Memorizing Catergories - Sometimes

Hi, Davey.

Does the restaurant name have a hyphen in it? Or some other special character, other than a letter or numeral?

Several versions ago, Quicken would not remember a name with SOME character in it, but I've forgotten what the forbidden character was. I was thinking it was a hyphen, but I see my memorized payee list now has many hyphens, so it must be some other symbol - and I can't recall what. Maybe someone else will remember, and maybe also remember if the problem got fixed somewhere along the line.

If you tell us the un-remembered name, maybe we can spot the obstacle and suggest a workaround.

RC

The transactions appear on my statement as...

08/26/2008 GABYS MEDITERRANEA 08/25 CARD #4538 PURCHASE #24224438239040000577362 -21.40 1,252.17 MARINA DEL RE, CA

I don't see anything that would cause a problem, do you?

Hi, Davey.

I didn't realize that this is a downloaded entry. I thought you were typing it in the first time, after which it was memorized for the later entries.

The only candidate I see in your entry is the "/". Try editing that out the next time it appears and see if Quicken remembers the edited name. You can simply delete the / or replace it with a hyphen or some other character.

Please let us know the result.

RC

RC,

Apparently not the culprit. I changed three entries and then put the category name in the first one, it did not carry over to the other two.

Hi, Davey.

Sorry, I misread your messages. Even though the Subject clearly says "Categories", I was focusing on memorizing the Payee. :^{

I don't see anything about the Category in the downloaded transaction that you posted. (You are using Forte Agent, which quotes MY posts in your message, but not YOUR posts in this thread. That seems like strange behavior to me; my Windows Live Mail - and its Outlook Express predecessors - always quotes the whole prior thread. :^[ )

Have you tried using Renaming Rules? I can't help much with this; I'm new to downloading transactions and don't fully understand these rules myself. Maybe John Pollard or another of the downloading experts here can explain this.

I have learned that if I first enter a credit card transaction manually, classifying it as I choose, and then download it later, the download at first shows the ALL CAPS and other characteristics of the source of the download. But if I click Match, rather than Accept, Quicken probably will mark my existing transaction as "c", rather than change the details to match the downloaded version. As I said, I'm new at this, so maybe it doesn't always work that way.

RC

I confess that though I have read all the posts in this thread, I do not understand the basic problem.

I interpreted the complaint that Quicken did not "remember" in post # 1 as meaning Quicken did not remember one particular payee (the restaurant) even though Quicken did "remember" all other payees.

Quicken's memory for payees is basically the Memorized Payee List; Quicken will try to "match" the payee name in "new" entry in your register with a payee name in the Memorized Payee List (if you have QuickFill turned on). If Quicken finds a match, and the Memorized payee (transaction, really), Quicken will put the category from the Memorized transaction in the register transaction.

Quicken will not attempt to match a payee name in a transaction that has already been entered in a register; it only works when the register transaction is "new" (either manually entered or Accepted as "new" in a download).

So the first question I would be asking is: what is in your Memorized Payee List for the payee that doesn't get matched, and how does that compare to what's in the Memorized Payee List for a payee that does get matched. Compare the contents of the Memorized Payee name with the contents of the downloaded payee name for both the successful and unsuccessful matches.

If you have memorized a payee name with a lot of non-payee "name" stuff in the name field, or if you have a memorized payee name with no non-payee "name" stuff in the name field, but the downloaded payee name does have that stuff in the name field: Quicken may not be able to match the downloaded name to the memorized name.

You can use Quicken's "Renaming Rules" to overcome this problem. If your downloaded transactions look like:

GABYS MEDITERRANEA 08/25 CARD #4538 PURCHASE

you can create a renaming rule that renames that payee to "Gaby's" (rename the downloaded payee if Payee "contains" "Gaby's"). Then if you have a Memorized Transaction with the payee name, "Gaby's", Quicken should be able to "match" the two names (the match for quickfill occurs after the rename), and Quicken should be able to assign the category found in the Memorized Transaction to the downloaded transaction.

[In addition to creating a renaming rule, you would have to tell Quicken to "Use renaming rules when downloading". Personally, I would also tell Quicken NOT to "create" renaming rules during downloading. I also recommend against having Quicken "Automatically memorize new payees", a quickfill preference.]

That should have said that if Quicken finds a match Quicken will put the category of the Memorized Transaction in the category of the register transaction.

The phrase, "and the Memorized payee (transaction, really)" should not have appeared in the sentence.

The basic problem is that Quicken was not remembering the category for some of my more frequently used payees. I think I have it sorted out now using the memorized list, and the renaming rules. I'm new to Quicken and still don't know enough to formulate a coherent question, but you guys are so knowledgeable that you get the drift and solve the problem in spite of me. I'll have to wait for some new data to come in, but I think I have it sorted out now. Many thanks for the complete and detailes resonse.

Boy, I stopped using Quicken about 4 years ago and it sure has come a long way in thos 4 years.

Again, thanks for the help...I'll be back.

R.C.,

I may have edited out some of the previous thread just to keep things smaller, but I guess that's not such a good idea. I won't do it anymore.

As you predicted John Pollard 'splained things to me and I think I have it sorted out. You guys are great, Thanks!