Community discussion: Can't set up Schwab accounts for download

- J
- John Pollard
  
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posted
2 years ago

Sun, Aug 8, 2021 2:32 AM

Can't set up Schwab accounts for download

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Caveat: The above Community discussion is about the Mac version of Quicken, which I have never used.

The original poster in this discussion is apparently too lazy to even make an attempt to complete the process to activate an account for downloading, preferring instead to whine about being unable to setup the account for downloading.

While there is insufficient evidence supplied by the user to provide a thorough analysis of the problem, I'll venture to say the original poster made virtually no attempt to overcome his, assumed, problem.

In addition to his apparent laziness, the op also failed to supply the release of the Quicken software he is using.

But the alleged problem expressed by the original poster appears to be the same situation faced by users of the Windows version of Quicken. When I try to setup a Schwab investment account in Quicken for Windows R34.24, I am also presented with a dialog that asks for my Schwab investment account "PIN". While it is true that my Schwab account (just like the op's Schwab account) does NOT have a "pin"; I am, nevertheless successful in setting up a Schwab investment account for download by entering my Schwab PASSWORD in the Quicken dialog box which says "Schwab PIN".

While it is certainly possible that the Quicken Mac version would fail to activate an account for downloading under the exact same conditions that the Quicken Windows version would succeed in activating the same account; there is absolutely no excuse for a user throwing up their hands in despair as the original poster in the Community discussion did.

When, as the op claimed, the financial institution does not give the user a PIN; but Quicken asks the user for a PIN, there is NOTHING lost in keying the account password in the PIN field. If that does not succeed in getting the account activated for downloading ... THAT IS THE TIME to complain.

[It should also be noted that it is the responsibility of the financial institution to tell Quicken the correct name of each credential required to activate downloads for any specific "Connection Method" (virtually ALL investment account downloads require the Direct Connect "Connection method" for downloading - the credentials for logging on to the financial institution web site are NOT necessarily the same credentials used by "Direct Connect" and "Express Web Connect"). It is certainly possible that the financial institution told Quicken the correct names for the logon credentials, and that Quicken incorrectly implemented the names for those credentials: but the opposite is also possible. When the logon credential field names presented by Quicken are incorrect - when the field intended for the user to enter the account "password" is labelled "PIN" by Quicken, for example - the user should contact Quicken Support. But the user should continue to enter the "password" in that field - regardless of the label of the field.]

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- J
- John Pollard
  
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Vote on answer
posted
2 years ago

Sun, Aug 8, 2021 6:13 PM

My apologies, I misread (or, more accurately, missed) part of the original post in the above discussion.

I did not notice that the original poster said, " ... Quicken will not accept any password (it displays a little red symbol over to the right of the password field when I enter an alphanumeric password.)" So the op did what he should have done, and tried to enter his password in the field labelled PIN - and when he did so, apparently Quicken rejected that password.

My assumption has long been that both the Windows and Mac Quicken versions received the same OFX data when downloading from the same financial institution using the same Connection Method. But what the op is reporting suggests that may not be true ... or Quicken for the Mac is misinterpreting what it is seeing in downloads from Charles Schwab Co., Inc.

When I setup a Charles Schwab investment account in Quicken for Windows (R34.24), The sign-in dialog asks for the Schwab "Logon ID", and (as with the original poster) my PIN. Just as the op said, Charles Schwab Co., Inc. investment accounts do not have PINs, they have Passwords.

But, unlike the original poster, when I key my Schwab alpha-numeric password in the field Quicken has labelled PIN, I am able to successfully setup all my Schwab investment accounts.

And when I intentionally key an incorrect password during the Schwab account setup process (specifically, when I key a four-digit number in the "PIN" field), Quicken does NOT reject that password. Quicken sends my logon credentials to Schwab, and Schwab rejects the incorrect password.

I tested both adding a new Schwab account to Quicken, and de-activating/re-activating an existing Schwab account: both worked flawlessly.

If Schwab is downloading different data to Mac users than it downloads to Windows users, then it would appear the problem is with Schwab. If Quicken for the Mac is interpreting the same downloaded Schwab data differently that Quicken for Windows, then I believe that would be a Mac problem (since Quicken for Windows is not having the original poster's problem).

[NOTE 1: in addition to being responsible for the names of logon credentials, the financial institution is also responsible for telling Quicken the allowable characters for passwords/pins (the allowable password characters are typically sent by the financial institution in downloaded data). If either of the aforementioned is incorrect, only the financial institution can correct them.] [NOTE 2: either Quicken or the financial institution can reject a password; but each does so for a different reason. Quicken can only reject passwords that do not conform to the financial institution's rules for passwords: when Quicken rejects a password, no download for that account will be initiated. The financial institution only rejects passwords that do not match the password they have on file (Quicken knows nothing about this): the financial institution only rejects passwords that it receives in a request to download ... meaning a download was initiated by Quicken.

Here's what Schwab downloads to Quicken for Windows R34.24 to tell Quicken what the Schwab password rules are:

<SIGNONINFO> <SIGNONREALM>Schwab <MIN>6 <MAX>234 <CHARTYPE>ALPHAANDNUMERIC <CASESEN>Y <SPECIAL>Y <SPACES>Y <PINCH>N <CHGPINFIRST>N </SIGNONINFO> ] [NOTE 3: the op appears to think that it's a bug for Quicken to offer different choices of financial institution when re-activating an account for downloading, than when setting up a new account for downloading (in Q for Windows - and I suspect in Q for the Mac - you can use the Add Account process to initiate a download to an existing manual account, including an account that had previously been activated for downloading. When you use the Add Account process, you get the choice of as many financial institutions as there are; when you re-activate an account for downloading Quicken logically assumes that you want to use the same financial institution that the account was originally activated to use.] [NOTE 4: the op has dug himself a deeper hole by foolishly trying to solve the problem in his initial post by using a different Schwab financial institution name (Charles Schwab Bank - Investor C) that does not even offer investment account downloads - it only offers "Banking" account downloads. But the op has two posts complaining about the results he gets with that (incorrect) financial institution. I have no idea why the op is trying to use a financial institution that pretty clearly says it is a "bank" to download investment transactions; but he has no good reason to think he will succeed in that effort.]