Reminders shifting by a month

Brian183

Has anyone else experienced the schedule for one of their reminders changing?

In my case, I had two long-standing annual reminders. One of them suddenly showed-up a month early. For the other, I wondered why it didn't pop-up, and after investigation I saw it set for a month later. I suppose I could've fat fingered something. But, these two (one birthday, one safe deposit box fee) really don't get much editing, so it struck me as odd.

Curious to know if anyone else has experienced something similar.

Thanks

RalphC

In a word, no, not experiencing any issues with Reminders. Something happened to your data file.

Quicken Alyssa

Hello @Brian183,

Thank you for sharing your experience.

I agree with @RalphC, that it sounds like an issue related to your data file.

Some things to check:

• Where is your data file located?
  • The default location is C:>Users>username>Documents>Quicken, and this is where we recommend keeping it stored.
• Is your data file being synced/backed up by any third-party services like OneDrive, Carbonite, or Dropbox?
  • We do not recommend allowing this for your active data file.

Troubleshooting options:

• Deleting and re-adding the affected reminder(s).
• Validating your file.
  • To do this:
    • Save a backup.
    • Go to File.
    • Select Validate and Repair file…
  • 
    • Check the first box for Validate file.
    • Click Ok.

After applying these suggestions, watch to see if the behavior returns. If it does, let us know and we can offer other options.

Thank you!

Brian183

Thanks. I reviewed all my reminders and founder a number of 'errors' - most were annual reminders that were off by a month. I also found a few annual reminders that had somehow become monthly reminders.

Based on advice provided, I ran the validate function, and the log showed

QDF:
Validating your data.
Quicken found a damaged scheduled reminder and removed it. Please check your scheduled reminders by going to Tools>Manage Bills and Income Reminders.

QEL:
All internal consistency checks passed.

[Sun Dec 07 12:23:54 2025]
Corrected scheduled transaction: {redacted}
Corrected scheduled transaction: {redacted}

All other aspects of quicken (registers, investments, downloads) seem to be operating without issue (and I reconcile monthly against FI institution statements).

I will say that I recently spent a considerable amount of time recently trying to see if I could turn my upcoming reminders for the year into a budget…either within Quicken or exporting to Excel, but had no luck. I didn't edit the reminders during the process, but I was exploring several ways to review reminders, and looking for export options.

mshiggins

@Brian183 from Tools | Bill & Income Reminders window, click the printer icon and select export to tab delimited file. The tab delimited file can then be imported to Excel.

Brian183

Thanks, I did see that. But was frustrated it was only a month at a time, without any option to do longer periods (quarter, year) or to set a customized date range - or at least I didn't see a way to do anything but a month at a time.

-Brian

mshiggins

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20526488#Comment_20526488

There is a tab for all reminders, but it is stil only the next instance of the reminder. You would have to build the repeats in Excel.

Brian183

After the problems with some annual reminders continued (generally shifting by one or several months), even after I manually fixed them, I discovered that the changes occurred when doing the one-step-update. This struck me as odd, as I would never have figured that the OSU even looked at the reminders, much less might alter them.

Regardless, after having to fix a number of reminders several times, I decided to just delete those and recreate them. After that, my initial tests show that they are no longer changing after a OSU. So, I think I have an ad-hoc fix, but still unsure of root-cause so a bit fearful there may be some lingering problems I'm not aware of.

The reminders that are the most problematic 'seem' to be the ones that are the oldest (like 20+ years). But these are just static birthday reminders, so they don't get a lot of activity (i.e. I don't change single instances, etc.).

I've also done the validate/repair function a few times.

If anyone has any insights about this, the cause, or ways to ensure it doesn't re-occur, I'd be grateful.

Lastly, thanks to mshiggins for guidance on how to export reminders to Excel. I've done that to assist with trouble-shooting and to have a reference for what the reminders should be in case they start changing again. I looked to see if there was a way to import reminders (as a work-around for manual re-entry, if needed), but I don't see one. Do you know of one?

-Brian

mshiggins

Annual reminders shifting dates seems to be a longstanding issue. I’ve gotten in the habit of including the month as a non printing text in the payee name so I can tell if the reminder is still scheduled for the same date. An example annual reminder payee is CA DMV {September}. The curly brackets are for the non printing text.

For recreating reminders, they’re unfortunately no import function. You can right click on a transaction and use the context menu to create a reminder with that payee and category.