Re: Mortgage amortization no longer working properly

On Friday, January 13, 2023 at 1:22:50 PM UTC-6, Kobac wrote:

> Quicken has been properly amortizing our mortgage payments since 2012. 
> After I entered this month's payment from the Bill and Income Reminders 
> window as I always do, I switched to the mortgage account register to 
> verify the current mortgage balance. I saw that, not only had the 
> balance not changed since last month, there was no payment transaction 
> for this month shown in the mortgage account register. I switched back 
> to our checking account register and opened the split transaction window 
> for the payment transaction I had just entered. The split transaction 
> window listed the mortgage principal and the interest expense 
> categories, but the entire payment was allocated to a blank line with no 
> assigned category. All the loan details in the mortgage account look OK; 
> the monthly payment is shown properly allocated between principal and 
> interest, but it doesn't get entered that way. The next scheduled 
> transaction shows the same thing—a split transaction showing the 
> mortgage principal and interest expense categories, but the entire 
> payment is being allocated to a blank line with no assigned category. 
> 
> It looks to me that my problem is very likely related to one of the 
> Quicken updates done between December 13 and January 12 since I had no 
> issue when I entered my December 12 mortgage payment. I'm currently 
> running version R46.12, build 27.1.46.12 under 64-bit Windows 10 Pro. 
> I've been on the Quicken subscription model for the past 4 years and 
> install any Quicken updates whenever they are offered to me. 
> 
> I suspect an issue with a Quicken update because I restored various 
> (about 6 or 7) Quicken backups earlier today stretching all the way back 
> to January 2022 (last year). In every one of those restored files, the 
> bill reminder in the Bill and Income Reminders list did NOT allocate any 
> amounts to either mortgage principal or interest expense but instead 
> entered the entire payment amount to a blank line in the split 
> transaction with NO category. All prior mortgage payments going back 
> over 10 years were allocated properly by Quicken. 

My regular Quicken version is currently Home, Business & Rental Property R43.26 (I typically do not install new releases until they have been out for a while and I have had the opportunity to see what others have to say about them); I do not see your problem in R43.26.

I had been testing on another computer with R46.9; and while I was not specifically checking mortgage loan payments, I don't recall seeing the problem there either.

After reading your post here, I installed R46.12 on my test machine and manually Entered the Reminder for the next payment for a test loan (I did not look at the Reminder split before I started the Enter routine, nor during the Enter routine. After manually entering that loan payment transaction, I saw the same problem you report - the loan payment split transaction is screwed up exactly as you note.

Then I turned my attention to a different test loan. 

This time I first checked the Reminder for the loan payment (by selecting the Reminder and clicking "Edit" in the Bill & Income Reminders menu row, then opening its Split): the split for that loan reminder was correct. I cancelled out of the Edit.

Next, while the same loan payment Reminder was selected, I clicked its Edit button, and opened the split in the resulting dialog. At that point, the split had become hosed, just as did the previous test loan payment transaction I entered.


I tried one more test: I changed the loan payment Reminder from "Remind me" to "Auto Enter" (enough days in advance so the Auto Enter qualify for auto-enter. Then I exited and restarted Quicken. The Auto-Enter loan payment transaction split was correct. 
[I also have my own mortgage loan in that test file and my mortgage loan payment is always an Auto-Enter reminder: I changed it so the next payment would be auto-entered, exited/restarted Quicken, and my next loan payment had been entered with the correct principal/split]

So it appears that something goes wrong during the manual Enter process for a loan payment Reminder which screws up the split. 

[I did a quick test of a non-loan split transaction (with one split line a transfer, the other split line an expense). When I manually entered that split Reminder, I did not see the problem.]


I don't claim to be able to guarantee anything, but I look at it like this.

First of all, this seems clearly to be a bug, and I think you should report it to Quicken using Help > Report a Problem. I would plan to send a sanitized copy of your Quicken QDF file (Quicken will do the sanitizing if you request it). There is a size limit on the file you can send directly from Quicken: if your sanitized file is too large, you can put a copy of it someplace like One Drive or Google Drive and include that information in the Report a Problem problem description.


Since the Reminder transaction itself does not appear to be corrupted, you can take one of two approaches until Quicken fixes the problem:
1.) Change the loan payment Reminder to Auto-Enter
2.) Continue manually Entering the loan payment Reminder, but correct the split during the Enter process.

Two other options I would not choose personally:
1.) Manually enter the loan payment transaction without altering the split; then alter the split in the loan payment account. To me, it's easier to modify during the Enter process. [But it's good to know that the loan payment transaction CAN be corrected once it has been entered.]
2.) Uninstall Quicken, then reinstall Quicken making sure Quicken can not access the internet during the install. Once the install is complete, manually update to a Release that does not have the problem (I suspect that R46.9 will work, if not then then probably R45.13). I think reinstalling is more work than this particular problem warrants.