Internal transfers: Destination shows up as Source account

Question

I do the transfer on my bank's website between accounts, which are tracked as separate accounts in Quicken. The funds move properly, but when I do an Update from Quicken, the transaction in the source account shows as if it's being transferred into the source account. A Transfer shows up in the desitnation account, but without indicating the source. Mouse over in the downloaded transactions shows the correct destination, which I have to manually update in the source account transaction to link them properly.

splasher · Accepted Answer

Sounds like the transaction in the source account is being created using a Memorized Payee with an incorrect category when it is downloaded and the other account is just created without a category (no MP or it has no category).

Normally, the first transaction creates the transfer which generates the pair of transactions (one in each account) and then the second transaction matches to the system generated transaction transaction in the second account.

So, check your Memorized Payees and change the category if my guesses are correct.

Boatnmaniac · Accepted Answer

This can sometimes happen if/when the financial institution (FI) downloads the transaction and categorizes it as a transfer.  But this confuses Quicken because "transfer" as a category does not say anything which account the transfer came from or was made to so the Quicken transfers it to the source account.

Or it can happen when the transaction was once incorrectly entered as a transfer without correlating transfer account.

A few things you can to do stop that from happening:

* Go to Tools > Memorized Payee List:  Look for the Payee listing(s) in question and delete them.  (Quicken will add them again in the future when new transactions with correct data are added to the register.)
* Go to Edit > Preferences > Downloaded Transactions:  Uncheck the box Automatically categorize transactions.
* Go to Edit > Preferences > Downloaded Transactions > Automatically add to banking registers.  If the box for that is checked, uncheck it.  This will then require you to review the transactions and accept them before they are entered into the register.  This is the ideal time to review transactions because it is much easier to identify and correct errors (like incorrect categories) during this process than it is to do it later after the transactions have already been entered into the register.
* Go to Edit > Preferences > Transfer Detection:  Check the box for Scan downloaded transactions for possible transfers and select Confirm possible transfers before entering in register.
* Especially when transfer transactions are scheduled outside of Quicken, whether they are internal or external transfers, manually enter those transactions with the correct transfer account into the registers BEFORE the transaction actually download.  Quicken will then match the downloaded transactions in the future to the manually entered transfer transactions.

I can't help but think that I left something out but these steps should significantly help to eliminate most if not all of this issue from occurring in the future.