Scheduled transaction with splits not updated

I have a scheduled credit card transaction with many splits to categorize my spending. Each time I edit it for a new month, the splits have amounts from August 2019. I have to clear all the entered amounts to start fresh with a new month. This is time consuming and irritating. I tried "Edit All Instances" and cleared out the split amounts in that window, but it doesn't take so it's a waste of time. Every month I have to clear the August 2019 split amounts, repeatedly. Please fix this!!!

Best Answer

Answers

  • RickO
    RickO SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    Check Windows > Payees > QuickFill and see if there's a QuickFill entry for this payee that may be causing this.
    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
  • rwoolley2
    rwoolley2 Member ✭✭
    Under this payee, I see Uses 167, Rules 0, Quickfill has 'Add' and the Bills and Income Payee box isn't checked.

    Thanks.
  • rwoolley2
    rwoolley2 Member ✭✭
    I looked at the QuickFill Rules and see for this payee that there are 79 QuickFill Rules. When I clicked on the Category Split, I see the amounts I just entered this afternoon for this payee. But when I open the next month's scheduled transaction, I don't see the amounts I just entered - I see the ones from August 2019. If it kept the last month's amounts that would be much better, but it would be nice to clear them out except for the ones that repeat month to month.
  • RickO
    RickO SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    edited April 2020
    Somehow when I first read your question, I was thinking we were talking about a paycheck type of split transaction. I missed that you are splitting your credit card payment transaction.

    To put it rather bluntly, this is the wrong way to handle a credit card in Quicken. So rather than fix the split transaction situation, let's talk about the right way to manage a credit card in Quicken.

    First, you should create a separate account for the credit card. Click the plus sign at the top of the sidebar, choose type Credit Card to create the account. You can set the account up for automatic download of transactions with your bank, or not.

    Once the account is created, enter (or download) each transaction on the card in that account individually. The credit card account will run a negative balance, indicating you owe money. When you pay the bill from your checking account, create a single-line Transfer transaction from the checking to the credit card account. It will show as a debit in the checking account and a credit (payment) in the credit card.

    You may be thinking that this is more work. Believe me, once you get going it is not and it has many advantages:

    1. You can reconcile the credit card account like any other Quicken account.
    2. The credit card account now mimics your credit card statement.
    3. You record the actual date of each credit card transaction, not the single date that the bill was paid.
    4. You record the payee for each transaction, give you search and reporting ability on payees. The way you are doing it, you don't have that info.
    5. You can further split any credit card transaction. For example, if you purchased groceries and a radio at the same big box store in one transaction, you can record those parts as split lines with separate categories and memos.
    Give this a try. It will work much better for you. Let me know if you have any questions on getting this going.

    (Sorry I missed this aspect of your initial question.)

    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
  • rwoolley2
    rwoolley2 Member ✭✭
    Hi, I setup a separate credit card account as you described. I am able to download my transactions from my bank, so that's good. However, the categories downloaded don't match the categories I've used for this card in my main account (I didn't expect them to). I have to change the category for each line of the downloaded amounts. So when new transactions are downloaded, I'll need to catagorize the new transactions every time. It's OK to do it once, but changing the categories each month isn't much better than entering the amounts in my main account's credit card entry which already has the categories set up. Any suggestions?

    Thanks.
  • rwoolley2
    rwoolley2 Member ✭✭
    Also, is there a way to start at a specific date after the first download, and delete everything before that? I don't want to go through previous months' transactions since those are already recorded in the main account. I'd like to start just with March 2020.

    Thanks.
  • RickO
    RickO SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    I'll answer your second question first....

    In the CC account click the All Dates filter at the top, then Custom Dates. Enter Start of 1/1/1980 and End the date of the last transaction you want to delete. Next, select all transactions (menu Edit > Select All). Finally delete the transactions (menu Transactions > Delete Transactions). Clear the filter and you will have only those left after the end date.

    For the categories, go to Quicken > Preferences > Connect Services. Check the box next to "Improve the Quality of..." See if the categories improve. If the box was checked already, try unchecking it.

    That said, after you manually edit a transaction's category, there should be QuickeFill entry created for that Payee. This category should be used going forward for that payee.
    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
  • rwoolley2
    rwoolley2 Member ✭✭
    I deleted the old transactions. The "Improve the Quality ..." box was already checked, so I unchecked it. It looks like new downloaded transactions are keeping the category I use for the same payee, so that's great.

    The remaining thing I need to do is reconcile the charges with my CC statement from the bank. I just pay the statement amount each month, not the current running amount. The "Reconcile" check mark is greyed out in my CC account, so I don't know how I can reconcile it.

    Maybe I need to first create the "Transfer" transaction in my regular checking account as you mentioned? I paid April's CC bill on 4/4/20 using the multi-category entry in my checking account, so I'm not ready to pay next month's bill until around 5/1. The CC account now shows my April payment (received 4/6) since it was downloaded after I paid it using Bill Pay (on 4/4) in my bank checking account (not Quicken's bill pay).

    Thanks.
  • rwoolley2
    rwoolley2 Member ✭✭
    Hi RickO, any comment on reconciling my CC account with my CC statement?
    Thanks.
  • RickO
    RickO SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    I don't understand what you mean by "The "Reconcile" check mark is greyed out in my CC account, so I don't know how I can reconcile it." Where are you seeing a "reconcile checkmark"?

    In order to start a reconcile, you should select the CC account in the sidebar, then menu Accounts > Reconcile Account...  That will bring up the reconcile window giving you the option to reconcile against the online balance or the statement balance.

    If you click the Help menu in Quicken and type in "reconcile", there are several help articles listed there.
    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
  • rwoolley2
    rwoolley2 Member ✭✭
    If I click on menu Accounts > the Reconcile Account selection is greyed out. The check mark I was referring to is at the bottom of the account window between the Print and Columns icons. I looked at the Help menu on reconcile and didn't see anything I didn't already know.
    I added the Clr column to my CC account columns - all the boxes are checked. If I uncheck some of them there's no change to the Reconcile Account selection.
    Maybe there's no Reconcile for this CC account because all the transactions have been downloaded from my CC bank, so they must be right?
    Anyway, that's what I'm seeing.
    Thanks.
  • rwoolley2
    rwoolley2 Member ✭✭
    Oh!! That's it! I had clicked on the bold Credit Card, not the account underneath. The Reconcile check mark is now visible, and I can get to the Reconcile window. I should be good to go when my next statement is available.
    Thanks!
  • rwoolley2
    rwoolley2 Member ✭✭
    I want to delete the scheduled transactions for my credit card in my main account starting in May. This is the one that has all the splits with categories that I'm replacing with the CC account.
    I clicked Delete for the May credit card scheduled transaction. I get a message with 3 options:
    1) "Delete this series of scheduled transactions - All of the transactions in the series of scheduled transactions will be deleted."
    2) "Skip this instance"
    3) "Edit this and all future transactions"

    If I do 1), will only this one and future scheduled transactions be deleted, or will all past transactions be also deleted? I definitely don't want that!

    I plan to make another scheduled transaction with no splits as you described above to pay the bill, and a separate transaction to transfer that amount to my CC account.

    Please advise.
    Thanks.
  • jacobs
    jacobs SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    Once a scheduled transaction is marked as Paid, it is no longer part of a chain of scheduled transactions. So selecting choice #1 will delete all future transactions and won't touch the ones in the past.
    Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 1993
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