Comments on: Possible solutions to my credit card tracking problem

By: Clint

Clint — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 03:36:51 +0000

Give automatic downloads a try. You might be very surprised on how much time and hassle it will save you. Plus it is free!

By: bluntmoney

bluntmoney — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 23:10:52 +0000

a.nonymous, thanks for the additional idea :)

Clint, no, I don’t use the automatic download. Not sure why, I guess I just prefer to do it manually.

By: Clint

Clint — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:52:28 +0000

Do you use the automatic download for these accounts?

I too have many accounts in Quicken:
CU checking
CU Savings
Online savings (Four accounts)
LLC checking
9 different investment accounts

I found that if I use the automatic download of all transactions except for my CU checking and savings, I have much less confusion. I also save all my receipts and make sure I match them up to what was downloaded. The only headaches I get are related to a lost receipt (thanks wife, sometimes me) or when I reconcile the CU accounts and find a missing transaction or two.

Are you suing the automatic downloads? If not, why?

By: a.nonymous

a.nonymous — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 09:36:35 +0000

I feel for you. I’m pretty much the same. A tad too loose-headed and not paying enough attention to small details like that. I’d end up adding amounts to wrong accounts even though they could not be more different, only to notice after adding 5 or 6 of them what I’m actually doing. :)

Another fail safe check you could consider is to add the last four digits to every transaction line (right in the beginning) as well. That way, an added transaction with incorrect digits will stand out like a sore thumb in the list of recent transactions straight away.
The major disadvantage would be that all transactions will somehow look the same until you read past the first 5 or 6 characters…