Invalid transfers being flagged (Q Mac)

qudtp

My data file was converted from Windows a few weeks ago. I didn't do anything to prepare it - I simply opened it, and seems I got pretty lucky and it has largely worked.

I've now noticed a number of transactions in various accounts where a red icon is displayed at the far right edge of the category. It's a right-pointing white arrow in a red circle. If I click on it, it says these are invalid transfer(s).

I didn't notice these until today - is it a new flag related to how you can now jump straight to matching transfers?

Most of these transactions are transfers back into the same account, and some were mistakes.

But Quicken for Windows also uses self-transfers for Opening balances and for balance adjustments, which Quicken for Mac doesn't seem to approve of.

I've changed the balance adjustments to use the QMac "Adjustment" pseudo-category, but not sure what category should be used for Opening balance.

Perhaps stranger: I have a number of transactions from 20+ years ago that were transfers or checks paid to non-Quicken accounts. (Or, perhaps accounts that once existed in Quicken but were deleted long ago. )

On Windows, the category is blank, and the check number sometimes has the action "TXFR", sometimes an actual check number.

It seems these were assigned the "Transfer" category when imported into QMac, even though they are now being marked as invalid.

Screencap from a checking register sorted by Category:

Perhaps the TXFR action sometimes triggered that conversion, but that would only account for the ones that specified TXFR and not a check number.

Maybe there was something in the original QW file that is no longer visible there, but which triggered QMac to put Transfer in the category when the file was converted.

I can probably ignore these errors - or, set up a dummy account and direct these transfers to it; or, perhaps the easiest solution is to make the offending ones uncategorized.

Any ideas about this?

Thanks!

EDIT:

MORE INFO, from the Transaction Inspector window:

One example:

Action: Check

Check #: <number>

Category: Transfer

Transfer: missing transfer

Another example:

Action: TXFR

Check #: blank

Category: Transfer

Transfer: missing transfer

I think the Action is irrelevant.

Found something else - in QWin, can right click > Go to matching transfer (which means QWin knew these were transfers at one time). This leads to the error message "The transfer transaction is to an account that no longer exists in Quicken." So on Windows, the Category was blanked out, but there is still transfer-related data in the data file.

qudtp

One more observation: this white arrow in a red circle - for valid transfers, that's a white arrow in a gray circle, which becomes a gray arrow in a white circle when a transaction is selected.

Clicking it is the same as using the context menu or keyboard shortcut to jump to the other side of a transfer. The release notes for 8.3 didn't mention this little "button", which performs double-duty as an error flag.

If it's red - it is visible at all times in the register. The white/gray version is only visible when the mouse hovers somewhere in the Category field.

When going into transaction details, on the split tab - the category is "Transfer", and the Transfer field says "missing transfer" with the red circled arrow alongside it.

jacobs

Quicken Mac doesn't allow a transfer to the same account. It's not clear what you were trying to do, but transferring money from Account A into Account A doesn't do anything, and the program doesn't allow it. If you share what you were doing with these transactions, we can suggest (hopefully) easy changes to get you cleaned up.

The Jump to Transfer button visible in the Transfer column of registers has always been in Quicken Mac; the Release Notes didn't mention it because it's nothing new. Because some users prefer to hide the Transfer column and denote their transfer in the Category column — which does not display the circle/arrow unless you hover over it — they added in 8.3 keyboard shortcut to provide an easy alternative for users without the Transfer column visible. This command key shortcut was a feature in the legacy Quicken Mac 2007 program, and they finally re-implementied it in the rewritten modern Quicken Mac.

qudtp

These self-transfers are certainly odd. If you update the cash balance in an investment account, Quicken will create an Xin or Xout transaction (these denote transferring in or out of cash), and specifies the other end of the transfer is the same account.

When there are reconciliation errors, Quicken adjusts the same way.

In fact, most web searches for the topic bring up help for the Windows version, where this type of self-transfer is the common, and standard, solution.

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7889187/what-category-do-i-use-for-opening-balance-or-do-i-leave-it-blank

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7882668/into-what-category-do-i-place-a-balance-adjustment

These may be illegal in QMac, but apart from being flagged with this red circle, they don't seem to cause obvious trouble. I was just able to create one - it gets flagged with the red circle immediately.

Apart from the new keyboard shortcut, were these circle/arrow indicators shown in the Category column prior to 8.3, or only in the Transfer column? I never noticed them, but coming from the Windows version I didn't see a need for the Transfer column. But I also didn't see any of these self-transfers being flagged - making me think the icon wasn't shown in that column.

It's not just the keyboard shortcut that was added - I don't recall seeing the ability to jump to matching transfer from the context menu either. So the jump ability may only have been from the circled arrow in the Transfer column?

Anyway, I think the easiest fixes are - for balance adjustments, I'll use the Adjust category. For opening balances, and for the transfers to a non-existent account, all of which occured < 20 years ago, I'll just make them uncategorized.