Screwed-up transfer transaction

Dave in SF
Dave in SF Member ✭✭✭
This is gonna be a little complicated to explain but I'll do my best.

I have a bill payment transaction which is completely screwed up and I can't figure out how to resolve it.  The transaction is a credit card payment made using "Quick Pay".  So the original payment was posted (in Quicken) to the checking account for the amount of the payment, with that amount transferred to the credit card account. 

Now the payment date has passed and the payment was made.  If I look at the credit card account (in Quicken) I can see the transaction, but the matching transaction in the checking account IS NOT THERE.

If I try to edit or delete that transaction in the credit card account, it tells me the transaction is locked and I need to edit the transaction it's transferred from.  If I click "Go to Transfer" it goes to the previous month's payment for that credit card account from the checking account — which is a transaction on a different date and for a different amount.  It is NOT the right transaction (and I don't want to edit or delete it, because it's correct!)

I think what I need to do is just delete the messed-up transaction in the credit card account, and re-enter it manually from the checking account.  But it's "locked" and I can't delete or edit it.

I don't know how this occurred — obviously some sort of bug exists that allowed it to happen — but this is akin to a double-entry-accounting transaction that's only showing up on one side of the ledger.  My checking account balance is wrong because the transaction doesn't exist, somehow, in my checking account.  I feel fortunate to have noticed this almost immediately after the transaction date so that I didn't try to spend money that wasn't actually in my account.  

How can I delete a locked transaction, and is there anything else I should be doing?

Answers

  • RickO
    RickO SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    It does indeed sound strange. Here's what I'd try: First, make a backup of your file in case you need to revert. Then link to the previous month's transaction in the checking account and delete that one. See if that deletes the current month transaction in the CC account. Also check if it deleted the previous month's CC transaction (assuming it was a transfer transaction also). If that all works, then manually recreate both sets of transactions, marking them as cleared/reconciled as needed. (To manually mark a transaction as reconciled, hold the Option key on the keyboard while clicking the Clr box.)

    Alternatively, just create a non-transfer transaction in the checking account. It won't be linked to the CC transaction, but that's not the end of the world. Perhaps make a note in the memo in this regard for future reference.

    Oooh, a third thing to try just occurred to me. Create a new transfer transaction in the checking account with transfer to the CC account. Quicken will sometimes offer to match the destination end of the transaction to an existing transaction in that account. If it's not offered, you'll have a duplicate transaction in the CC account which you can try to manually match by dragging one on top of the other.

    Good luck.
    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
  • Dave in SF
    Dave in SF Member ✭✭✭
    RickO, thanks for the excellent ideas.

    I spent some more time and think I have it straightened out. I basically took your first suggestion, I deleted the linked transaction (even though it had a different date and amount) and then recreated everything manually.  I wrote down all the correct dates and amounts first so that I could ensure that I recreated things correctly, as I wasn't exactly sure what would disappear (or not) when I deleted the "parent" transaction that seemed to be linked to multiple "children" even though I did not use any splits.

    Hopefully when I go to reconcile the bank and credit card statements, everything will balance and I won't have any strangeness.  I'll have to wait a few weeks for the next statements before I'll know for sure I guess.

    I now have a couple of transactions (the recreated ones) which show up as orange (not downloaded) instead of blue (downloaded) but that's not the end of the world.

    The credit card company, in this case, is Chase, and I've had all kinds of strangeness around Quick Pay and Chase, sometimes it won't let me do Quick Pay to Chase on a future date, while other times it works fine.  No idea if that problem is at all related to this one.  Anyway, I think I've sorted this one out, I hope it doesn't happen again.
  • RickO
    RickO SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    Good news.
    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
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