I guess the idea behind the balance column on the upcoming transactions list is to provide a running balance. However, given that recurring transactions don't get displayed more than once it seems like this would never be correct.
Am I missing something?
Seriously...its not that hard to add a few more mathmetical equations to make this work right.
You have a great product going here other than that one GLARING problem and its a big enough problem that it makes the transactions page pretty much worthless unless all you want to see is your next payments. In that case, why bother with a RealBalance or Running Balance?
If you are going to put it on there, do it the right way.
I have weekly daycare bills and payouts that only show up once as well and screws up everything, along with income only showing up the next occurence instead of weekly/bi-weekly
It really needs to have a configurable "window" you can set for...30 days, showing all transactions going in and out for that "window". Then your Running Balance and RealBalance would actually be close to being correct instead of manualy entering everything so it shows up more than once and then deleting it so you can have a correct running balance.
This "feature" is infuriating. Please fix it to show more than 1 instance of a recurring transaction. Also, more than 1 month look-ahead would be nice, but I guess this is the free product...
I just would like to add 1 more to this thread. I get paid weekly & I love the IDEA of the RealBalance column yet it is useless to me. Please fix asap.
Just to add my 5c worth. I have the same problem with an Amex bill that immediately shows up as 'upcoming' as soon as the existing one is paid. It's getting the fictitious amount of the bill from one a number of months back, so:
a) it's apparently due immediately I just paid one.
b) it's completely the wrong amount
therefore throwing off my realbalance.
I'm not sure how Quicken is deciding on what's a recurring entry (probably simply text strings) but it's getting it wrong and the effect is throwing off the forecasting.
It's not a critical bug, but it's one that shouldn't be ignored since it messes up a really great feature/idea.
Real Balance is fine. Makes sense. It's needed and useful. But running balance is far more critical. I'm in the midst of a move, carrying two mortgages for a few months, have some home repairs items and sometimes two utility bills, and I badly need to project cash flow 1-3 months out. The way it is set up, I lose control with Quicken Online just a week or two in the future. My paychecks don't show down the line, so it's showing me a wildly incorrect running balance. This is really mandatory, and I have to think they will correct it. Financial projection is far more crucial than a "balance sheet" view of here and now.
Agree.. I just noticed that my paycheck which is setup for "every two weeks" only shows once (in about 2 days time) but doesn't show in the "upcoming transactions" so as those 'monthly' transactions stack up, it makes me look broke.
Interestingly it has transactions going all the way out to July 17th at which point I'll have received three paychecks (every two weeks) yet only the one in two days shows up.
It's a shame this doesn't work correctly, it's a great features that's worthless in its current design.
Upcoming transactions balance Jun 30, 2009 10:51 am
This post is about: Quicken Online
Regardless of if what is provided works as designed, what the majority of users are asking for and expecting is a tool to help take their financial information into a forward looking budget. Although this tool gets close, it is not overly useful because the results are not accurate for forward predictions.
I will point out the other obvious, we get what we pay for. It's free and a nice always available, use anywhere tool that does a lot. It's not a perfect functioning product but Intuit's price is.
Perhaps Intuit is not interested in investing further into their free tool but if they let the banks like BOA provide the same tools for free, will the small users eventually need Quicken at all? Not sure about other banks but BOA charges $10/mo to allow the integration. If Quicken can't meet my needs, no reason to pay $120/year for something I can not fully use. I hope they will develop it further.
Upcoming transactions balance Jul 07, 2009 05:07 am
This post is about: Quicken Online
This is my only beef with online quicken too, I can not believe there are as many threads as there are on this topic (or similar) and there is no official reply from Quicken staff on this.
I saw someone post a work around about entering 2 transactions each monthly, but I am paid bi-weekly, I would consider doing two transactions if every 4 weeks was a scheduling option, but with monthly only this is an even worse solution.
I don't want to have to maintain a spreadsheet on the side when this tool really does all I need beside this.
Wow, this bug has been there since January and still not fixed or even acknowledged? I was just wondering why my "What's Left until your next paycheck" balance on the home page was $300 less than the forecast balance before my next paycheck in the Upcoming Transactions list. Finally figured out it was because the Upcoming Transactions list was omitting some upcoming weekly transactions.
Presenting two different numbers for the same critical piece of information (remaining balance before next paycheck) is a bug, not a feature. Please fix!
Just a thought...notice that "Realbalance" is trademarked tm. Maybe due to the copyright they can't alter that in any way. If that's the case they need to go with the "Runningbalance" column as well. Really shocked this hasn't been taken care of. Seem like such a simple fix. Check out AceMoney. It's a free desktop version that I've found very usefull. I'm considering switching to Quicken Online, but am a little hesitant at this point. Is the online program ment to get us in the door so that we purchase the full desktop version?
Pretty stupid to trademark something that doesn't work IMO.
I don't feel pressured to get the desktop version if thats what you mean.
I was considering buying the program, so I tried this online version.
I have decided not to buy the program because if they can't get something as simple as this working, then I really don't want to get myself locked into the desktop version with similarly dumb bugs that can't be fixed.
I'm in the same boat. What's the point of having the very clever upcoming bills view without showing ALL (aka weekly and biweekly) bills. May be a deal breaker for me too--especially if there's been no answer for nearly a year. Anyone found a program that does this? I might even consider paying...
Same here. If anyone has found a program that effectively does this PROPERLY. Please let us know. I think most of us are looking for something. Even willing to pay.
Upcoming transactions balance Aug 25, 2009 05:47 am
This post is about: Quicken Online
I agree that the REAL BALANCE is never correct (well, only if you don't have any transactions and do not care when it is correct, then it works great). But for me, I am looking for an online automatic tool that can take my information and provide an accurate daily snapshot of my finances, not a reporting tool.
I pro actively make sure I enter all my transactions via the mobile interface to keep all my activity logged. This is really what throws my personal REAL BALANCE off. My entries are duplicates of the PENDING bank transactions.
My suggest would be to have the ability to select (during entry) which transactions in the UPCOMING transaction should be included in the REAL BALANCE calculation. Then you scheduled payments and pending checks that will not show in the PENDING bank balance will contribute to the accurate REAL BALANCE calculation.
In the end, the bank transactions will be matched against your upcoming transactions for the final QOL posting.
Upcoming transactions balance Aug 28, 2009 12:16 pm
This post is about: Quicken Online
The bottom line on this discussion:
"RealBalance" tells us how much we have left until payday. Any entries after the next payday will generate an inaccurate forecast balance.
OK, that is fine. It is useful on a daily basis, but what it does not do is allow the user to plan any further than one paycheck period. It is highly probable an event in this period could become a problem in later periods.
As one user noted, he wanted to get away from living paycheck to paycheck. This does not appear to be written for anyone who wants to monitor a longer financial horizon.
I find it strange that future expenses are figured into the "RealBalance". However the future income is not?? Why bother generating a balance that is not accurate?
What is needed is the "forecast" feature that the desktop version uses. Maybe that is a feature that Quicken does not want to implement in the Online version?
Wait...you mean the desktop version has a working version of this concept?
Now it makes sense...sort of...
Its a marketing tactic, however its backfired since the Quicken rep fails to mention this works properly in the Desktop version.
I, for one, would have gladly purchased the desktop version had they mentioned this in their post, however, having gone through all this crap, it has shown me how bad the customer support side of things are and thus, will not be purchasing the desktop version based on principle.
Really, all that had to be said was "Our desktop version has a more accurate means of predicting future financial numbers" and I would have instantly flocked to buy it.
But having dealt with numerous customer support people and seeing that they just don't give 2 shits, has sent me running for the hills.
Upcoming transactions balance Aug 29, 2009 05:02 am
This post is about: Quicken Online
One trick that I do that helps is to set up multiple payday instances independently, with each of them set up on a monthly repeating schedule.
So if you get paid weekly, you can set up the next four paydays independently, and set them all to monthly. This way, your RealBalance can always be accurate up to about one month into the future.
If you get paid every 2 weeks, or twice a month, you only set up the next two paydays independently, and set them both to every 4 weeks (for bi-weekly payday) or monthly (for twice-a-month paydays).
I hope I explained that all correctly. It's early AM right now, haven't had my caffeine yet.
We are taking another look at how to improve the What's Left feature and the running RealBalance in the Upcoming Transactions list.
For example, we just added a "Learn how to make this more accurate," link on the Home page. That link has two purposes:
- To teach some customers about the basic rules of how the calculations work and the fact that it's not all automatic. For example, some customers think that they can't change the date of upcoming paychecks, or that they can't delete upcoming transactions that have already cleared. You guys know this stuff already, but those instructions are there for people who haven't spent as much time looking into this as you have.
- The other purpose is to ask for customer feedback on whether you find the feature useful, and if not, what is making it inaccurate for you.
We're tabulating the feedback to help us prioritize what to fix first.
So, please click that link, answer the YES/NO question at the bottom (I know you guys will say NO), and then give us your suggestions for which aspects of it are most important to change.
Thank you for your time, attention, and passion about this. Your votes will make this better.
Yes, the desktop version has had a forecast feature for awhile. However, it is not without its flaws either.
My version has some difficulty with duplicate entries. The problem has been around for awhile.
I have made the mistake of upgrading my desktop version twice in the hopes the forecast feature would be fixed. After 2 upgrades it still has a problem. Maybe it's fixed now, but I've already thrown $120 at it. I'm not about to keep doing that.
Quicken's support page seems to be focused upon demonstrating the working sections of the software rather then helping users work through problems. It's a classic case of "putting on a happy face" for the consumer.
I have used Quicken since version 2. I have liked the software, but the robustness has waned over the years. Plus new versions have to be purchased to maintain online banking functionality.
Quicken should be demonstrating their concern when a problem is found in their software. Instead they seem to be adopting an "if we ignore it will go away" method of customer service.
Sad to see in what used to be a very innovative software package. :(
Well the issue is that it doesn't tell you how much money you have today. If you get paid tomorrow, and have a bill due in 2 weeks... RB subtracts the future bill without accounting for both of your upcoming paychecks, and tells you that your available cash TODAY is hundreds of dollars less than it actually is...
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