Why is transaction ordering different for different register types? (Q Mac)

micha8st
micha8st Member ✭✭
So today I poking at one of my credit card registers, and I noticed what I think to be a bug:
1a. I cannot get the credit card register to order the way I want
1b. I cannot get the credit card register to order the way my checking account register does
2. The ordering I can get makes no sense.

I like having transactions of interest up top. The transactions of interest are (in this order)
1. transactions with any sort of status flag
2. by date

So, why can't I get that? I discovered today to my horror that if I tell quicken to order by status, then it's putting the blue-dot transactions on top, then by date. THEN UNDER transactions from 1998 (yes I go that far back), I see transactions with a blue pencil. YES AT THE BOTTOM.

Why is quicken giving me this entirely non-sensical ordering, and how do I get a reasonable ordering?

Because I expect some semblance of consistency from the tool, I have a bunch of transactions with a blue pencil that are down at the bottom. I go to the bottom, click on "reviewed", and then the transaction I have selected gets then reordered by date. Taking the registers' focus along with it.

This is very frustrating, and as far as I can tell, non-sensical behavior. How do I get "proper behavior?"

Answers

  • NotACPA
    NotACPA SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited April 2020
    Look at the column headers in each account.  ONE of those column names (Payee, amount, etc) will have an arrowhead in it.  That indicates the Sort column  and the sort order.
    Click on the column header that you want the account to sort on (usually Date). Click again to reverse the sort order.
    OH, and you can  only do a single sort level in Q.  So you can't sort by Status and then  date ... because clicking on Date will use that field as the primary sort key.

    Q user since February, 1990. DOS Version 4
    Now running Quicken Windows Subscription, Business & Personal
    Retired "Certified Information Systems Auditor" & Bank Audit VP

  • micha8st
    micha8st Member ✭✭
    I get that, NotACPA. I can change the sort. I still get what I consider to be a non-sensical sort. Who in their right mind wants or expects some status-flagged transactions at top and others at bottom, depending upon the symbol?

    I get a sensical sort in my checking register. Not in credit card registers.
  • NotACPA
    NotACPA SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited April 2020
    Again, re-click on the current sort column header to reverse that accounts sort order.
    See the part of my prior message that I just BOLDED.
    Can you take a snapshot of what you're claiming ... and post it here using the black "paper with a folded corner", above.

    Q user since February, 1990. DOS Version 4
    Now running Quicken Windows Subscription, Business & Personal
    Retired "Certified Information Systems Auditor" & Bank Audit VP

  • micha8st
    micha8st Member ✭✭
    Done. Please notice I had to take two snapshots and overlay... the overlayed snapshot shows the "Top" of the register. There are, at the "top", 5 items that have not been accepted (I've not made the blue dot go away), followed by untold numbers of transactions that I have accepted...but only 2.5 such transactions are shown.

    The window underneath shows the "bottom" of the register. It starts with some transactions from 1998. Then there are some transactions form 2020 and 2019, that also have not been accepted, but have the pencil symbol. Oh, and two transactions with the clock symbol.

    I am asserting that all the transactions with those symbols should be together, either up at the top, or down at the bottom, depending on the symbol order I select. I should not have to scroll up and down to see them in one place.
  • micha8st
    micha8st Member ✭✭
    By the way, Quicken Deluxe 2020 Version 5.15.3 (Build 515.33035.100) on macOS 10.14.6
  • RickO
    RickO SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    We can't tell how the register is sorted unless you include the column headers in the screenshot. That would be really helpful.

    By the way, you can do a multi level sort, sort of. For example, if you want to see only transactions with icons, then sort by date within those, you can choose Not Reviewed from the Status filter at the top, then click the Date column header to sort by date. 
    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
  • micha8st
    micha8st Member ✭✭
    Fair point. Once more, with the headers and the version window.

    By the way, the column in question, as you see, has no name, just a dot and an arrow. If I hover over the arrow, the column header reads "status of downloaded or scheduled transactions"
  • RickO
    RickO SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    Okay, so I see you are sorted by the Status column. I've never really tried to sort by that column and I don't have a register with any blue dots to try it on now. But I'm guessing that they really didn't consider that people would want to sort by that. And so it's sorting by whatever internal designation blue dot has vs blue pencil vs clock, etc. which don't have any real meaning or correlation to the actual symbols.

    Without getting into a debate about how they could have done it better (I would not disagree), let's see if we can get at what you're actually trying to accomplish. I can think of two options off the top of my head.
    1. Enable the Match Status column and sort by that. I'm not sure how that would look.
    2. Use the Status filter at the top to restrict to Not Reviewed. This will hide all the entries where the Status column is blank or clock, leaving you only the ones with a colored icon. Then you can sort by Date or some other column.
    See if either of those works for you.

    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
  • micha8st
    micha8st Member ✭✭
    What I'm trying to do, Rick, is to clear up those transactions with the blue pencils. In order to do that properly, I need to:
    1. Mark as reviewed
    2. Look at other transactions around the date. Particularly for the uncleared transactions, it seems likely there's another identical transaction, and I need to tell quicken to match. Then I need to go back to the next transaction that I need to review.

    To assist, I can choose one to handle, narrow the date range, handle it and then remove or widen the date range.

    The real problem is will I really remember to go and check for this condition again? o:) You can see these transactions keep popping in and there's one pending for tuesday of next week in this register.

    But what's weird is I'm only expecting the same behavior that already occurs in my checking account register.
  • RickO
    RickO SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    It seems to me that if you sort the register by date, you ought to be able to do just what you are trying to do.
    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
  • micha8st
    micha8st Member ✭✭
    if I sort the register by date, with all the transactions tagged with some status or another spread out across two years, its hard to find them all.

    I still think its a bug to split the several types of status tags top-and-bottom with years of years of no-tags in between. But you definitely helped me with your workaround. I just have to remember to re-invoke the workaround occasionally.

    How do I get the notice of the development team?
  • RickO
    RickO SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    To notify of a bug, click menu Help > Report a Problem (in Quicken).

    Once you work through the old ones, you will only have recent ones going forward, yes? So it's a temporary problem?

    I thought of a method/procedure that might work for you:
    1. Sort by Date
    2. Invoke the Not Reviewed filter
    3. Select a transaction (turning it dark blue)
    4. Clear the Not Reviewed filter
    5. At this point, the selected transaction should be on-screen, even if two years old. It will be in context of date order with other (reviewed and not reviewed) transactions around it.

    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
This discussion has been closed.