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Transfers not matching

mathminded

I recently returned to Quicken and am beginning to recall why I quit several years ago. Things that seem like they should be simple are way too complicated. For example….

How do I get Quicken to recognize that the $35.00 payment in my checking account dated 12/12/23 is the same as the $35.00 payment in my credit card account dated 12/11/23? Both transactions get downloaded, but each is entered as a transfer into the account it appears in, not as a matched transfer from one account to the other.

David

Quicken Classic - Business & Personal - Version R53.32 - Build 27.1.53.32 - Windows 11 Enterprise

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Tom Young

Well the rock-solid, can't miss, works every time method is to make the entry manually in the checking Account when you pay the bill, and the entries will be confirmed by subsequent downloads.

You've got Quicken looking for transfers in Preferences?

(I've never used this feature but if I did I'd sure check that "Confirm" button just to make sure the entry is correct.)

I assume the Payee in this instance is more or less unique? I'd expect that having that payment in your Memorized Payee List might also help here.

Of course once both sides of the transaction - checking Account and credit card Account - download, you do have the correct accounting, overall, it's just that the two sides don't happen at the same time, which can be a little confusing.

mathminded

Thanks, @Tom Young , that may be the route I have to take. I was hoping the system was a little more sophisticated than it appears to be. I appreciate your response.

Boatnmaniac

It's been my experience that Quicken does not do a good, reliable job of matching transfers if those transactions in both accounts do not have the exact same date. If they are not the same date sometimes Quicken will do the match correctly but oftentimes it will not.

So, I use that "rock solid, can't miss, works every time" method mentioned by @Tom Young. In my situation, almost all of my transfer transactions are bill payments which occur on a regular schedule (such as credit card payments and loan payments) so I set up recurring Bill Reminders for them. Then all I need to do is change the dollar amount of the Reminders each month and enter the Reminders so they populate in both accounts right away. Then when the transactions actually download into each account Quicken does a pretty good job of matching them to the Reminder transactions that were previously entered.

mathminded

@Boatnmaniac so with your method, once it downloads the transactions it doesn't cause a duplicate transaction? It recognizes that the transaction is already there?

Chris_QPW

When you get right down to it at best Quicken is guessing. Nothing in the download tells Quicken that the two transactions are related. "Automatic transfer detection" is a guess based on the amount and approximate dates.

mathminded

@Chris_QPW in these days of AI and all of the incredible things we're seeing I guess I need to temper my expectations with a legacy (?) product like this. 😁

Boatnmaniac

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20406955#Comment_20406955

Almost always the downloaded transactions match to the Reminder (or transfer) transactions that were previously entered. It is important to make sure the Reminder/Transfer transactions are entered before the downloads occur. It is also important that the previously entered transactions have the exact matching dollar amount and are dated within a couple of days of the actual download dates.

Once in a while the matching does not occur correctly. But if you do not have your Preference set up to automatically enter downloaded transactions into the register you will be given the opportunity to review the downloaded transactions where you can manually match them to the previously entered transactions if Quicken did not already match them. Having the Preference set to automatically enter downloaded transactions into the register, IMHO, is risky and will introduce issues that you might not find until much later….things like a match that did not occur so it entered a duplicate transaction, like where it categorized the transaction incorrectly, like where it entered a Payee that you wanted shown differently than what was downloaded.

Nothing is perfect but it comes close and there are things that can be done to minimize the risk of something goes wrong.

Chris_QPW

Quicken is about a legacy as you can get. 🤣

But don't worry I heard from one source that AI will replace all of the programmers in 5 years. 😉

Then again there is this:

A person asked ChatGPT "Can you write code without copying it from somewhere?"

Answer: No.

AI doesn't "Understand", it looks things up, very fast, and correlates data.

I think it will be a little time before AI comes up with a way to replace Quicken (more likely the user base will just die off. 🤣 )

Chris_QPW

Oh, there is an important part of "automatic transfer detection" that seldom gets mentioned. It can't happen until after the second transaction is entered into the register. So, if there are days between the downloading of the first transaction and the second, you just left the first transaction uncategorized for those days. It would have been better to "categorize" it by putting in the transfer category [Other Account] and then it would have matched the second downloaded transaction, and no "guessing" at automatic transfer detection.

There are two modes for downloading transactions. Automatic transaction entry mode, and not, where transactions go through a Downloaded Transactions tab at the bottom of the register.

Automatic transfer detection only really makes any sense at all to me if you are using automatic transaction entry mode and both transactions are downloaded in the same One Step Update. If only one side of the transaction is downloaded they when you review the transactions the category should be set to a transfer. This might have already been done with a reminder or manual transaction that was already in the register and matched or maybe even a memorized payee. But for sure by the time, you have finished the review of those transactions that "category" should already be set as a transfer.

When both sides of the transfer download at the same time, well then, the automatic transfer detection will kick in at the end of that download, and before you even go to review transactions. But it is also the most likely case where Quicken will guess right.

In the case of not using automatic transaction entry mode and the transactions are going through the Downloaded Transactions tab at the bottom of the register then, I see no reason why automatic transaction detection should ever trigger. When you are in the first register and get the first side of a transfer transaction, you should either be matching to a transaction that is already in the register with the transfer as the category. If it isn't already in the register, then you should certainly categorize the transaction as a transfer as entering you are entering it into the register. And that means that when you go to the second account that has the other side of that transfer the downloaded transaction will be matched to it.

Chris_QPW

Actually, I was really thinking of my use case where I download every day. If you don't then the two transactions that are days apart may come down in the same One Step Update, but still be days apart. So, that case with automatic transaction entry mode, might be more problematic. It wouldn't be with it off since you are doing one account at a time.

Chris_QPW

I have added a new "FAQ" for automatic transfer detection usage that people might want to look at:

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7944737/faq-automatic-transfer-detection-usage