Longer Payee names supported for downloaded transactions
Payee names get truncated to a maximum length that often cuts off the most important information that allow me to identify the transaction. A recent example is "Mira Mesa -bite-ca" which is not very informative. This is not the worst case, just the most recent. The actual name on the transaction was "Mira Mesa -bite-cafishgri". As can be seen, the business name is at the end of the string. The name of the business is "CA Fish Grill" so the transaction record is already truncating the name. Why truncate further? Just support the length provided by the transaction records, which are already limited.
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Blame your bank for how they presented the info.
And, your request would require that ALL participating FIs agree to change the OFX/QFX spec … which ain't gonna happen.
Q user since February, 1990. DOS Version 4
Now running Quicken Windows Subscription, Business & Personal
Retired "Certified Information Systems Auditor" & Bank Audit VP1 -
I understand. I work in an industry where specs are regularly used. Some are very active with potential updates regularly submitted. Some have almost no activity. I guess this one fits in the second category.
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Have you tried setting up a Renaming Rule, something like this?
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Just a note for all those financial institutions that have a habit of putting the full payee names in the memo while filling the payee field with useless information, if you use "If payee contains" it looks in both the payee and memo fields to find the text you put in and decide whether to rename the payee or not.
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I have tried that in the past with other payees that were extremely cryptic. It is a good option because I will see a friendlier name when it shows up again. The problem is when it is the first time seeing it I will have no idea who the vendor is and so I won't know what the rename should be.
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That is a good idea and something to keep in mind. I have not always paid attention so with some of my institutions this may work. Unfortunately, the institution I use for checking does not do this. It only gives the purchase date and location. This is helpful but not as much as the name.
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Looking at your other post and this one more closely, I want to point out something.
The OFX protocol's payee limitation is 32 characters. In that other post you say your downloaded payee is truncated to 18 characters. Well, whatever did that is "upstream" most like when the Intuit server got the data from the financial institution.
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Hello @adweathers,
I'm responding to your question here so that we don't hijack the other Idea thread with an off topic discussion:
I didn't do anything special; I added my PayPal account to my Quicken file so I could verify what it showed for the Payee.
If you don't have renaming rules shortening the Payee names, then the 18 character limit you're seeing may be due to your financial institution. Are you seeing this with just one financial institution, or with multiple?
Thank you.
Quicken Kristina
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@Chris_QPW, @Quicken Kristina,
It appears to be limited to a single institution as far as I can tell. When I looked closer I noticed it is not consistent. For transactions initiated within the institution, such a bill pay, the payee names are longer. For incoming transactions initiated at a vendor, the payee names are truncated. By the way, the financial institution is Wells Fargo Bank in case anyone asks the same question. I noticed on their website if you look at the details of a transaction, the names are longer. they are up to 24 characters for the examples I looked at. But in the OFX log it looks like the names for the incoming transactions are truncated to 18 characters. So it appears to be upstream as you mentioned. Thanks for your help.
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Looking back in history, Renaming Rules have looked at a combination of both Downloaded Payee and Downloaded Memo to determine how to rename a downloaded transaction.
Use of the Memo for meaningful downloaded information seems to have dwindled in the past few years. I see less and less meaningful Memo text being provided by the banks for checking, debit and credit card transactions. But that could also be caused by the merchants' credit card processing systems not providing enough meaningful information in the first place.
For example, I don't need my full name as Memo text in every credit card transaction. To be able to identify which of the many family members made a transaction, the last 4 digits of the card number would suffice, followed by any merchant-supplied text.A clear text merchant name should be in the Payee Name field. Anything else, like store number, transaction or invoice number, words like "Debit card", etc. should be provided in the downloaded Memo field. With about 250 characters in length, this field certainly has room enough to be used in a meaningful way.
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The issue I am having is that the "Transaction Downloads" text is very incomplete and I can't get the renaming rules to function correctly at least form me. I may not be using the correct syntax. When I download and print out the activity from my checking account the description has printed up to 30 characters in length and with as many as 4 lines. In the print out description for the most part it will include an accurate description or the actual Name of the merchant.
What does "OFX protocol's" mean?
From the general conversation what I am hearing, is that it is the bank or financial institution which is causing the problem. Why would I get a "detailed description including the full or at least a recognizable name when I access and print out my bank register but when "Quicken" accesses and does the "Download Transaction" I get a very short version of only what is on the first line of my printed register description.
Example: Downloaded Transaction in Quicken Classic: "Purchase Authorized on 01/14 DO"
Where the full description from the bank register printout is (note: this is showing more space between lines the is actually on the print out.
" Purchase Authorized on 01/14
Dollar General # (store # and city)
Transaction code and card info."
The point is: Quicken does not download enough detail and typically does not give the name of the merchant where the purchase was made.
For this example, what I get when "Download Transactions" downloads "Purchase Authorized on 01/14 DO" it shows up as "Walmart", when I go to the renaming rules and select "Dollar General" and it does not change the name from Walmart in the Downloaded Transaction list. I then select "Accept" for that transaction and it puts it in the register as "Walmart". I select the transaction and change the name to "Dollar General" I get the popup window asking to modify naming rules and I select "DO", and there is an indication that the change has been accepted. However this does not seem to work or stay correct because the next time I make a "Download Transaction" the transaction that were for Dollar General are showing up as "Walmart" and I have to manually go in an change each one after accepting that specific transaction.
Somebody in "Corporate" needs to get their stuff together and get this fixed.
In my opinion: the current way in which the "Download Transactions" and renaming process is working: "IT DOESN'T !!!!
Would like some answers, solutions, get the problem solved.
Posted: 1/22/24
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" Purchase Authorized on 01/14
Dollar General # (store # and city)
Transaction code and card info."Sounds to me as if your bank needs to put more emphasis on the real Payee Name and put that first into the Downloaded Payee Name field.
I would contact the bank and see if their IT programmers can work some magic (or work with Intuit as the download service providers) to improve that.0
