Downloading pending transactions - any news?
HI, I have read that Quicken is thinking about adding support for downloading pending transactions. I have not seen anything definitive, is there any news about when that will come to Windows?
Also is there any news about how it will work? One issue I have been thinking about - it seems to me there are two types of pending transactions - real charges that move from pending to downloaded transactions (that we see now), and there are transactions that are 'holds', for lack of a better word, that the vendor does to ensure the credit card is valid/no locks on the account etc. - those go away eventually. Will that all need to be managed by the Quicken user if they download pending transactions? I suspect there are other pending transactions that go away too - for example, a charge purchase goes in, but for some reason that charge is cancelled or adjusted to a different charge, the vendor just never authorizes the first transaction to exit the pending state, and they send in a corrected transaction.
I wonder too, if pending charges have a 'life time', that they automatically get purged? They do seem to go away if you look on the FI web site under your transactions. I wonder if this will be reflected in the downloaded transactions in any way…
I am wondering about the value of this feature if instead of, like now, you wait until transactions come out of pending and then they download - vs. having to manually delete pending transactions because the user knows they aren't going to move to a real transaction. Maybe between the FI and Quicken these two types of transactions will be filtered as the FI probably knows what type of transaction it is…..it will be interesting to see how it's implemented!
Thanks for any info, news, theories, and/or discussion anyone may want to share in advance!
Answers
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Definitive? Not in my opinion. There are lots of users writing in to complain that the Online Balance and the downloaded transactions don't always balance due to pending transactions, so from that standpoint, it is a mess.
Personally, I think it is a huge mistake, but Quicken apparently listened to a small number of users that wanted this and decided to implement it, but it has not been done successfully universally. I can only imagine and this is pure speculation that the users that wanted this were the ones that were constantly at or near their credit limit on their credit card and wanted to know in Quicken how close they were. I see no advantage to having the pre-tip pending transaction at a restaurant downloaded.
I created an idea in Fall'22 to not include pending transactions in downloads or the online balance. If you agree, add your vote:
Just maybe, Quicken will come to its senses and reverse this decision.
-splasher using Q continuously since 1996
- Subscription Quicken - Win11 and QW2013 - Win11
-Questions? Check out the Quicken Windows FAQ list1 -
Interesting - I agree with you unless how it did it was very smart.
Is it out or was it out and got pulled (and I missed it)? I don't get pending downloads, is it in beta test with some users?
I voted - woo-boy reading the posts there some a few other issues that I didn't think of.
At my bank's site, they show a list of pending transactions, but they don't "count" toward anything - not in the balances for example. Maybe for those that would like to see them, if there was just a way to do that without breaking anything else it might be beneficial to some.
I have never missed it, I check pending transactions at my bank about once a month or less. So to me it's not worth breaking a bunch of things in Quicken that I rely on!
Thanks for the reply @splasher very informative.
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I'm not sure why this topic is closed? This is a problem for me as of May 19, 2023. The online balance is including transactions that are pending and thus not downloaded yet. The most frustrating thing is that when I search support for a way to fix this, I get this nice write up where I can go to preferences and change the settings for "pending transactions". The problem is that that this option is not available to me at all. The "pending transaction" choice does not exist and I am on the latest version.
Like someone else said in another thread, this means that my accounts will likely never balance because the pending transactions will almost always be there.3 -
5/19/23. I too have the Pending Transactions problem showing up again. It seems to come and go. It has been gone for months, but started being a problem again on 5/18/23. Like jonarcherjones, "pending transactions" does not show up in my list of preferences where I could stop Quicken from taking these into considerations. My "fix" for this is to let Quicken make a balance adjustment that compensates for the value of the pending transactions, then I delete the balance adjustment. I have no idea what changed to make this unwanted "feature" return to bother us.1
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what Bank?
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My problem is that current transactions aren't shown on the spread sheet. The total balance is correct. It is affecting my checking account and one of my credit cards. It's getting so annoying that I searched for an alternative to Quicken. Been using Quicken since 2000, it's always worked great, why can't they fix these issues in a reasonable amount of time?
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@kloach0315 - have you contacted Support?
I think you are assuming the fix is within Quicken's control…. these transactions come from financial institutions, all of which have their own protocols for making the transactions available, and then passed through to Quicken's partner, Intuit. So there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen.
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Pending transactions (which are not necessarily real since they may never post in many cases) should never be included in a reconciliation unless you have the opportunity to download and add to your register. Many of these are added by a merchant as an estimate to make sure you have sufficient credit for when the actual transaction posts. Processing transactions also should not be used as part of your account balance until they clear unless you have the opportunity to download and accept them. Both cause differences between your online account balance and your recorded bank balance. Most people do not record pending transactions manually. These both cause reconciliation errors.1
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This is something that should not be implemented. Each FI will have their own way of handling this I think would be a continuous source of problems for Quicken. Fix the issues that are still currently outstanding like the poor implementation for printing checks that has existed for years and has cost me money in checks being printed that weren't supposed to be printed.
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Before updating my checking & savings accounts in Quicken , I open them in a browser to take a screenshot of the pending transactions. I wish Quicken and financial institutions would create & allow a download of those pending transaction into a separate 'offspring' accounts, so that users can view these transactions for "pending reconciliations" purposes/peace of mind. That would also reduce that bank's server workload from user logging in to only view those pending transactions.
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I think the pending transaction function is one of the best enhancements quicken has come up with in a long time. I agree they should not be reflected in the account balance, which it did not for me, until it is a posted transaction at the financial institution. It should have the ability to be turned on or off at the individual account level.
So, Quicken you said it was coming back, when?
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I take the side that opposes downloading pending transactions for all the reasons mentioned. However, since the EWC+ transition Chase includes pending transactions in the online balance which is a problem for reconciling. For me it is a minor problem because I can wait a day or two for the transactions to clear and then reconcile. Of course the option to reconcile to the latest bank statement is always available.
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