into your Checking Account, enter the Loan Reminder for that month. Then when the payment is downloaded from the bank Quicken will match it to the Loan Reminder.

LINKING THE MORTGAGE ACCOUNT TO THE ASSET: The Asset will be the house. Linking the two does nothing to the Asset. It is only used here to show the equity value of the Asset (i.e., house market value less the outstanding mortgage balance). It will also cause this information to be included in the Property & Debt tab.:

WHAT IF TOOL: This tab will give you an estimate of the impact that making additional or increases payments can have on when the mortgage will get paid off and how much interest that can save you.

The above is how I and most all other Super Users recommend setting up and managing loans. The loans do not get updated by the lender but by the Loan Reminders that get entered into the checking account each month. But it is this method that easily allows us to categorize each payment made for principal and interest and, if included in the payment, for taxes and insurance.

If this is not what you are seeing it means that your Mortgage account was set up to be linked to the lender. When this is done, most of the detailed information will not be available because the lender simply updates the loan balance and there is no account register to view and edit payments information. There will be nothing shown showing the breakouts between principal and interest/taxes/insurance.

There is one other way that some lenders will download loans data: The loan account will be set up as a credit account. There will be a register that the bank will download the total payment (not split between the amortized amounts). Then to get the account to reconcile you will need to enter an account balancing transaction that will offset the downloaded transaction dollar amount by the combined interest, taxes and insurance amounts.

Is this information helpful? What questions do you have?

enirevets

@Boatnmaniac Thank you for the information. Yes, I think it is / will be helpful - I have read through it a couple times, but not digested it all yet.

The biggest takeaway I'm getting in general, from the bulk of your last post, is the whole idea of a Loan Reminder. I don't remember ever seeing this in my Quicken; and just now I looked briefly for a "Loan Reminder" but did not find one anywhere. I have my monthly mortgage payment listed under my "Bills and Income"; and in that Bill Reminder I have the breakdown of each monthly payment into P & I, taxes, & insurance; so that information is entered into my checking account register each month (categorizing the mortgage payment transaction). But it sounds like maybe a Loan Reminder is fundamentally different in some way from a Bill Reminder?

Also, that possibly there is something wrong with how my mortgage account is and/or was originally set up? What you said in your next-to-last paragraph about linking to the lender, rings accurate. As mentioned previously, I saw successful account updates from 2020 through mid-2022, then a failed account update on 8-1-22. What I did not state explicitly in my 1-28-25 post, was that the account in question was my Wells Fargo Home Mortgage account. I am wondering at this point if it makes sense to try to continue using that existing Quicken "mortgage" account, or if I'm better off deleting it and starting from scratch.

In general, do you happen to know if this process to which you devoted the bulk of your post, and that you said most Super Users use, is a new or drastically changed process compared to what was used several years ago? I ask this only because, if I'm not told otherwise, my detail-oriented, obsessive-compulsive brain's default is to continue trying to analyze all the information I can find on a topic, including what potentially could be outdated information (old posts, hard copy help documents, etc).

BTW, no reply is needed - although feel free if so inclined - to anything in this post but especially the bolded question above. I'm not sure how much of this is making sense - I feel like certain questions in my mind have become more vague as I've been writing it. (Also note the time of day that I'm posting😐️.) Either with or without any reply to this post, I will look at least once more, at some point, at your post from Feb 17, and hopefully will understand it better then than I do now. Most likely I'll write again then.

Boatnmaniac

The loan process I spelled out above is the same as it has been for years. I am not aware of any changes made to it since I started using QWin in 2010.

In addition, I used to use MS Money and when MS stopped support for Money in 2010 I imported my Money file into Quicken. Quicken converted that file and it looks like what I posted above….although some of the features are no longer present because the mortgage is paid off and the account is now closed.

Also, you might find Help to be informative. Go to Help > Quicken Help > type in How do I set up a loan > scroll down to Set Up A Manual Loan Account. It will walk you through the process.

enirevets

Thanks for your last answer dated 2-25. I just looked at all this again; and went through a few steps that hopefully will have the desired results at the time of my next mortgage payment (April 1).

As best I can tell, it appears my mortgage account in Quicken WAS set up correctly as a manual/offline loan account, with linked asset account for the house; but for whatever reason Quicken never created the Loan Reminder.

»LOAN REMINDER: When you created the mortgage amount Quicken should have created a Loan Reminder for it. 

So… I manually updated the outstanding principal amount showing in the mortgage account as of today's date. Then, I prompted Quicken to create the loan reminder by - from the mortgage account> payment details view - clicking on Edit Payment Details > Payment Options, selecting "loan reminder", then back on the Loan Details screen I edited the "other" amount to show the splits for property taxes and insurance.

Thanks again for your help. Hopefully you WON'T hear from me again about this🙂.

Boatnmaniac

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20479339#Comment_20479339

Well, not having a Loan Reminder for the mortgage would certainly explain reason for the issue you have been having. I'm glad to hear that you figured out how to add a Loan Reminder for it. I hope that resolves the issue for you going forward.