Scheduled transactions

Perhaps a little reading of the online help is in order but briefly (and I'm not in front of my Quicken right now) I forget what the Monthly Bills & Deposits are supposed to be - I really don't use that. The All Types is pretty simple - it's all types! This leaves us with Scheduled and Repeating Online transcations.

Here's the way to think of them: If you got bills whose amounts don't change and occur with a frequency then you may wish to consider putting them in Repeating Online. Things that fall into this category are things like Rent, Mortgage, Alimony payments, Car payments, etc. When you set one of these up Quicken informs the bank to pay the payee every month a set amount. You need not go online and retransmit these every month - they just happen.

So what are Scheduled transactions? Well as the name implies they are scheduled. Think of these as payments you know you need to make but whose amount will vary. Examples of these include credit card bills, utility payments (phone/heat/water/garbage/cable/satellite/etc). You enter one of these for around the time that you need to make a payment (and subtract at least 4 days from the due date) and enter the approximate amount. I believe there's also a setting to estimate the amount based on the last 3 payments. You can set these to prompt you before they are due or even to automatically enter them into your register (the later is much like a Repeating Online transaction except you have a little more control over canceling/skipping or deleting the payment, for example. Also, since you can't schedule transfers, but you can schedule payments, you can use this to have a scheduled transfer).

So with a Scheduled transaction you could get reminded by Quicken that your Visa bill should have come and you can then locate the Visa statement, reconcile it and then pay the bill, updating the amount if there's any change.

Now to your specific questions:

• How do I pick which one to use?

That depends on what you are paying (see above)

• Which ones use the memorized transactions?

I believe they all do in that when you are filling out the form previously memorized transactions will be considered for QuickFill.

• Which allow me to choose the account to use?

All do. Of course, the accounts you can choose from have to be enabled for BillPay (For example, you can't use a savings account or a credit card, nor any checking account from any bank that doesn't offer online bill pay and that you have not activated).

• Do I have to use the Repeating Online tab to enter an online tranaction that repeats?

No. Scheduled transactions also repeat as per their frequency.

Thank you for the very complete answer. I think I understand now. However, I did get trapped into a situation where I edited an existing scheduled transaction to change the account. Even after a CANCEL transaction, I still couldn't do it. I succeeded in getting what appeared to be the right transaction in my register, and it got a check number from Quicken BillPay, but the recipient never received the check and the check ever got cleared. So my cancel seemed to have worked but Quicken never actually got the word!

I'm confused. You must be talking about a repeating transaction because those are the ones that need to be canceled. When you say "I still couldn't do it" I must ask "What was your first indication that it failed?".

How did you succeed in getting it in the register? This in important and it is also important which type of transaction you were doing. You see when you do a repeating transaction you are really merely sending instructions to your bank server provider saying "Pay this person $X ever Y period" and thereafter, when downloading transactions, you should get the next 30 days worth of this transaction entered into your register with check numbers.

If, however, you are using a scheduled transaction (AKA On line Payment) then when entered into your register it should have a check number of "Send" - not a true number. This is sent as an instruction to your bank service provider which allocates a check number (a true number) and updates Quicken with that.

And it need not be a scheduled transaction to be an online payment. You can toggle the On line Payment toggle in the check writing screen or simply type "send" as a check number. The next time you download transaction it will be made an online payment.

If, however, you simply typed in a number, failed to toggle On line Payment in the check writing screen or configured the scheduled transaction as merely a check instead of an online payment then Quicken does nothing because you are effectively telling it "Hey Quicken! I wrote this paper check with this check #, payee, amount, etc.". IOW there is no online payment thus nothing for Quicken to do - there's just a paper check that you wrote by hand.

Well it appears that Quicken did get the word of the cancel but perhaps you never told it that you wanted to do an online payment rather you just told it that you wrote a paper check. If you did really do an online payment then you should be able to contact your bank and have them trace it, however, I suspect you just entered a paper check transaction.

Thanks for the help. This is really too complicated to discuss via messages. I have contacted Intuit, they were supposed to call me at home, but they never did. Now that I understand a bit more about scheduled transactions, I can be exceedingly careful when using them.

Sorry you're having trouble. I don't find it too complicated to discuss via messages. Just requires good writing skills - a lost art - especially when you consider how much the world used to work just on writing physical letters that were then delivered via horseback and the like...

I think you misunderstood. I've never heard of Intuit calling anybody at home. I once was very active in the Quicken community and even had internal names, numbers and email addresses. They never called me at home! :'(

Quite frankly I don't find them complicated or confusing at all and am sorry that you do.