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Posted by John Pollard on December 23, 2007, 9:45 am
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Ken and Jane Becker wrote:
> John Pollard wrote:
>> Joe McDermott wrote:
>>> When I download credit card transactions from my bank in
>>> Quicken
>>> 2007, the Payee field contains the word "Purchase" and the
>>> payee info
>>> is in the memo field.
>>>
>>> Is there some way to write a rule that would move the
>>> contents
>>> of the
>>> Memo field to the Payee field whenever the word Purchase
>>> appears,
>>> regardless of what is in the memo field.
>>
>> Or something almost as good: see Quicken "Renaming Rules" (in
>> the Online Menu).
>>
>> You can have Quicken rename your downloaded payees (before
>> they
>> are Accepted) based on the contents of the payee name or memo
>> fields.
>>
>
> John,
>
> No offense, but I think you missed the point here.
No offense taken; you may very well be right. But I'm not
understanding why.
> Unfortunately, I have a credit card like the first poster
> where EVERY
> purchase shows up with the payee field named, (I love this),
> "payee".
>
> Then, in the memo field, they have the actual name of the
> place where
> the credit card was used. Along with the date of the
> transaction,
> which store number, and anything else that whoever the
> processor was
> could think of.
> Discover, on the other hand, actually does put into the Payee
> field
> the name of the place where the card was used (Borders, Ye
> Olde
> Friendly Restaurant, etc.).
>
> In Quicken 2006, I ended up having to cut and paste the payee
> from
> every downloaded transaction from the memo field to the payee
> field.
> A pain, but the card in question wasn't my primary card, and I
> could
> live with it.
I don't understand why creating a renaming rule that uses the
text in the Memo field to put the correct name in the Payee
field doesn't achieve the desired result. This capability
didn't exist in Q2006, but it does in Q2007 and Q2008.
> In Quicken 2008, the first version of Quicken in which I had
> the
> naming rules turned on, Quicken happened to see the first
> "payee"
> transaction and promptly used the renaming rules to change the
> payee
> to the name of a local Chinese restaurant I frequent. Every
> single transaction after
> that (thinks of Frankenstein's Monster clumping down the
> street) got
> renamed to that Chinese restaurant. At this point I finally
> read up on
> the renaming rules and discovered that the rule was that if
> Payee =
> payee, the Chinese restaurant was substituted in.
You can use renaming rules without having Quicken create them
automatically.
> So, for about 50 or so payees, now, I have rules. Every new
> one that
> comes in that Quicken hasn't seen before infects the whole
> process,
> because Quicken, by preference, seems to think the right thing
> to do
> when it sees that "Payee", is to substitute in the Memo field
> name -
> and then use that particular self-generated rule for all the
> rest of
> the transactions!
You can also tell the renaming rules NOT to rename certain
payees.
> As the original poster points out, what would work better is a
> method
> in the renaming rule where if the "Payee" field has something
> in it
> that the user sets, the Payee field becomes set to what's in
> another field
> - like the "Memo" field contents. And maybe >then< run the
> renaming
> rules on the new Payee field contents.
>
> The second poster is basically doing just that, by swapping
> the
> contents of the Payee and Memo fields, then letting Quicken
> doing its
> thing. Which works better, when the Payee field (which it
> appears to favor)
> has at least a piece of the actual payee.
>
> Oh, well.
>
> Ken Becker
--
John Pollard
First initial underscore Last name at mchsi dot com
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Posted by Ken and Jane Becker on December 24, 2007, 6:50 pm
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Huge snippage:
John, you're absolutely right in everything you've said about the naming
rules; one can set up the naming rules to do the renaming based upon
what's in the memo field, and so forth.
I think the issue is that, with this scheme, one therefore needs to have
a rule for _every_ _single_ _payee_. OK: If I use a credit card with a
total of ten payees, that works out fine. Ten rules later, I'm set, and
all the downloaded transactions work just fine.
Right now I've got 40+ payees with a rule for each payee and, at least
once a week to once a month, I have to create a new rule for each payee
as that payee shows up for the first time.
The sneaky part is that when the first new payee shows up, that payee
_does_ get properly named since Quicken looks in the memo field when it
doesn't have a rule. Let's suppose the payee in this case is "Vendor X",
and that name is in the memo field in the first unknown-to-Quicken
transaction; Quicken then creates a rule that says, "If Payee field ==
"payee", then Payee = "Vendor X" ".
That happens to be correct. But when more new, unknown-to-Quicken payees
show up (Let's call them "Vendor Y", "Vendor W, and "Vendor Z", they all
get renamed to "Vendor X" - since they all have "payee" in the "Payee
Field".
It's not insurmountable; one has to keep a sharp eye out; one can turn
off renaming rules and do things manually through the cut-and-paste
method; and, once one has got in a couple-three dozen renaming rules,
maybe the renaming rules are OK, anyway; but, as I said in the previous
email, I wish there was a way to tell Quicken that for a particular
account that has new, unknown-to-Quicken transactions, that it should:
a. Always look in the Memo Field to figure out the payee.
b. When it creates a renaming rule this way, the rule so created should
read, "If Memo Has "Vendor X", then Payee = "Vendor X", rather than the
new rule being, "If Payee == payee, then Payee = "Vendor X", which is
what it currently does.
I consider this a bit of a bug, not a feature. Like I said, there's
workarounds, it's not causing premature baldness to do the workarounds,
but I kinda wish somebody at Quicken would fix the
"generate-new-rule-based-on-memo" bug, because that's what it is.
That, or send out a hit squad to the banks and credit card people who do
that stupid thing of filling out the payee field with "Payee" all the time.
Ken Becker
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Posted by John Pollard on December 24, 2007, 9:13 pm
Please log in for more thread options Ken and Jane Becker wrote:
> Huge snippage:
>
> John, you're absolutely right in everything you've said about
> the
> naming rules; one can set up the naming rules to do the
> renaming
> based upon what's in the memo field, and so forth.
>
> I think the issue is that, with this scheme, one therefore
> needs to
> have a rule for _every_ _single_ _payee_. OK: If I use a
> credit card with a
> total of ten payees, that works out fine. Ten rules later, I'm
> set,
> and all the downloaded transactions work just fine.
>
> Right now I've got 40+ payees with a rule for each payee and,
> at least
> once a week to once a month, I have to create a new rule for
> each
> payee as that payee shows up for the first time.
I understand possibly needing a new rule for each NEW payee, not
EACH payee.
> The sneaky part is that when the first new payee shows up,
> that payee
> _does_ get properly named since Quicken looks in the memo
> field when
> it doesn't have a rule.
When Quicken doesn't have a rule, it shouldn't look anywhere; it
should just accept the downloaded transaction as is.
> Let's suppose the payee in this case is
> "Vendor X", and that name is in the memo field in the first
> unknown-to-Quicken transaction; Quicken then creates a rule
> that
> says, "If Payee field == "payee", then Payee = "Vendor X" ".
This has me confused. The renaming rule (for the case you
describe) shouldn't have anything to say about what is in the
downloaded payee field. The renaming rule should only say that
if the downloaded Memo field contains Vendor X, then make the
register payee name say Vendor X.
> That happens to be correct. But when more new,
> unknown-to-Quicken
> payees show up (Let's call them "Vendor Y", "Vendor W, and
> "Vendor
> Z", they all get renamed to "Vendor X" - since they all have
> "payee"
> in the "Payee Field".
Again: if you want to rename your payees based strictly on the
contents of the Memo field, you don't tell Quicken what to
expect in the downloaded Payee name field.
> It's not insurmountable; one has to keep a sharp eye out; one
> can turn
> off renaming rules and do things manually through the
> cut-and-paste
> method; and, once one has got in a couple-three dozen renaming
> rules,
> maybe the renaming rules are OK, anyway; but, as I said in the
> previous email, I wish there was a way to tell Quicken that
> for a
> particular account that has new, unknown-to-Quicken
> transactions,
> that it should:
> a. Always look in the Memo Field to figure out the payee.
> b. When it creates a renaming rule this way, the rule so
> created
> should read, "If Memo Has "Vendor X", then Payee = "Vendor X",
> rather
> than the new rule being, "If Payee == payee, then Payee =
> "Vendor X",
> which is what it currently does.
It only does that because you have told Quicken to look at the
contents of the downloaded Payee name field when making its
decision.
As I said above - your renaming rule should not tell Quicken
anything about the contents of the downloaded payee name field
if that field is not unique to the renaming process (and it is
not in the situation you describe). You do not have to specifiy
the contents of the downloaded payee name field when you create
a renaming rule.
--
John Pollard
First initial underscore Last name at mchsi dot com
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Posted by John Pollard on December 24, 2007, 9:29 pm
Please log in for more thread options Ken and Jane Becker wrote:
> The sneaky part is that when the first new payee shows up,
> that payee
> _does_ get properly named since Quicken looks in the memo
> field when
> it doesn't have a rule. Let's suppose the payee in this case
> is
> "Vendor X", and that name is in the memo field in the first
> unknown-to-Quicken transaction; Quicken then creates a rule
> that
> says, "If Payee field == "payee", then Payee = "Vendor X" ".
I should have said in my previous post that it sounds like you
are letting Quicken create the rule; you should turn off the
automatic creation of renaming rules.
> It's not insurmountable; one has to keep a sharp eye out; one
> can turn
> off renaming rules
Just turn off the automatic creation of renaming rules, not the
use of them.
> and do things manually through the cut-and-paste
> method; and, once one has got in a couple-three dozen renaming
> rules,
> maybe the renaming rules are OK, anyway; but, as I said in the
> previous email,
> I consider this a bit of a bug, not a feature. Like I said,
> there's
> workarounds, it's not causing premature baldness to do the
> workarounds, but I kinda wish somebody at Quicken would fix
> the
> "generate-new-rule-based-on-memo" bug, because that's what it
> is.
The capability is pretty much already there, as I mentioned in
my previous post (except I don't think it can be done
automatically by Quicken ... but that's not a bug).
The only possible useful modification I can think of would be to
permit the user to designate whether multiple comparisons for a
single rule should be treated as "or" conditions or "and"
conditions (it appears they are currently only "or" conditions).
--
John Pollard
First initial underscore Last name at mchsi dot com
Please reply to newsgroup
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Posted by Ken and Jane Becker on December 26, 2007, 11:48 pm
Please log in for more thread options John Pollard wrote:
> Ken and Jane Becker wrote:
>> The sneaky part is that when the first new payee shows up,
>> that payee
>> _does_ get properly named since Quicken looks in the memo
>> field when
>> it doesn't have a rule. Let's suppose the payee in this case
>> is
>> "Vendor X", and that name is in the memo field in the first
>> unknown-to-Quicken transaction; Quicken then creates a rule
>> that
>> says, "If Payee field == "payee", then Payee = "Vendor X" ".
>
> I should have said in my previous post that it sounds like you
> are letting Quicken create the rule; you should turn off the
> automatic creation of renaming rules.
>
>> It's not insurmountable; one has to keep a sharp eye out; one
>> can turn
>> off renaming rules
>
> Just turn off the automatic creation of renaming rules, not the
> use of them.
>
>> and do things manually through the cut-and-paste
>> method; and, once one has got in a couple-three dozen renaming
>> rules,
>> maybe the renaming rules are OK, anyway; but, as I said in the
>> previous email,
>
>> I consider this a bit of a bug, not a feature. Like I said,
>> there's
>> workarounds, it's not causing premature baldness to do the
>> workarounds, but I kinda wish somebody at Quicken would fix
>> the
>> "generate-new-rule-based-on-memo" bug, because that's what it
>> is.
>
> The capability is pretty much already there, as I mentioned in
> my previous post (except I don't think it can be done
> automatically by Quicken ... but that's not a bug).
>
> The only possible useful modification I can think of would be to
> permit the user to designate whether multiple comparisons for a
> single rule should be treated as "or" conditions or "and"
> conditions (it appears they are currently only "or" conditions).
>
John,
Sorry I haven't gotten back to you earlier: Something about Xmas and all
that.
However:
You're right. I could turn off the rules. But I kinda like how Quicken's
renaming rules works in the _rest_ of my various accounts, so I don't
exactly want to. What I do now: Every time Quicken pops up that dialog
that it's creating a new renaming rule, and it's in that particular
credit card account where the credit card people are putting the word,
"Payee" into the Payee Field, I go in and edit the rule right then and
there.
Every time I do this the first thing I see is that Quicken now has a
rule where if the Payee Field == payee, then change the Payee Field to
be "Name of the New Vendor". Oops. I change that rule to read, "If Memo
Field Contains "New Vendor", then Payee Field is set to "New Vendor".
I still end up having to cut-and-paste the "New Vendor" name from the
memo area, cursing under my breath, "Now, why didn't Quicken just do
what I just did, make the rule Contains in Memo rather than Payee Field
== payee!"
That's why it's a bug, not a feature, in the auto-rename. They actually
state in the Help File that Quicken looks in the Memo field to figure
out the Payee Field name when it can't figure the rule - but if the
Quicken Programmers are smart enough to get the vendor name from the
Memo field, you'd think that they'd be smart enough to make the renaming
rule get the vendor name from the Memo Field as well!
It's just bad programming, that's all. And a bug. But in the nature of
bugs, this one isn't a show stopper, since there's workarounds that can
be taken by the user to fix it.
There is one more thing I'm going to try: After getting started on this
thread, I took a closer look at those renaming rules. One of the rules
is that one can create state that if Payee Field == Payee, then _don't_
apply a renaming rule. That at least would keep me from getting caught
out because I didn't notice the rule being created for the Payee, and I
would certainly notice that "Payee" in the Payee field in the register,
and would then create a proper renaming rule on the spot. But I'd be
doing that manually... And it'd be nice, but not critical, if the Intuit
guys could fix that code of theirs to create a proper renaming rule
under the circumstances.
Or we could form a lynch mob, complete with flaming torches and
pitchforks, and go after the credit card company that isn't smart enough
to put the proper name in the Payee Field.
Now, if we want to talk about real, there's-no-good workaround bugs,
then talk about the treatment of 529 plans in the Education and
Retirement planners. 529 plans are tax-free, so Quicken sticks them in
the retirement planner to be used as retirement funds. However, the 529
plans are meant to be used for education.
So: In the retirement planner, if one marks a 529 plan as "Not Available
for Retirement", Quicken removes that account as being available to fund
College Education! If it's marked as Available for Retirement in the
retirement planner, then it's also available for funding College Education.
Umm.. Sorry, but if the money is going towards education, then it's
really not going for retirement, and the way Quicken handles it it's
going towards both or neither. Nice if the real world worked that way.
Sounds like Intuit got an If-Else-If clause with a bit of inverted
logic. Unfortunately.
Oh, well, back to work.
Ken Becker
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