Re: Issue entering two memorized withdrawal transactions in a row in investment accounts

On 05/16/2024 16:04, John Pollard wrote:
> On 05/14/24 6:43 PM, Kobac wrote:
>> On 05/14/2024 18:45, Kobac wrote:
>>> I have memorized transactions set up to record my monthly IRA 
>>> distributions (withdrawals) in my IRA accounts. I have two such 
>>> memorized transactions set up for each investment account—one for the 
>>> net distribution and one for the withholding tax on the gross 
>>> distribution (the sum of the two transaction amounts). The first such 
>>> transaction I enter works fine; after I click on Payee (me) in the 
>>> "Withdraw" window, select the memorized transaction from the list 
>>> that pops up and press ENTER, Quicken fills in the payee, amount and 
>>> the memo. If I then click on the button "Enter/New" to enter the 
>>> second withdrawal in the same investment account and again select the 
>>> desired memorized transaction as in the first instance and press 
>>> ENTER, nothing gets filled in in any field. I then have to either (1) 
>>> enter the info manually, which defeats the purpose of having 
>>> memorized transactions, or (2) cancel out of the window and re-enter 
>>> the transaction anew as with the first transaction.
>>>
>>> I now opt for method #2 as a matter of course, but it bugs me every 
>>> time I do it. I now enter the first transaction and then, instead of 
>>> clicking on "Enter/New" when I'm finished, I click on "Enter/Done" 
>>> instead. I then have to again select "Enter Transactions," enter the 
>>> type of transaction, the date and select the desired memorized 
>>> transaction, etc.
>>>
>>> Does anyone else have this issue? It's been happening to me seemingly 
>>> forever so it's not some new thing.
> 
>> One minor point—when trying to enter transaction #2 after "Enter/New," 
>> Quicken *does* fill in the Payee name but no other fields.
> 
> I'm not sure I can help but I am sure there is a bug in Quicken's 
> processing of (at least some) investment account transactions that are 
> impacted by a Memorized Transaction.
> 
> In my case, when I modify a downloaded investment account Deposit 
> (interest income) transaction to change the downloaded payee name to a 
> payee that has a Memorized Transaction, Quicken zeros out the non-zero 
> amount of the downloaded deposit. [The Memorized Transaction has a zero 
> amount because the amount of the interest is not the same every time].
> 
> It took me a long time to track that down - in the end, I had to delete 
> the Memorized Transaction.
> 
> In your case, I would consider few possible alternatives: using 
> Reminders instead of Memorized Transactions, an approach that only 
> requires one investment account transaction (using split lines), or 
> initiating the distribution from a non-investment account.
> 
> [As I recall, in order to get the taxable transaction info into Quicken 
> Tax Reports, the tax-related transactions must be recorded in an account 
> that is taxable.]
> 
Thanks, John. I like your Reminders idea; I just set them up as manual 
bills and will try them out next month. You know, I never thought of 
doing it that way because, well, they're not really bills. ;)

I've had your issue too with editing an amount in a memorized 
transaction in an investment account. After I hit ENTER, the amount was 
recorded as a different amount. I then had to edit the transaction to 
correct it. Frustrating.

To your last point—I'll paste part of my comment on Quicken Community 
regarding this issue:

"Unfortunately, when I first set up my IRAs in Quicken for DOS almost 40 
years ago, I set them up in a separate Quicken file. The only accounts 
in that file are IRA accounts. All of our other accounts are in a 
separate Quicken file. Don't ask me why I did it that way because I 
don't remember. I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time. 😉

I already do what you suggested when I record the deposits in our 
personal checking account (split the deposit of the net distribution, 
recording the gross distribution and the federal withholding tax (FWT) 
as a negative number). On the IRA end (in the separate Quicken file), I 
record both the net and the FWT amounts as IRA Distributions so that 
each pair of transactions adds up to the gross distribution. I have an 
Excel spreadsheet that ties everything together and reconciles between 
the Quicken retirement file distribution amounts and the Quicken 
personal file distribution amounts."