Fidelity/Elan Credit Card Shows Positive Balance

JLP1976 · June 26

Recently, my downloads for Fidelity Visa are showing a positive balance. The transactions are correct, but the balance is opposite what it should be. This may have begun when Quicken changed the connection method to Express Web Connect+.

Boatnmaniac · August 15

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20448995#Comment_20448995

There is a simple solution: Stop downloading this credit card from Fidelity. Instead download it from Elan Financial Services. Elan is the issuer of this card and is the source for the account transactions that Fidelity in turn downloads to Quicken. The data is OK but there is something broken in Fidelity that returns the faulty positive Online Balance. Downloading from Elan bypasses that Fidelity issue. This is what most people have successfully done. You might want to try doing the same thing.

First, if you have not already established an online account with Elan, you will need to do so. You can do that at https://www.myaccountaccess.com/enroll/user?appId=trancore&tenantId=ICSELAN&channelId=web . It is not obvious that this is an Elan webpage but if you scroll down to the bottom of of that page you will see that it does say that there. Some people use the same login for Elan.com that they use with Fidelity.com. Others prefer to use a different, unique login for Elan.com. It is the user's choice as to which to use.

Once your online account with Elan is established:

If you have not already done so, enter & save the dollar amount of the Opening Balance transaction into the Memo field. (This is not critical but it is a proactive step that can be very helpful. More on this later.)
Back up your data file.
Account Register > upper right Gear icon > Edit Account Details > Online Services tab > Deactivate.
Tools > Add Account > type "Elan Financial Services" into the search field > Next > Continue > enter your Elan UserID and PW > Next.
When prompted, make sure to Link the download to the account that already exists in Quicken.
Your account should now be set up for downloads from Elan.
Is the account in balance? If not, check to see if the Opening Balance transaction dollar amount matches what you had previously entered into the Memo field. If it does not match, change the dollar amount to match what is in the Memo field.
If the account still is not in balance: Scroll through the account register looking for duplicate transactions. If you find any, delete one and retain the other. In most cases any duplicate transactions will appear within the last 90 days. Your account should now be in balance.
Does the Online Balance amount include the cents or are the cents missing with only a hole dollar amount shown? The cents being missing from the Online Balance sometimes happens when setting up this Elan download connection. In most cases running OSU 12-24 hrs later will self-resolve this issue. IMPORTANT: Do NOT deactivate the account. Just wait 12-24 hrs and run OSU. Some have said the issue self-resolves with OSU in as little as 6-8 hrs.

I've been downloading from Elan now since early July and it has been working quite well.

Tom Young · June 26

You say that the transactions are correct. By that, I take it that purchases are properly entered in the "Charges" column as black numbers and payments or refunds are properly entered in the "Payment" column as black numbers?

What is the color of the number in the "Balance" column? Typically the numbers shown in the Balance column are RED, preceded by a negative sign. That's the amount you owe. But if somehow the Balance column numbers are BLACK, with no sign, then that says the credit card company OWES YOU, and in that situation charges will REDUCE the Balance and payments or refunds will INCREASE the Balance.

IF you have black numbers in the Balance column but you know in the real world you actually owe money to the credit card company then you need to hunt down the erroneous transaction(s) that flipped the Balance column from "I owe" to "you owe me." If the connection method has recently changed then the first place I'd look at is the Opening Balance transaction as occasionally Quicken on its own and for reasons unknown will change the Opening Balance.

If that's not the issue here then perhaps you can post a screen shot showing what you're seeing in that Account?

Boatnmaniac · June 26

Does the issue in this thread sound like the issue you are seeing?:

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20441003#Comment_20441003

JLP1976 · June 26

@Tom Young

Everything on the register looks normal. Numbers in the Charge column are black and numbers in the Balance column are red. Then Online balance at the bottom of the screen is black (positive) instead of red (negative). This means when I reconcile, instead of zero, the balance is twice the cleared balance. If I download a QFX file from Fidelity/Elan, the correct balance comes though.

JLP1976 · June 26

@Boatnmaniac This does sound like the thread you posted above. Mine has all the same characteristics. I am connected through Elan Financial Services. I tried, a few days ago, to use the Fidelity Connection, but I got the previous issue of dropping the cents on the balance (I think - I've slept since then).

Boatnmaniac · June 26

@JLP1976 - I've requested a Moderator to investigate to see if posting an Alert is warranted. So far I'm not seeing a lot of posts about this issue but I think if it is not resolved soon that could become one of the more "popular" posting topics in this Community before long.

In the meantime, I encourage you to report this issue to Quicken via Chat or Phone ( https://www.quicken.com/support/#contact-support ) or by going to Help > Report a Problem.

mayall · June 26

I see the same thing. Although I do not know if it is related, it happened on the first account download after the latest update:

Version 7.8.0 (Build 708.53876.100)

JLP1976 · June 27

@Boatnmaniac I reported this trough the Help>Report a problem route.

Boatnmaniac · June 27

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20441171#Comment_20441171

Thank you. The more people who report this issue the more likely it gets an elevated issue resolution priority.

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20441129#Comment_20441129

I don't think this is a specific version update. It is affecting QWin and QMac users alike and it is also an issue for people who are running different versions of their softwares.

udechwordiEr · June 27

I am having the same issue, also reported it thru Help → Report a Problem

Boatnmaniac · June 27

I just ran OSU and it is still not fixed.

But this time Fidelity - Investments & Retirement Accounts returned error code CC-601 which someone else posted they had also gotten earlier today. For me Reset Account resolved this error code. If you get this error code and Reset Account does not resolve it for you, see this Support Article: https://www.quicken.com/support/error-when-using-online-services-cc-601/ .

leishirsute · June 27

@Boatnmaniac After resetting the account were you able to update the account and didn't get a CC-601 error again? I reset the account successfully, but a following update produced the CC-601 error again.

Boatnmaniac · June 27

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20441290#Comment_20441290

I just did Update Now for this account and there was no CC-601 error.

leishirsute · June 28

Deactivating/Reactivating the Fidelity Credit Card account was successful. Updating the account still triggers a CC-601 error for me. 😕 The beginning balance is changed during a reset or deactivate/reactivate. I suspect it is due to the positive balance on the account. Once I change the beginning balance to $0.00, the running balance is correct again.

I'm going to switch back to Elan connection, which is what I was originally using before all the Elan problems. Hopefully, the missing cents will be fixed by tomorrow.

I did report a problem about the positive balance and CC-601 errors for the Fidelity connection, as you recommended.

mayall · June 28

I switched to the Elan connection and the issue with the "cents" being removed appeared. But the positive balance issue was resolved.

leishirsute · June 29

The missing cents for the Elan connection corrected in about 6 hours for my data. Sticking with the Elan connection for now.

Boatnmaniac · June 29

Yesterday I started to get some recurring error codes (CC-601, CC-506….QWin error codes) doing OSU with the Fidelity connection in 4 different files. And doing Reset Account in two of the files broke the download connections and they could not be reauthorized, again. This was all new for me with regard to this issue so it made me think that Fidelity and/or Intuit and/or Quicken were working the issue.

Today:

I was able to get the Fidelity connection reauthorized in those 2 files.
All 4 files returned the same CC-601 and CC-506 error codes.
No new transactions downloaded.
IMPROVEMENT: 3 of the 4 files showed the correct negative Open Balance number.

So, there is still an issue with the Fidelity connection but there seems to be some improvement. Keeping my fingers crossed that by Monday this issue will be resolved.

I also should mention that the Elan connection corrected the positive Open Balance issue for me 3 days ago and it has been running well since then.

starpal · June 29

I haven't seen any error codes but I found that my opening account balance from 2018 was changed from $0 to a seemingly random amount. Resetting that to 0 gets my account to balance in whole dollars, because Quicken reports the online balance in whole dollars, no cents. This leaves a $0.90 discrepancy that needs to be entered as an adjustment to reconcile "properly"

It seems this was a problem a month or two ago? Then went away?? Using Express Web Connect to download.

Using 27.1.57.16 and connecting to Elan Financial Services. I am not familiar with what you mean by the Elan connection vs the Fidelity connection.

Thanks all.

Boatnmaniac · June 29

@starpal -

Regarding the Opening Balance getting changed: This is a totally different issue from the positive Online Balance issue. It is a known issue that has existed for at least a year where when the account connection is Reset, Deactivated/Reactivated or Reauthorized the Opening Balance dollar amount SOMETIMES (not always) will get changed. What is recommended is to enter/save the correct Opening Balance dollar amount into the Memo field of that transaction….and do that for every Spending Account (checking, savings, credit card, etc.) By doing this it is very easy to determine if the transaction amount has been changed and what it needs to be corrected to.

Regarding the $0.90 Account Balance Discrepancy: This is a long-time known issue with the Elan connection where the Online Balance amount includes only the whole dollars but no cents. This issue has existed for perhaps 2 years or more. It sometimes occurs when the Elan connection is first set up or changed (via Reset Account or Deactivate/Reactivate)….and it only happens with Elan.

In most cases, when this issue occurs, try doing OSU, again, later in the day or the next morning. Most people are saying that it will self-resolve when doing OSU, again, 6-24 hrs later.

So, regarding that $0.90 account balancing transaction….you will need to delete that transaction once the Online Balance has been corrected to include the cents.

Regarding Elan vs Fidelity Connections: There are 2 different ways to download transaction of the Fidelity Rewards Visa credit card.

One is by using the Elan Financial Services financial institution in Add Account. This is the one that uses the EWC connection and which has the Online Balance with no cents issue.
The other is by using the Fidelity - Investments & Retirement Accounts in Add Account: This is the one that uses the EWC+ connection and is the one that is wrong showing the Online Balance as a positive number instead of a negative number.

You can easily see which of these connections you are set up with looking at the line directly below the Account Name above and to the left of the Account Register. Since you are having the no cents in the Online Balance issue and you said your connection is EWC, it tells me that your account is connected via Elan Financial Services.

starpal · June 29

Thanks very much for the thorough explanation. Much appreciated!

leishirsute · June 29

@Boatnmaniac For my data, the opening balance changed to the equal the current Quicken register balance + the erroneous positive online balance every time I reset or reactivated the Fidelity credit card connection. It seems related to the erroneous positive balance with the Fidelity connection. I had to manually change it back to an account opening balance of $0.00 to correct it every time. Good idea, saving the correct opening balance in the memo field.

I'm using the Elan connection now and not having any problems. 🤞

Boatnmaniac · June 29

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20441579#Comment_20441579

I've noticed the same thing happening with the Fidelity setups in my data files.

I also tried setting up this card with Fidelity in two new TEST files. In one it added the card with the same problem positive Online Balance issue. In the other it added the card with a good negative Online Balance.

In both the transactions data and balances are 3 days out of date (i.e., missing a couple of posted transactions) which tells me the feed from Elan to Fidelity (for downloading into Quicken) might not be working correctly.

leishirsute · June 30

"save the correct Opening Balance dollar amount into the Memo field "

@Boatnmaniac I always create a $0.00 transaction as the earliest dated transaction in my Banking accounts so that there is no question about the opening balance. It seems to work.

Boatnmaniac · June 30

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20441659#Comment_20441659

So how do you get the account into balance after you set up the account for downloading? If that Opening Balance transaction dollar amount is $0.00 but the financial institution downloads data showing the balance on that date was something different than that I would think it means you also have to enter an account balancing transaction so the register shows the correct numbers in the Balance column.

leishirsute · June 30

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20441696#Comment_20441696

I make sure the first transaction date for $0.00 is earlier than any transaction date on the first account statement i.e any transaction ever made. Basically I manually create an opening balance of $0.00 and downloads after that are processed as balance updates. The Quicken reconciliation has always balanced for paperless statements. That way if Quicken changes the opening balance for an unknown or erroneous reason, I know to make it $0.00 again to bring it back to its original beginning balance. It's always worked.

When Quicken decides to change the opening balance on an account, it changes the first transaction in the register. I merely make sure the first transaction in the register is for $0.00. Sort of a dummy first transaction in the register for $0.00.

Maybe I'm not understanding the issue you described.

Boatnmaniac · June 30

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20441720#Comment_20441720

Ah, I understand and, yes, I agree that should work well in helping to catch and correct Opening Balance transaction changes that occur provided that all transactions for an account for all time are in the account register.

Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for people to only add accounts to Quicken long after those accounts were opened at the financial institution and that many of those older transactions never get downloaded into Quicken because of that. I think this is very likely the case for people when they first start using Quicken and are adding their accounts to it. Some financial institutions will download 1-2 yrs of transactions but many now will download only 60-90 days leaving a lot of history out of the account setup. In these cases, using $0 for the Opening Balance transaction will cause an account balance issue so an account balancing transaction would then also need to be entered to compensate for that. Either that or simply enter and save the correct Opening Balance dollar amount into the Memo field.

q_lurker · July 1

Regarding the Opening Balance transaction in the register, I too have the transaction as $0.00. The next transaction can still be for $X categorized back to the same account, just like Quicken’s standard OB transaction. But as the ‘second’ transaction, it does not seem to be subject to the same random or arbitrary changes.

JLP1976 · July 2

I just ran OSU, and all look good - no errors and proper online balance.

Boatnmaniac · July 2

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20442071#Comment_20442071

Are you talking about the download connection via Elan or the download connection via Fidelity?

For me, the Elan download connection has been working well (no Online Balance issues) continuously since 6/27 or 6/28.

But the Fidelity download connection still returns a positive Online Balance (should be negative), continuously returns a CC-601 error code and has not downloaded any transactions at all since 6/27. (I just ran OSU again to confirm this.)

JLP1976 · July 2

@Boatnmaniac I am running the Elan connection. Frankly, I am confused as to which connections are yielding which problems. I swear the last time I ran Elan, I got the cents truncation. I ran it again a few hours later, and it was correct. Today, no issures. BTW, how do you respond with my comment in a box above your comment? I would really like to use that feature.

Boatnmaniac · July 2

@JLP1976 - Thanks for confirming you are getting good OSU results using the Elan connection. That aligns well with what I and others are seeing.

Last week when this issue first came up both Elan and Fidelity had the same positive Opening Balance issue. The Elan Opening Balance issue was resolved (by Elan?) a couple of days later and has consistently worked well during OSU and Update Now ever since. So, IMO, I'm thinking this is no longer an issue with the Elan connection.

But the Fidelity positive Online Balance issue remains….and it actually has gotten worse because of the repetitive CC-601 error code and because new transactions stopped downloading on 6/27. It's almost like someone simply turned off the connection at Fidelity and walked away from it. (OK, that probably is not the case but that's what it seems like.)

The Opening Balance truncated cents issue with Elan is a separate issue that has been occurring off and on for about 2 yrs but it has been a much more common issue since last Sep. As was mentioned earlier, the truncation typically occurs only when there is a change to the connection or a new connection set up with Elan. And typically it will self resolve by running OSU (without doing Reset Account or Deactivate), again, later in the day or by the next morning.

This cents truncation has not, to the best of my knowledge, ever happened with the new Fidelity connection.

BTW, how do you respond with my comment in a box above your comment? I would really like to use that feature.

Click in the Leave a Comment field. Then scroll up you want to reply to and click on "Quote below that post on the left.:

It's a pretty handy and fast way of replying to someone, especially when the post you want to reply to is not the most recent one or when there are a number of people who are active in the discussion thread. And it will send a notification to that person that someone has replied to their post.

Fidelity/Elan Credit Card Shows Positive Balance

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