Keeping up with Quicken on the road

Bill Black

I have a bunch of accounts that I download regularly and then process the downloaded transactions into my account, mostly setting or fixing categories. I hate when I fall behind and have too many transactions to process. I am going on a three week trip with only my IPad, so won't be able to process transactions from my desktop. Is there a way to stay on top of this task just with my IPad so I don't come back to 200 transactions that need to be processed. I can't quite figure out how to do it on my own. Thank you.

Jon

If you're using Direct Connect or Web Connect to download transactions to your desktop, that isn't supported by Quicken Mobile so you'll just have to deal with all the transactions when you get home. If you switch to Quicken Connect (aka EWC or EWC+ on Windows) then I think you'll be able to see downloaded transactions on your iPad as you travel since they're downloaded through the Quicken Cloud service & the Mobile app is hooked into that. (Unless they're investment accounts - Quicken Mobile doesn't let you do much of anything with those.)

Bill Black

Thanks very much for the response. Actually, my IPad Quicken is up to date, so I must be using Quicken Connect. What I'm trying to figure out is how to use the mobile version on my IPad to move transactions from the box below my register on my desktop where they reside after a download up to the register with the proper category and be either cleared or reconciled. On my desktop, I just hit the "Accept" button. Is there a way to get the same result on the mobile version.

Thanks again for the response.

Jon

Sounds like you're using Quicken for Windows, so I can't answer that.

Bill Black

Just to close the loop, I think I figured it out. Transactions in the mobile version have a checkbox called "Reviewed" which seems to clear the transaction from the download box. I'll do another download tomorrow to see if it works.

Chris_QPW

Quicken Mobile/Web use the same model as Quicken Windows' "automatic transactions mode" and Quicken Mac's where the transactions are downloaded directly in the register and then you mark them as "reviewed", which is the equivalent of transactions going into the Downloaded Transactions tab and you accepting them into the register.

And @Jon I believe you are wrong about Direct Connect connected accounts. They can be synced for Quicken Mobile/Web (even though it doesn't seem like this is the case for @Bill Black.

Let's me start by saying in truth neither of these actually sync with the financial institutions. What is really going on is there is a Quicken server with a "Quicken Cloud dataset / file", it is the Quicken server that talks to the Intuit server which in turn talks to the financial institutions. The Quicken server will periodically sync all the accounts and that information gets saved in the Quicken Cloud dataset.

Quicken Mobile/Web are mostly just GUIs for talking to the Quicken server to present the data in that Quicken Cloud data file. They have a limited storage of data for things that you can do offline, but mostly it is just a direct reflection of the Quicken Cloud dataset.

When you choose to sync a Direct Connect account to the Quicken Cloud dataset, your username and password are uploaded to the server (not sure if it the Intuit server or the Quicken one).

Note that it gets a bit confusing of what happens when you talk about downloading of transactions into the Quicken Desktop data file. With Express Web Connect and Express Web Connect + or Quicken Mac's Quicken Connect the flow is like this:

Desktop data file ←> Quicken server ←> Intuit server ←> financial institution

The request for this can start at the Desktop data file, or it is possible that the Quicken server request happened first, but the flow is generally "consistent".

With Direct Connect it depends on if Mobile/Web sync is on or not.

Without it on the transactions are downloaded directly from the financial institution.

But when it is on as I described above the Quicken server might have fetched the same transactions and you have a sync from the Desktop data file and the Quicken server/Quicken Cloud dataset to deal with. Mostly like this is dealt with based on the unique Ids that the financial institution gives to each transaction.

It isn't an exaggeration that Quicken Inc has created a very complicated system here.

Look at this when I went to sync an account that was setup with Direct Connect and didn't store the password in Quicken Windows' Password Vault (so that it could pass this up automatically):

I remember early on they didn't support Direct Connect accounts, but that got changed pretty quickly.

Jon

@Chris_QPW I didn't think Mobile Sync would affect how Direct Connect works, but apparently it does. On this page, in the section about Direct Connect it says:

• Web and mobile app users: In order to sync your financial data to web and the mobile app, Quicken connects with our aggregation partner and your login credentials are stored on their encrypted servers. This allows our partner to collect your financial data so it can be synced to web/mobile.

Chris_QPW

@Jon and to top it off they are very vague about the details, so some of this has to be guessed at. But clearly somehow, they are doing all of this. One thing is clear though. If one chooses to sync Direct Connect accounts to Mobile/Web they have given up the "my password is only stored on my machine" idea.

CaliQkn

If you enable an account with DC on Mobile & Web, you will see EWC type errors pop up when you have an issue. I was very concerned and confused about this and asked Quicken Support what was going on. They pretty much ignored the question so I never got an answer. Thanks @Chris_QPW I now have my answer.