Just a general question. I've been downloading and paying bills thru Quicken for years w/ Bank of Amer. with no fee.
I've been looking to switch banks, but all the banks I've contacted are now charging about $9 per month for the benefit of just downloading data.
A few banks I've talked with no longer allow bill pay thru quicken!!
Are banks having problems with Quicken, and they want to discourage its use? I just don't see myself using Quicken anymore if banks want to charge such a large fee.
I've read the thread here recently titled "Fees to 'activate' Quicken" for additional info.
I totally agree with you. I'm not clear as to whether the bank is charging for using quicken to pay bills directly from the quicken software? I don't think banks are charging just for the download to quicken, are they? There's none that I know of that charge for downloading transactions. I've never use quicken to pay the bill, I go directly to the bank site. I guess I don't trust quicken enough to depend on it for that.
My credit union discontinued Quicken download last year. This didn't bother me because I write few checks & record them manually & everything else is direct deposit or electronic debit which is downloaded for free from the debiting credit card account which then cross-posts to my checking account as the transfer account. The only extra labor it has caused is that I check my bank account on-line every day for cleared transactions & check them off as such in Quicken which makes reconciliation simple. Downloading credit card transactions is more important to me than checking account transactions. I have several credit cards & the day one of them charges to download to Quicken is the day I will close that credit card account. Rich
Thank you for this info. I've called all the big banks in my area, and they are all charging for direct connection thru Quicken. This is very disappointing. Yes.. most of the banks I've called allow you to go to there web site, and download transactions for free. They charge for allowing Quicken to do it. I really thought this was a no-cost item for the banks since the data is already in electronic form. If I can download it for free via web, why not free via Quicken? If I can go to the web site and write checks for free, why not thru Quicken?
So what you are saying is Intuit is now charging banks a large fee for this in order to use their program? Ouch!! For the 3-4 checks I write a month, I guess it's cheaper to go to the web site, and not use Quicken. Perhaps once a month, I'll go to the web and download the data for import. What a pain though.
I noticed a very big disappointing change with Quicken about 2 years ago. When monthly bills were do the 1st of the month, I use to be able to Enter the first day of the month in Quicken. The bills would "Arrive" on the first of the month, and all Reports generated by Quicken were reflected on the first. Now, Quicken and the banks need you to enter a date something like "Date the check should be written." This is a big problem with Reports. For bills due the first, I have to "write" the checks dated on the 25th of the previous month. All reports show the checks for the previous month, and are not reflected in the correct month. For example, my Jan 2006 bill is due on the first. I have to "write" it on the 25th of December for delivery on the Jan 1. All reports reflect the bill for 2005, and will show no payment in January. To me, this is really bad. I'm no longer a big fan of Quicken. I could go on, but I'll stop. :>( Thanks for the information.
"Dana DeLouis" wrote in news:ZF%Rf.1954$ snipped-for-privacy@bignews3.bellsouth.net:
I bank with Wachovia. As long as I keep a minimum balance there is no fee for downloading data directly into or paying bills directly from Qucken. In addition to my checking and savings account balances, they also count my Home Equity Line of Credit line (not balance) towards the "minimum balance".
The support staff understands Quicken and is very helpful. I've only had two problems which they were able to fix. The first concerned some obsolete online payees that wouldn't go away. They other occured last week when I got hit with a service fee because my checking account balance went to low. Somehow it got "disconnected" from my other accounts. The rep fixed the problem and removed the charge.
The love of money, and I venture it is a way to keep the stockholders happy and the income stream flowing.
See above.
Intuit is charging the banks to be listed on their FI server, so we can use a program we licensed from them because one of the features is the ability to download transaction data. There is a bit more to it than that, but as a user the ability to download my transaction data is the bottom line.
With Web Connect you can, instead of saving the file, at the prompt click Open. This will, with Quicken open, cause the data to be directly imported into your account for review and acceptance. Without having to go through the import steps in Quicken.
I don't understand some of the above, unless you are talking about online bill pay. If a bill is /due/ on the first and you do not have a "Late on" date, then you would have to physically write the check in the previous month for it to be delivered by the 1st. With due diligence and proper bookkeeping you would have entered the check into the registry at the time it was written, thus decreasing your balance at that time, and not on the
1st. However if you are taking about online bill pay, then the bank and Quicken are only doing due diligence by creating the entry on the date written. Your reports will reflect the bill payment in the month it was written, and if it is a reoccurring bill the February bill will then be shown in January.
Don't get me wrong with all of the negative I have pointed out about Intuit/Quicken I, like many, still use it because it is better than the competition.
Thank you for this tip. I remember experimenting with this about 2 years ago, and remember what a pain this was. This tip will make it a little easier.
Thanks Porter. Wachovia was one of the first banks I talked with in my area. Wachovia has changed their policy since you joined. They no longer support Quicken for personal accounts. They now only support Quicken if you have a "Business" account, and pay a lot of money. However, existing customers can continue to use Quicken.
I've run into this problem with a lot of banks now. This is a bad trend. Thanks for the info though.
That's odd. They have pretty extensive help information on their website for setting up and using both Quicken and MS Money. Also, in the FAQ for Quicken on their support site
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it has the following:
Before You Begin Please review the following information regarding Wachovia Online Services fees, support, and system requirements.
a.. View system requirements for using Quicken Windows 2006 to access Wachovia Online Services. Learn More b.. Personal finance customers: accessing Online Banking through Quicken Windows 2006-no charge. c.. Small business customers: accessing Wachovia Business Online through Quicken Windows 2006 Premier Home and Business-first three months free, $12.95 per month thereafter. d.. Once you've enrolled, you will be able to access your Wachovia accounts through Online Banking and Online Brokerage immediately. e.. Wachovia's policy regarding software version support follows the live technical support policy of Intuit, which is to support the current version plus two previous versions. Did you talk to someone at a local branch or did you call their 800 number? I have found that their local branch people are pretty clue less. Particularly when it comes to on-line banking services. I never really go into the local branch except to access my Safe Deposit box.
Thanks Mark. I had called the 800 twice and was told "no more quicken" on personal accounts. However, I called the 800 number on the link you provided, and I talked with someone knowledgably. He said I was told wrong. Wachovia just doesn't allow "Bill Pay" thru quicken unless you pay the $12.95 per month. One is still able to Download transaction for free. Can't believe I was told something so wrong by two people. I suppose it's just a small inconvience to go to their web site to write my
3-4 checks per month. At least I can download transactions thru Quicken. The guy wasn't sure, but thought it was the fees or something that Intuit charges that changed this policy. Previous bank customers can still write checks though thru Quicken. Anyway...nice catch. I was thinking about using Wachovia, as it's a convient bank in my area.
Let me ask yall the obvious question, what is the policy on MS Money? Is it the same? Do the banks yall are refering to that charge a fee, do they charge it for MS Money downloads also? I'm just wondering if this is going to prompt some to switch to Money.
Dana, Sorry you are having such a hard time finding someone at Wachovia that knows what they are talking about. I'm still not sure you are really getting accurate information. I don't think you need to go to the Wachovia site to pay your bills. Based on the information on Wachovia's website you can actually use Quicken to define your on-line payees and also create payment instructions that Quicken will then communicate to the Wachovia bill pay site. You are actually using Wachovia to pay the bills (not the Quicken site) but you do all of your interaction thru Quicken itself.
Dana, One additional point of clarification. You need to understand that quicken uses two concepts. Online bill pay thru your financial institution (in this case Wachovia) and Quicken Bill Pay thru Quicken. The former is free. The later you usually do have to pay for. In either case you can enter the entire transaction using Quicken. The diffirence is that in the former (Online bill pay thru your financial institution ) Quicken communicates your instructions to your financial institiution which then carries out the transactions. In the case of Wachovia this is free. In the later (Quicken Bill Pay thru Quicken) Quicken communicates your instructions to the Quicken website and Quicken carries out the transaction and you would have to pay a monthly fee. These days so many banks offer the former, and work well with Quicken, there is not really any reason anymore to pay for this service thru Quicken itself. The confusing terminology and lack of real understanding by the 800 number folks is probably why you recieved conflicting and inaccurate answers.
If you enter the transaction in Quicken and then want Quicken to transmit the instruction to Quicken Bill Pay or Wachovia, then you are going to have to pay.
In the case of entering the payment instructions into Quicken on your home PC and then using Online bill pay thru your financial institution (in this case Wachovia) there is no additional fee as long as you are eligible for free online bill payment thru Wachovia. Wachovia treats those transactions just like you went onto their online billpay site and entered it there. They basically support two interfaces for their online billpay system. Either directly on their billpay website or thru Quicken Online bill pay thru your financial institution (in this case Wachovia). It states exactly that on their Quicken support page -
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"One-time payment instructions are shared between Wachovia Online BillPay via the Internet and Quicken Windows. Wachovia's Online BillPay is one convenient service with two access channels. "
At least one is -- Wells Fargo charges $3 a month Quicken banking fee, regardless of account balances. They do not charge for their own web-based online banking or bill-pay (subject to account types and balances). .............................. I've reached the age where the happy hour is a nap.
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