Online account access from 2 different computers

Posted by Ed Sowell on May 8, 2009, 4:55 pm

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For years I have downloaded my wife's checking and savings accounts along
with out joint accounts since I had all of thes accounts setup in Quicken on
my computer. Recently, we decided she should learn to do this herself so she
could stop trying to do manual reconciliation etc. I set up Quicken on her
computer and all seemed to work pretty well. I would download her account
transactions and she would too. However, the reconcilation on her machine
doens't work well. There always seems to be duplicate transactions, etc. My
guess is has to do with online payments made from her machine that are then
unknown to mine.

Anyway, what is the best way to handle this? If I try to disable Onestep
update and online payments on my machine I am notified I will have to call
the bank to cancel the service. My guess is that if I DON'T call the bank
the online services will still be available to her on her machine, which
would be close to what I want. tanking it a bit further, I suppose I could
just remove her accounts entirely from my machine. I would prefer to keep
them on my machine so I could continue to keep track of all our income &
expenses, but I wouldn't want to enter all her transactions manually.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Ed

Posted by Han on May 8, 2009, 8:51 pm

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> For years I have downloaded my wife's checking and savings accounts

> along with out joint accounts since I had all of thes accounts setup

> in Quicken on my computer. Recently, we decided she should learn to do

> this herself so she could stop trying to do manual reconciliation etc.

> I set up Quicken on her computer and all seemed to work pretty well. I

> would download her account transactions and she would too. However,

> the reconcilation on her machine doens't work well. There always seems

> to be duplicate transactions, etc. My guess is has to do with online

> payments made from her machine that are then unknown to mine.

> Anyway, what is the best way to handle this? If I try to disable

> Onestep update and online payments on my machine I am notified I will

> have to call the bank to cancel the service. My guess is that if I

> DON'T call the bank the online services will still be available to her

> on her machine, which would be close to what I want. tanking it a bit

> further, I suppose I could just remove her accounts entirely from my

> machine. I would prefer to keep them on my machine so I could continue

> to keep track of all our income & expenses, but I wouldn't want to

> enter all her transactions manually.

> Any ideas?

> Thanks

> Ed

I am not really recommending this, since the possibility of corrupting
the files exist if you access them simultaneously. But here goes if you
really want to do this.

In my opinion, it would be best to use one and the same set of files on
both computers. In other words, somewhere between the 2 of you there
would be one Quicken fileset. You both would be entering, downloading
and reconciling etc. MAKE VERY DARN SURE YOU ARE NOT using the same file
set at the same time.

I suggest you make rules who takes care of which accounts within that
Quicken data set.

I would put the file set on a shared fileserver or external drive.

Make very sure you have sequential and frequent backups!!!

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

Posted by Ed Sowell on May 8, 2009, 10:48 pm

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That's an interesting thought, Hans. I'll think about it more, but there
would problems other than simultaneous usage. I would be concerned that she
would do something that would cause me greif to straighten out, for example.

The idea reminds me of what I do when we go away for a month or two. I do a
backup on my desktop and then load the backup into Quicken on my laptop.
When we get home, I reverse the process. Works just fine. It would be too
much trouble to do at home.

Ed

>> For years I have downloaded my wife's checking and savings accounts

>> along with out joint accounts since I had all of thes accounts setup

>> in Quicken on my computer. Recently, we decided she should learn to do

>> this herself so she could stop trying to do manual reconciliation etc.

>> I set up Quicken on her computer and all seemed to work pretty well. I

>> would download her account transactions and she would too. However,

>> the reconcilation on her machine doens't work well. There always seems

>> to be duplicate transactions, etc. My guess is has to do with online

>> payments made from her machine that are then unknown to mine.

>> Anyway, what is the best way to handle this? If I try to disable

>> Onestep update and online payments on my machine I am notified I will

>> have to call the bank to cancel the service. My guess is that if I

>> DON'T call the bank the online services will still be available to her

>> on her machine, which would be close to what I want. tanking it a bit

>> further, I suppose I could just remove her accounts entirely from my

>> machine. I would prefer to keep them on my machine so I could continue

>> to keep track of all our income & expenses, but I wouldn't want to

>> enter all her transactions manually.

>> Any ideas?

>> Thanks

>> Ed

> I am not really recommending this, since the possibility of corrupting

> the files exist if you access them simultaneously. But here goes if you

> really want to do this.

> In my opinion, it would be best to use one and the same set of files on

> both computers. In other words, somewhere between the 2 of you there

> would be one Quicken fileset. You both would be entering, downloading

> and reconciling etc. MAKE VERY DARN SURE YOU ARE NOT using the same file

> set at the same time.

> I suggest you make rules who takes care of which accounts within that

> Quicken data set.

> I would put the file set on a shared fileserver or external drive.

> Make very sure you have sequential and frequent backups!!!

> --

> Best regards

> Han

> email address is invalid

Posted by Han on May 9, 2009, 6:55 am

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> Recently, we decided she should learn to do this herself so she

> could stop trying to do manual reconciliation etc. I set up Quicken on

> her computer and all seemed to work pretty well. I would download her

> account transactions and she would too. However, the reconcilation on

> her machine doens't work well. There always seems to be duplicate

> transactions, etc. My guess is has to do with online payments made

> from her machine that are then unknown to mine.

If the idea is to teach her (or have her teach herself) the use of
Quicken, then by all means have her use Quicken. I would start out
perhaps by letting her just do her own accounts. However, it is just
like keeping 2 sets of books the old-fashioned paper way. The 2 sets of
books - your combined accounts and her separate set on just her accounts
- will have to have the same entries. Everyone who has 2 people using 1
account runs into these problems; you both need to know what the other
has done. I just see that my wife purchased something at Office Depot,
so I have to ask her what's it for. In cases like this it is often
easier to wait until the culprit transactions download, rather than
entering them beforehand.

Why you get duplicate transactions in her system, I can't figure out from
the symptoms you described, or rather, you didn't describe. If properly
matched between entries and downloads, duplicates should not happen, I
think. But that is a separate problem. Isolate it, examine it, and
solve it. I would suggest to make sure there is 1 set of Quicken data
that is the authoritative set. You can print reports from both machines
to see what and where the problems are. That is really a minor but
irritating thing.

Sorry if this didn't help either ...

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

Posted by Ed Sowell on May 21, 2009, 6:17 pm

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Thanks, Hans. I have now disabled online access of her accounts from my
Quicken installation, just to see if I can get them straight on her
installation.

I realize my explanation was kind of vague... a perfect reflection of my
understanding of the problems.

Ed

>> Recently, we decided she should learn to do this herself so she

>> could stop trying to do manual reconciliation etc. I set up Quicken on

>> her computer and all seemed to work pretty well. I would download her

>> account transactions and she would too. However, the reconcilation on

>> her machine doens't work well. There always seems to be duplicate

>> transactions, etc. My guess is has to do with online payments made

>> from her machine that are then unknown to mine.

> If the idea is to teach her (or have her teach herself) the use of

> Quicken, then by all means have her use Quicken. I would start out

> perhaps by letting her just do her own accounts. However, it is just

> like keeping 2 sets of books the old-fashioned paper way. The 2 sets of

> books - your combined accounts and her separate set on just her accounts

> - will have to have the same entries. Everyone who has 2 people using 1

> account runs into these problems; you both need to know what the other

> has done. I just see that my wife purchased something at Office Depot,

> so I have to ask her what's it for. In cases like this it is often

> easier to wait until the culprit transactions download, rather than

> entering them beforehand.

> Why you get duplicate transactions in her system, I can't figure out from

> the symptoms you described, or rather, you didn't describe. If properly

> matched between entries and downloads, duplicates should not happen, I

> think. But that is a separate problem. Isolate it, examine it, and

> solve it. I would suggest to make sure there is 1 set of Quicken data

> that is the authoritative set. You can print reports from both machines

> to see what and where the problems are. That is really a minor but

> irritating thing.

> Sorry if this didn't help either ...

> --

> Best regards

> Han

> email address is invalid