"Intercepting" download QFX data

I download checking account data from the FI side (Web Connect). Bank Of America has an option to "save" the data to a QFX file rather than to "Open" Quicken and load it directly. I like this because I'm unhappy with the way that my BofA packs transaction data in the QFX fields. I have my own software to rearrange the data in the QFX file then import it to Quicken.

I am considering changing to a different FI and they do not have the QFX export option.

So my question is : does Quicken have any facility or option by which the data being received via web connect can be sent to a file rather than to execute the import in real time?

I don't see where you have identified your Quicken version/year.

In more recent versions of Quicken, there is an OFXlog. I can not guarantee you that you will find exactly what you want there, but my impression is that it contains all the downloaded data.

You must capture the data relatively soon after a download, if you don't want to lose it.

Help > Product & Customer Support > OFXlog

and "save" the log file.

Sorry, I'm using Premier Personal 2007 Release R-2

OK, I see the log. But isn't it generated after data has posted in Quicken? I want to massage the data before it gets loaded in.

Setup a dummy Quicken file; download to that. Manipulate the OFXlog. Import that to your regular Quicken file.

But that's the easy part.

You may not be able to do what you want to do because Quicken will want to check in with the fi when you try to import ... and if the fi does not have a Web Connect id, the import will probably not succeed.

John. I thank for your response.

I'm not sure about the log file but I know that when I edited the downloaded QFX file it imported correctly as long as I left everything intact. A side-by-side comparison of the log file and a downloaded QFX file shows some differences but I think those can be resolved. And remember, I'm working with FI's that have web connect. My problem is with the FI that doesn't have the "save to a file" option.

My issues with the Web Connect process have to do with how the FI chooses to populate the date, payee, checknum, and memo fields. BofA, for example, sets the payee on all bill pay transactions to be "Bill Payer (PC)" and buries the actual payee in the memo field. I run the QFX file through a filter (my own software) and rearrange the fields to my liking then "shell" out to Quicken at which point the download takes place. This usually adds only less than a minute to the process. (Not including my original programming time :) )

The problem with technique you have described is that it is very labor intensive. Quicken would first have opened on the dummy file. The download would then be initiated from the FI side. The log then needs to be extracted. Quicken then needs to be switched back to the main file. At this point my software would be run on the log. Since I am usually only downloading a handful of transactions at a time it probably would be quicker to (yuck) edit the data after the fact.

Your original post said the fi didn't have the "QFX export" option: that is what Web Connect is. From that, I assumed you would be doing a Direct download from the "new" fi, not a Web Connect download.

I don't think the ability to "save to a file" is an fi option, I think its a browser and/or Quicken option. I think it should be available for every Web Connect download ... and not for any Direct downloads.

That particular problem should be able to be resolved with a Quicken "renaming rule".

(I get my online payee names in the payee name field with my downloaded BofA billpay transactions. I use BofA "All Other States".)

Actually, I think this is just Intuit confirming that you have Web Connect download capability with the fi; the data was already downloaded ... and modified by you. This is the step that would fail if you used OFXlog data from a Direct download without adding the appropriate OFX tag and data to tell Quicken that the fi offers Web Connect downloads, and that you are eligible for them. (You can not import a QFX file into Quicken if the financial institution does not offer Web Connect downloads.)

For reasons unknown to me, the OFXlog is a ".dat" file. If not for that, I think you could schedule a Quicken update to run at a frequency of your choice for the dummy file, then have your software pickup the OFXlog from the folder where the dummy Quicken file lived. No additional human time required. But, as I said, I don't know how to get at the data in that OFXLOG.DAT file without having Quicken save it as a ".txt" file first.

I wasn't clear. I meant to say that the FI in question (Washington Mutual) does not have an option to export (save to disk) a QFX file. The only thing WaMu does is launch Quicken directly via Web Connect. BofA allows you to save the QFX content to a file in which case Quicken is NOT launched.

I know there are renaming rules and possibly some options on the BofA side with regards to formatting. None of these things begin to compare with what I can do under my own software control.

By the way. I extracted the OFX Header and content from the log and it ran OK. It doesn't find any new transactions because its already been processed. If I modify the fields in some of the transactions they will attempt to load again and their content looks normal.

I looked at that DAT file and couldn't make nor tails of it.

How does the browser play in Web Connect?

And if you import that file to a totally different Quicken data file than it was downloaded to, those transactions will all load again without modifying the transaction id's.

One way or the other, the browser is involved. You can open the browser in Windows, logon and start the download or you can initiate a web-connect download in Quicken, in which case Quicken uses a embedded version of Internet Explorer to let you logon and initiate the download.

Quicken has a Quicken Program Web Connect preference to give you the option to save the file to disk whenever you do a Web Connect download. And I don't remember the details, but I think there is (was?) an IE option that related to saving files and had an effect on Web Connect downloads.