Quicken for Mac 2018 v5.4.x Released

rangersix said:

I just upgraded to Quicken for Mac 2018 v5.4.x and now I get this error all the time. This account does not to be updated it's just the value of my house and I input that manually.

Hi, I just updated the new release for my mac. I recently transferred Quicken over to my mac from a PC and updated the software from 2013. I thought I'd let you know two problems I'm having. Firstly, I've used "copy transaction" thousands of times with my old software. Sometimes I would copy a transaction and put it in a different account for important reasons. The new version for mac does not hot have a "copy transaction" menu. It only has a "duplicate transaction" and you can only duplicate the transaction in that specific account you are working in. It's very frustration. Also, one of my checking accounts does not show the balance in the account. I've tried everything from adding "balance" from the column menu to adding every column choice available etc. There are thousands of transaction in this checking account and future payments for the month and  I have no idea what my balance is unless I pull out a calculator to figure it out which defeats the purpose and because I can't copy a transactions to start a new checking account where the balance works in the account I'm basically stuck. If you could add a "copy transaction" in the next update it would really help. thanks so much, Paul Treppedi

RickO said:

Marcus... some nice additions here. There are some cosmetic problems with the new ability to customize Transaction Report columns:

1) The placement of the column customization is not consistent with other parts of the program. Here it is within Customize settings. In other places (e.g.. Portfolio View), there is a Columns button  on the row of buttons at the top. Other places, you can also right click on the column headers to choose columns. Both of the latter options would be preferred.

2) The Notes column should properly be called Memo/Notes to agree with the registers.

3) When you add a column such as Memo/Notes, it gets added quite wide which pushes the Amount column off screen to the right. That might not be such a problem as long as the user notices and resizes columns. But... the column width settings don't stick; they again become very wide as soon as you leave the report and return to it.

4) What is the ATTM column? That's not a column in a transaction register. Is it a misnomer for something else?

One more suggestion: (and this applies throughout the program)... In other Mac programs there is sometimes a convention that shift-clicking or command-clicking on a disclosure triangle will collapse all (if you click on an open one), or expand all (if you click on a closed one). That would be very helpful throughout Quicken. This could also be accomplished with little Expand All and Collapse All buttons on the button row.

Did anyone mention that the memo/notes for split transactions aren't shown?  Also, the dollar value of each transaction doesn't print. 

jlgg said:

I just downloaded 5.4.2.  I know Marcus stated we would temporarily lose ability in Comparison Reports to drill down to register, but I noticed we also lost the ability to automatically show memos when clicking on categories. I can customize to show memo/notes but I have to do it each time I select a category.  Moreover, memos from split transactions don't appear at all.  For me, individually, the old Comparison Report was more useable.

I noticed the same issues.  The drill down ability is particularly hard to live without.  Also noticed that the transaction amounts aren't printed when you print a comparison report.  

I cannot get this update to install. When prompted to install the update, I click "Install and Relaunch" it pops up an message saying that an error occurred while extracting the archive. Please try again later. I've tried about 20 times now. I've rebooted my mac in between tries, and that does not help. I'm currently on Version 4.6.7 (Build 46.19238.100)

RickO said:

Marcus... some nice additions here. There are some cosmetic problems with the new ability to customize Transaction Report columns:

1) The placement of the column customization is not consistent with other parts of the program. Here it is within Customize settings. In other places (e.g.. Portfolio View), there is a Columns button  on the row of buttons at the top. Other places, you can also right click on the column headers to choose columns. Both of the latter options would be preferred.

2) The Notes column should properly be called Memo/Notes to agree with the registers.

3) When you add a column such as Memo/Notes, it gets added quite wide which pushes the Amount column off screen to the right. That might not be such a problem as long as the user notices and resizes columns. But... the column width settings don't stick; they again become very wide as soon as you leave the report and return to it.

4) What is the ATTM column? That's not a column in a transaction register. Is it a misnomer for something else?

One more suggestion: (and this applies throughout the program)... In other Mac programs there is sometimes a convention that shift-clicking or command-clicking on a disclosure triangle will collapse all (if you click on an open one), or expand all (if you click on a closed one). That would be very helpful throughout Quicken. This could also be accomplished with little Expand All and Collapse All buttons on the button row.

Yes, I found this too.  And, if you add the Check # column the check numbers show on the screen but do not print.  Also, if you do a CSV export the same data that does not print does not export either.

Can this be FIXED soon?

When entering QM2007 investment transactions, there are four fields that are entered in the register - number of shares, $ amount of transaction, commission, and share price. The share price is back-calculated from the first three parameters. Occasionally if one of the first three fields is edited during the transaction entry, the share price does not get updated properly and the transaction ends up being entered with this field having an incorrect value (i.e. it is not consistent with the shares/$/commission fields). This is no big deal because this share value doesn't seem to be used for much in QM2007.
   However, when importing this faulty transaction into QM2018, the total transaction cost is calculated from the number of shares, commission, and the (possibly incorrect) share price. This results in the transaction $ amount being incorrect, and the account cash balance starts to diverge from that in the QM2007 register.

You are correct. But it doesn't take an "incorrect" share price to trigger the problem.

When entering investment transactions in Quicken 2007, number of shares, share price, commission, and total cost are equally important. Enter any three numbers and Quicken will calculate the other value. 

And, Q2007 will accept a transaction if the math works with rounding. For example, consider a mutual fund purchase of $5,000, where the closing NAV was $48.74. The mutual fund company will take $5,000 divided by $48.74 equals 102.5851, which the fund company rounds to 102.585 shares. Quicken would allow the transaction to be entered as Buy 102.585 shares at $48.74, for $5,000 total.

In Quicken 2016 and later, the share price is a derived field: transaction cost divided by number of shares gives the share price, to 6 decimal places, far more than the stock market actually supports. In Quicken 2018 you can't even enter the share price in a transaction. If the above transaction were originally entered in Q2018, it would calculate $5,000 cost divided by 102.585 shares equals $48.740069 share price.  

What is happening on the import is bizarre:

1. The import completely ignores the total transaction cost that was entered in Q2007.
   
2. It calculates a new, bogus total transaction cost: number of shares times the share price that was in the Q2007 transaction.
   
3. Then it takes the total transaction cost that it fabricated, which may not match the actual transaction, and uses that to derive a new share price: total transaction cost divided by number of shares, to 6 decimal places.

In the example above, it would first calculate a transaction cost of 102.585 shares times $48.74 equals $4,999.99. Then use that to derive new price: $4,999.99 divided by 102.585 is $48.739972. Which isn't even the share price that the same transaction would calculate if it were originally entered in Q2018!

The major error here is that Quicken is forgetting that total cost should be sacrosanct on the import, since that's what determines your cash balance. So if you have an account with a lot of history, the errors accumulate, until the account balance is wildly off.

I have reported this bug to Intuit, and now Quicken, on every beta test since the new Quicken started supporting investment transactions. It is one of many data loss issues that are blocking me from upgrading.

Top categories are either "Expenses" or "Income", but there are cases when one would like to regroup sub-categories of both Income and Expense types (I have several such cases, personally). Quicken disallows this for customers, but, under the hood, it uses it in a number of occasions : Investments, Transfer, etc.. I would like this possibility to be opened up to us mere mortals.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE:
1. Create a new top level category
2. There is a choice only between Income and Expense types, and NOT "either"

This is likely going to be controversial. No flames please! 

Transactions move to an unexpected date after matching.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE:
1. Enter transaction manually in the register, set date to 20171211 for example
2. Update account. This downloads (but does not match) a similar transaction. The date is 20171213
3. Drag & drop transaction 2. above on transaction 1. to match
4. The date of the combined transaction switches suddenly, and unexpectedly, to 20180201

NOTES
- This does occur for about half the transactions from the same QFX. I couldn't figure out why
- The "unexpected" date seems to be coming from the <DTPOSTED> QFX tag

<STMTTRN>
<TRNTYPE>DEBIT
<DTPOSTED>20180102
<DTUSER>20171213
<TRNAMT>-24.00
<FITID>ce9f946c
<NAME>Le chatham
</STMTTRN>

Craig in ER said:

I don't know if this is related to your experience but I was having a similar experience (but not the exact same)
I unchecked "Use posted date for matched transactions (instead of the date you entered manually) in Quicken Preferences > Connected Services.
After doing that I am satisfied with the download date/transaction matching that occurs.

I see, thanks. I have unchecked the option. However, it's weird it did not apply it automatically for all transactions.

I need some advice regarding loan management and maybe there is a bug (or feature).

I have created a new loan, with an opening balance of 120k€. I have also created an asset account to track the asset for the loan. At first, I entered a standalone transaction in the account for the asset to track the value of the asset.

But then I thought these were really the same transaction and should be linked, so I changed the Loan Opening Balance to a Transfer to the asset account. This quickly became a Split in order to record further details. And I also updated the date of LOB.

Probably a bad thing because Quicken promptly created a Balance Adjustment transaction and now my loan doubled in value. (In the database, hopefully not in the real world.)

Is this how Quicken is supposed to behave? Am I doing something wrong? Is changing the LOB transaction not supported yet?

BTW, my attempts at changing the LOB were partially inspired by:
https://www.quicken.com/support/how-do-i-track-refinanced-loan
I know this was written for Quicken Windows, but it should work similarly -eh, better!- on the Mac, shouldn't it?

Snoopy FC said:

When will amounts/transactions included in hidden accounts be searchable and included in graphs?  With more than 20 years of Quicken data, I've got more than a few accounts that I need data from but don't use regularly (closed accounts).  The only way I know of now to have the transactions of these accounts (particularly investments) reflected in graphs is to maintain them as active on the left sidebar.  Can we add something to the following screen to allow access/updates from these accounts for searching all transactions and presentation on the investment graphs?

It's a pain to activate the account only to allow searching within that account.  Maintaining these as active on the desktop only clutters the account list on the left sidebar.  

I agree. Why doesn't unchecking "Reports" also include these accounts in searches? More than once I've been looking for transaction history and realized it was probably in a hidden account. Turning accounts off and then hiding again is an unnecessary inconvenience and makes the program less trustworthy..... and who needs an untrustworthy accounting program?

Snoopy FC said:

When will amounts/transactions included in hidden accounts be searchable and included in graphs?  With more than 20 years of Quicken data, I've got more than a few accounts that I need data from but don't use regularly (closed accounts).  The only way I know of now to have the transactions of these accounts (particularly investments) reflected in graphs is to maintain them as active on the left sidebar.  Can we add something to the following screen to allow access/updates from these accounts for searching all transactions and presentation on the investment graphs?

It's a pain to activate the account only to allow searching within that account.  Maintaining these as active on the desktop only clutters the account list on the left sidebar.  

All I'm hoping for is having the option to set it up however the user sees fit.  I understand why people would want it either way, and I think the user should be able to determine what's most useful.  For my accounts, having data in hidden accounts misrepresents what I actually have (and prevents searching for data in those accounts), and leaving those accounts unhidden simply clutters the account sidebar.  There's got to be a reasonable way to make this work.