Payee names and categories in downloaded transactions are incorrect

Bdrake100

For a few weeks now, my downloaded transactions in Quicken have contained incorrect names for my payees and assigned them to wrong categories. I have laboriously corrected the many, many errors by comparing them line-by-line to the transactions on my bank's app. (I could do this because the transaction dollar amounts were correct). I had not touched any settings or created or deleted any rules, so I have to guess one of the many updates triggered this. I tried following the instructions for fixing this provided by Quicken's AI bot and when that made things worse spoke with a tech support agent who took over my screen to inspect and then try to fix things which, unfortunately, only made it worse. I'm hoping someone here has encountered this problem (well, I wouldn't wish it on anybody) and can guide me in how to fix it.

Quicken Kristina

Hello @Bdrake100,

Thank you for sharing your experience. To help troubleshoot, I reviewed your interaction with Support to see what troubleshooting has already been done. They saw that your file was synced with OneDrive and suspected the issue might be file issues caused by that. Making sure your file is not synced with cloud services, such as OneDrive, can reduce the odds of problems in the future, but it won't fix problems which have already happened.

You mentioned that you haven't added or deleted any rules. Have you checked your preferences to verify if Quicken is set to add new rules automatically? You can do that by navigating to Edit>Preferences>Downloaded Transactions. Look in the Your renaming rules section to verify that "Automatically create rules when I rename payees" is not checked.

Once you have checked there, please click the Renaming Rules… button and verify that there are no overly general rules which may be causing the problems with incorrect payees.

For the transactions which have already downloaded into your register, if you haven't already manually corrected them, try right clicking on the transaction and looking for a "revert to" option.

That may be a faster way to correct the Payee, provided that it downloaded into Quicken with the correct information.

I look forward to your reply!

Bdrake100

I will try to digest this later, but to start when I followed your advice to rightclick on an incorrect downloaded transaction it just shows "Revert to PURCHASE" and clicking that just changed it to PURCHASE.

On the OneDrive issue, I thought your customer support agent told me that we had severed that connection during our session when I shared my screen with him.

I will get back to you after I have time to do what you advised and have new transctions to download.

Bdrake100

I've tried to follow and put into effect your instructions (to the extent I understand them) but I continue to have problems. Quicken is not putting the correct payee names or categories to the corresponding transaction amounts (which are correct).
It continues to populate some transactions with the name "Jville Crab Shack" — a name I have NEVER entered myself so have no idea where this comes from. It is NOT a result of my accounts being charged fraudulently because that name has never shown up on my bank account to which Wells Fargo is linked. This, by the way, is what started it all.

As I said, I believe any synch link with Onedrive is now severed although you might tell me how to doublecheck.

I am attaching my most recent transaction download where you can see the errors I've described and a screenshot of my preference settings. I did check my renaming rules but most that show in the list I can vieware vendors I haven't patronized for years.

I hope this all can be fixed because, to be honest, it's not worth using Quicken under these circumstances

preferences.png

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Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your replies,

Please navigate to Edit>Preferences>Downloaded Transactions and try unchecking "Automatically categorize transactions" and "Automatically apply Quicken's suggested name to payee".

With those two options unchecked, please test to see if transactions download correctly, or if the issue persists.

Please let me know how it goes!

Bdrake100

I have done what you said and we'll see if its fixes things in the next download. As you can see, the categories all say "auto service" and all are incorrect. You can also see Quicken capitalized payee names even though I checked "capitalize the first letter only…" You can also see that the download that was the first sign of trouble — Quicken incorrectly assigning the name "Jville Crab Shack" to some transactions — is still occurring even though I NEVER typed that name at any time or ever patronized a place by that name

[Edit - Removed Personal Information]

Bdrake100

Still capitalized whole names of payees when I selected the option to capitalize only first letter. Still mixing up categories. And when I deselected the boxes you suggested the problem is that they get checked again when I start up Quicken and it uses my last backup. What a mess and time-suck to fix.

[Edited - Readability]

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your replies,

You mentioned that your most recent backup keeps getting restored; that may be why those options keep getting re-selected. Is the backup getting restored automatically, every time you open Quicken, or are you doing it deliberately when things download incorrectly?

If the backup is getting restored automatically, how are you opening the program? Are you double clicking on an icon on your desktop, launching from the taskbar, some other method?

Thank you!

Bdrake100

When I just opened Quicken now, I checked the settings and they hadn't been restored, so let's put that off the table. I don't have any new transactions to download so I can't test it.

The problems I described to you have persisted for weeks and came out of nowhere. I had never touched the settings or created new rules. If OneDrive was the problem, it never was the problem before. One guess of mine is that one of your frequent updates caused this.

In any event, I don't keep using or paying for broken products if the vendor can't help me fix them. I have spent more hours than I care to count with customer support or manually correcting Quicken's errors. I don't need Quicken for tracked my investment holdings because my brokerage website does a better job of that. I only used Quicken to track my daily transactions because it is more sophisticated than my banking site. But if I can't get Quicken working as it has before, then that advantage evaporates.

Bdrake100

Some of the issues I reported with downloaded transactions have cleared up. A remaining problem is that Quicken is still attaching the wrong categories, Every downloaded transaction today was assigned to a category of mine titled "Auto:Service." How do I fix this

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

I'm glad to hear some if the issues have cleared up. For the incorrect category, I recommend that you navigate to Tools>Memorized Payee List and check to see if Quicken learned that incorrect category assignment. Edit memorized payees which show an incorrect category, if it's a payee that doesn't always have the same category assigned, delete the entry.

I hope this helps!

Bdrake100

Kristina

This is getting ridiculous. Since December, I have made every adjustment you recommended and here again Quicken is capitalizing entire payee names even though I have checked off capitalizing only the first letter, it is assigning an unrelated category (Auto:Service) to every transaction and once again a transaction was assigned to a payee who I never in my life entered into Quicken (Jville Crab Shack).

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Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

Since adjusting preferences hasn't corrected the issue, the next step is to check for file specific problems. I suggest that you try creating a copy of your data file which will rebuild all of the internal lists and database tables. If successful, you would then move forward with the copied file. To create a copy, please navigate to File > Copy or Backup File... > Create a copy or template (see examples below) which will also allow you to select a date range to move forward with.

If you wish to move forward with your entire data file, please check the full date range of your entire data file before copying so you can enter the correct date range if you do not wish to "shrink" your file by eliminating certain dates. Note: There is no need to "shrink" your file unless you believe that older data is the cause of the problem.

Once the copied file is open, run Validate and Repair on that file. To do that, please follow these steps:

Validate: 

1. File
2. Validate and Repair File...
3. Validate File
4. Click OK
5. Close the Data Log
6. Close Quicken (leave it closed for at least 5 secs)
7. Reopen Quicken and see if the issue persists.

Since all online services are disconnected in the copied file, please reconnect only what is necessary to test if the issue is resolved. If the issue is resolved, then reconnect the rest of your financial institutions and online billers and use the copied file as your main file going forward.

If the issue is not resolved in the copied file either, then feel free to switch back to your original file. For instruction on switching between Quicken files, please click here.

Thank you!

Bdrake100

I'm throwing in the towel. I will not renew my subscription to Quicken. One hard (but good) lesson I've learned is when to bite the bullet when a product stops performing as it should and trying to fix it becomes a time suck.

Quicken Kristina

Thank you for your reply,

I'm sorry to hear that.

If you decide you'd like to continue troubleshooting, or if you need assistance with something else, please feel free to reach out!

Bdrake100

Your last recommendation was a heavy lift for a non-tech customer and based on all the other recommendations that didn't work, I don't have good reason to believe this will not end up being an endless loop of "try this…"