Quicken Classic for Win - OL-295-A Errors at Vanguard

Quicken Kristina · March 10

Hello All,

The issue with connecting to Vanguard via Direct Connect has been marked resolved.

If you are still encountering issues connecting, please post to the this discussion, and include details on the issue you're encountering.

@JK AZ,

If you haven't already done so, please navigate to Edit>Preferences>Investments and make sure the option to default to Simple is turned off.

Thank you!

wdwyatt · March 10

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20480436#Comment_20480436

FWIW, my preferences were set as you say - NOT checked for simple. But upon re-connecting, I ended up as many others here with the Simple Transactions. Fixed OK only when I followed your advice to "+" ADD NEW ACCOUNT which then allowed linking data to the existing account. Hope Quicken is on this - would be good if we would get the same result with by setting up the download directly with the account.

Boatnmaniac · March 10

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20480484#Comment_20480484

Glad to hear it worked for you. Based upon posts here the last couple of days It sure seems that going the Add Account (or the "+") route has a high success rate and not so much with another connection set up path.

FWIW, it is not uncommon when a financial institution (FI) totally breaks the download connection method for it to take time to get everything working correctly, again. Some problems with the fix get identified and the setup process gets tweaked some to make it work better even though it might not totally fix everything. There have been several improvement "tweaks" that Vanguard has been making to the account connection setup process over the last few days. I'm pretty sure that when everything is done, all of the download connection setup options will be fully functional once, again. It's just a matter of how long will it take. (FYI: When Citi totally broke their EWC+ connections last Sep, it took them 2 wks to get it partially restored and another 4 wks before everything was working correctly, again. So, yes, it can take time.)

Jim_Harman · March 10

Repeating the detailed instructions from earlier today near the top of this page to make them easier to find…

Some of these steps may not be necessary in every case, but I want to cover as many bases as possible. Please follow these steps exactly, do not take any alternate paths or shortcuts.

Back up your data file in case something goes wrong.
Go to Edit > Preferences > Investments and make sure the "Default to Simple investing for new accounts" box is not checked.
Go to Edit > Preferences > Downloaded transactions and un-check the "Automatically add to investment transaction lists" box. This will give you a chance to review any new transactions to make sure there are no duplicates and the transactions are going to the correct accounts.
Make sure you know the Vanguard account numbers for all the accounts you need to reconnect and the corresponding names in Quicken.
Go to each problem account and click on the gear at the top right. Select Edit account details and then the Online Services tab. If it says the account is set up for transaction download, click on Deactivate. DO NOT CLICK ON "SET UP NOW" AFTER DEACTIVATING, YOU MUST GO THROUGH THE FOLLOWING STEPS.
Go to the General tab and now you should be able to select Complete mode. Select that.
At the top of the Accounts bar, usually on the left side of your screen, where all of your accounts are listed, click on the plus sign. This should open the Add account window. Don't worry, you will not be adding any accounts, you will be linking your current Vanguard accounts in Quicken to the corresponding online accounts
Enter Vanguard and you should see the Vanguard logo on the right. Below the logo, click on Advanced options. Read the permission screen about Quicken and Intuit and click on Continue.
Under How should Quicken connect, select Direct Connect. Click on Next.
Provide your Vanguard username and password, and check the Save to Password Vault if that is how you normally operate. Click on Next.
You will see a list of all your Vanguard accounts. Any accounts that are already connected will be marked Don't add to Quicken. Accounts that you can connect will have entry boxes. For your existing problem accounts DO NOT SELECT THE DEFAULT OF ADD TO QUICKEN. Instead, select Link to existing account and select the Quicken account to use. Do not guess here. If you don't know which account to select or there are Vanguard accounts that you don't want to track, select Don't add to Quicken and only do the accounts you are sure of. You can pick up at step 7 later and reconnect any other accounts.
Click on Cancel if you are confused at this point and your accounts will not be re-linked. If you are satisfied, click on Done and your accounts should be set.
Check to make sure any downloaded transactions are going to the correct accounts.

If there are problems, restore the backup file you saved and you will be back to where you started.

Please let us know if this works for you.

marcaronson408 · March 11

@Quicken Kristina, unfortunately, I am still having problems.

Update:

I decided to connect the 3 accounts that I assumed were 0-balance accounts. 2 of them were 0-balance accounts. The 3rd one was my "missing" / "problem" account that I discussed below, but it is showing up with a different account number. The strange thing is that when I login to Vanguard, the new account number does not appear anywhere. It only shows up as having changed in Quicken.

Yikes! Any suggestions?

Marc

Original post:

Background:

I carefully followed all the steps list in @Jim_Harman's post from March 10 (LINK) that is on this thread.
I am using Quicken Classic for Windows.
I have several Vanguard accounts. Only 1 is still having a problem.
When I first encountered the problem, I disconnected that one account and tried to reconnect it again. When that didn't work, I did a Google search and learned of the problem, so I decided to wait. This is the account I am having problems with.
During the "outage" I did 1 download of transactions for all of my Vanguard accounts and imported them into quicken via file→import.

The problem:

When I attempted to reconnect the problem account, it never shows up on the list of accounts that I can connect. I am doing this from "Add account", per step 7 in @Jim_Harman's post.

Additional information:

The other 5 accounts I have show up as expected in the list, properly associated with the correct Quicken account.
3 other accounts show up in the list that do not appear to exist when I login to Vanguard. I suspect these are old accounts that are no longer used and have a 0-balance. This does not concern me.

How do I get the "problem" account to show up again so I can link it?

Thank you for your help,

Marc

conway yc · March 11

March 11 10am CDST Vanguard not updating again? Quicken Classic for Windows.

It did work yesterday and the day before but the error message came up again today for OSU.

Anyone else experiencing this?

Thank you.

mtn_living · March 11

I had no issues with OSU. and Vanguard accounts this morning, transactions downloaded with no issues.

Jim_Harman · March 11

Vanguard downloads worked for me just now, 11:07 EDT.

@conway yc What error message if any did you get when it did not work?

Jim_Harman · March 11

@marcaronson408 Can you tell us a little about the account that did not connect?

Is it a regular brokerage account or some other type, a 401(k) or a legacy mutual fund only account for example?

When did you first connect this account for downloading? Was it many years ago, when Vanguard was using the Pershing brokerage platform? If so, you may need to use the old Pershing number to connect. One of my accounts still requires the old number and uses an account number starting with 44V. You may still see the old account number in the Account Details. If so, look for that number in the accounts that Vanguard offers for connection. Be sure to back up first.

[Adding] If it is an old/new account number problem, you should be able to rename and then open a backup from before the outage and go to the Account Details for the problem account to see the account number to use. Be sure not to let Quicken over-write your current data file.

marcaronson408 · March 11

@Jim_Harman, thank you for the quick reply.

To answer your questions: I've been a vanguard customer for several decades. I was using quicken from the late 1990s until late 2019 when I suspended use because of all the problems I was having. I then restarted w/ Quicken Classic in mid 2024. The Vanguard account is a brokerage account.

When did you first connect this account for downloading? Was it many years ago, when Vanguard was using the Pershing brokerage platform? If so, you may need to use the old Pershing number to connect. One of my accounts still requires the old number and uses an account number starting with 44V. You may still see the old account number in the Account Details. If so, look for that number in the accounts that Vanguard offers for connection. Be sure to back up first.

I was able to solve the problem, and it is a variation on what you described.

I decided to connect the 3 accounts that I assumed were 0-balance accounts. 2 of them were 0-balance accounts. The 3rd one was my "missing" / "problem" account, but it is showing up with a different account number that has the format you described as an "old Pershing number".

When I login to Vanguard, that account number with the "V" does not appear anywhere. It only shows up as having changed in Quicken

To recap:

Before all these problems happened, this account had the same standard 8-digit account number in both Quicken & Vanguard.
As of today, Quicken is showing an account number of the format "##V######" and Vanguard is showing the same 8-digit account number it had before all the problems started.

Everything is connected and working well. No idea why the account number has changed on the quicken side.

Thank you again for responding.

Marc

FrZpd7843 · March 11

Thank you, this worked. Clicking on the advanced option under the Vanguard logo, which allows us to select Direct Connect is the key for sure. Hopefully, if Vanguard completely abandons Direct Connect, Quicken and Vanguard work out a way for Web Express to support complex tracking (register view).

conway yc · March 11

@Jim_Harman Thank you for responding to my note this morning at 10am. I was away from my desk and just got back. Tried OSU just now and although I had no new transactions, Quicken reported Vanguard updated and I had no error messages. I didn't save the error code from this morning.

Thank you for putting in so much time on this - much appreciated!

marrdrm1971 · March 11

have done everything and it (quicken) keeps saying I need to get a Vanguard password and ID when it tries to connect during the add account step.. Tells me to sign up and all it does is take me to the Vanguard sign on page. I already have iD and password???. tried the Vanguard site to do direct connect and it sends me back to quicken, I've used quicken since it was on a floppy disk. This is ridiculous.

Why doesn't set up now work? You mean a new customer can't connect to Vanguard.

Bob_L · March 12

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20480741#Comment_20480741

Help us understand what "done everything means". Did you deactivate all of your Vanguard accounts and then attempt to reconnect them via the + sign at the top of the account bar? Have you verified that your preference for investments does NOT defaut to Simple tracking?

FrZpd7843 · March 12

Here is my understanding of what has occurred over the last couple of weeks with Vanguard:

On or around 2/20 Vanguard disabled Direct Connect, which had been working well for a very long time.

Some users decided to leave their quicken connection method intact, and wait it out to see if things resolve.

Other users decided to disconnect quicken from Vanguard, download transactions via a qfx file directly from the Vanguard website, and then import those transactions into Quicken.

A couple of weeks later Vanguard rolled out the Express Web Connect (EWC) Interface, which appears to be their new preferred interface (likely cheaper for Vanguard).

Some users who had disconnected from Vanguard, tried to reconnect quicken to Vanguard. When they did so, they were connected using the new EWC interface. At that point their Vanguard account tracking method was changed to "simple", which suppresses the transaction register view, which many users find inadequate. Quicken Vanguard accounts, in simple tracking, only displays summary account balances. The option to change back to "complete" tracking was grayed out while being connected to Vanguard using EWC. The only way to get back to complete tracking was to disconnect from EWC, which ungrayed the tracking method selection (allowed selecting complete tracking).

Jim Harmon (above) has pointed out that if users disconnect from EWC or from the qfx download interface, and reconnect from scratch, being careful to click on the advanced option below the Vanguard Investment logo, before proceeding to input credentials, users will once again have the option to select the direct connect vanguard to quicken interface. If a user rushes through the reconnection process, without taking advantage of the advanced "button", the connection will default to EWC, which is currently an inferior interface.

Thanks to Jim Harmon, I have managed to reconnect to Vanguard with Direct Connect and all is working. My hope is that Vanguard will continue to offer a Direct Connect interface. If not, then I hope they keep it until the EWC interface works properly. In any case, I hope that Vanguard coordinates with Quicken before making any further changes. I sympathize with Quicken, as they have to interface with a huge number of banks and investment companies. When these institutions make changes without proper coordination or software expertise, things break. I wish there had been better communication from all involved to minimize user grief.

denmarfl · March 12

I was a user that decided to wait it out…and just experience the 295-A error when doing a OSU…and lacking daily updates to my Vanguard accts during the time DC was down… Once restored all was normal. Where Vanguard failed us….other Financial institutions that dropped DC to switch to EWC+….they notified Quicken users well before the change took place. These other Institutions also must have done testing with Quicken to assure a smooth transition…Vanguard did not feel we were important enough to notify us of the chnage, we all found out when we experienced the 295-A Error…for weeks. Even to this day, Vanguard has never felt it important to send out a Notification explaining what they did… But it seems the power of Voices…made Vanguard realize they needed to back track and restore the DC Connection. Our Voices were Powerful..and heard. I am very disappointed in Vanguard a company I have been loyal to since 1975…50yrs. This experience has given me reason to Pause and re-think my loyality…as Vanguard did not feel I was important enough to Notify me they were turning off DC….they just…did it. Thanks to all that contacted Vanguard…had we all not done that very likely we would still today be facing that 295-A Error…..

FrZpd7843 · March 12

I absolutely agree. Vanguard let us down. For the last two years they no longer allow a customer to speak to technical support. They have outsourced their IT, which, in my experience, is completely unresponsive. Even during this issue, all one could do is call, complain, and get things elevated to "Voice of the customer". As far as any insight into what was going on, all of my information came via the quicken community.

Quicken Jasmine · March 12

Hello All,

We are happy to hear that the issue is resolved for you. Thank you for continuing to share updates, workarounds, and any other information that you find useful.

Please don't hesitate to reach out with any further questions or concerns!

LexLuther · March 12

It seems that if I update transactions for a single Vanguard account now, it completes. If I run OSU, I see that Vanguard is checked and in progress, it says completed. However, OSU Summary doesn't show anything for any Vanguard accounts.

goofiness · March 12

Many thanks to Jim Harman for his very concise steps to follow. I too was no longer able to see complete transactions and downloads on my two Vanguard accounts, despite trying all permutations. Then I realized that Vanguard still wanted me to use the OLD account numbers, which show up in Quicken. I thought that was the problem and changed them to the NEW account numbers. Of course, that didn't work. After reading Jim's post, I realized that Vanguard still has the OLD numbers in their system, and still wants to use them.

Now, it seems to work, HOWEVER, when I did an update this AM, several transactions did not have correct identifications for the product (i.e. a CD, a T-Bill, stock, etc.). The transactions did go to the correct account and had the correct $ amounts. I'll do a OSU later, and see what happens. I think Vanguard is still some time away from getting it all correct, which wastes a lot of our time.

cumminj · March 13

Yes, my accounts are back after using the Add Account method provided by Jim_Harman. I performed a 'one step update' after adding Vanguard Accounts back via 'update setting'. No errors reported. Thank you Jim.

I really did not want to restore from a 3-week backup and then hope all my other (non-vanguard) accounts would sync up.

davidldahlin · March 13

As of March 13, 2025 still unable to download transactions from Quicken. Not showing any error message, but no transactions - when I know there are some

Jim_Harman · March 13

@davidldahlin and @LexLuther

What have you done so far to reconnect your accounts to Vanguard? Have you followed the 13 step process in my post near the top of Page 1 of this discussion?

goofiness · March 13

Just did OSU for my 2 Vanguard accounts, with Vanguard using Direct Connect. There was one new transaction, which downloaded correctly with all historical details showing. Hope this lasts. In future, when I find a glitch, I will come to the Community first, before wasting time trying to figure out if it's my system or Quicken or the financial institution.

Does anyone know know why Vanguard continues to use the old legacy account numbers, and is there a way to get Vanguard to update them? Except for their still showing in my Quicken Account List, I had a heck of a time even finding them. Fortunately, I had a couple documents from back in 2009 that had the old account numbers.

cumminj · March 13

posted 3/13/25 10:49 AM

Yes, my accounts are back after using the Add Account method provided by Jim_Harman. I performed a 'one step update' after adding Vanguard Accounts back via 'update setting'. No errors reported. Thank you Jim.

posted 3/13/25 11:40 PM

I noticed there was ADD transactions, rather than Buy. Not sure as to why. I spent several hours on 7 accounts cleaning up entries to the same type that was used prior to this 2/20/25 fiasco. Their all reconciled manually to the penny. BTW, my accounts are all brokerage type of accounts and have a mix of mutual funds and stocks. I am concerned that this may not be totally fixed.

I'll repost if the one-step update does not perform as it did before 2/20/25.

Pinot83 · March 14

I was waiting until I knew there were transactions to download before determining that the OSU was working. OSU completed without errors, but no Vanguard transactions were downloaded. The Download Center in Vanguard produced a qfx file containing transactions. My Vanguard accounts in Quicken show Direct Connect activated for all. I went through Jim Harman's steps (Thanks, Jim) and was fine until I got to Step 11 of linking accounts. I recognized account numbers marked Don't Add to Quicken, but I was offered account numbers I didn't recognize to link. The total number of accounts was correct, but not the account numbers offered for linking. I canceled out at that point. I have tried this process several times. I also tried a Reset on one of the accounts that was missing from the link list. Again, I was offered account numbers that didn’t match. I’m stuck.

Frank7 · March 14

Still not correct.

Bob_L · March 14

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20481057#Comment_20481057

You may be seeing the last 4 of old account numbers starting with V40, etc. Restore an old backup to a copy and review the account numbers listed in account details to see if that is the problem and then link appropriately.

rjgrichmond · March 14

Log into your Vanguard account and look up your correct account numbers from your latest Vanguard statement and match up what comes into the Direct Connect linking menu to the corresponding Quicken account.

Jim_Harman · March 14

@Pinot83 When restoring the old backup from before the outage as @Bob_L recommends to get the old account numbers, be sure it has a different name than your active data file so that it will not over-write your current file. You will just be looking at the backup and not using it going forward.

Quicken Classic for Win - OL-295-A Errors at Vanguard

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