The Benefits of Using Quicken with Online Banking

Writer Agus Supriyadi I Editor Agus Supriyadi

Ternate, Chttp://ctrvelo.comTRAVELO.com. Quicken is a popular accounting software that is used by many people for tracking personal as well as business transactions. It also has the benefit of working well with online banking.

First you'll need to setup an electronic check register. This will be very much like a regular check register with a few exceptions. One big difference is you have more space to make a detailed description of the transaction. A regular check register just gives you 1-2 short lines.

Your quicken register will allow you to put the usual information such as check number, date, payee and amount. However on Quicken you can have categories to put your entries in. You can use the ones already in Quicken or create your own.  For instance your online banking transactions may have unique categories.

With Quicken you can be creative with your categories. For example if you are an appliance repairman you may want to have categories related to your profession, for tools, manual, parts etc.

There are a couple of different ways to pull the information from your online banking account into Quicken. One way is to add all the information required about your online banking account as well as the information needed to access the account. Once the information is stored in the program it will login to your account and download all the transactions and then log you off.

While this method is very convenient, it can be a security risk as anyone who can access your computer could also access your online bank account information. 

The more secure method is to login to your online bank account yourself, and then choose to have it downloaded to your computer.  Since Quicken is so popular your online bank will most likely have the option to choose to have it downloaded to the program.

Once you've got all your transactions loaded in Quicken you can quickly and easily reconcile your account. The program will go thru the process for you and alert you if there are any discrepancies. It will then give you the option to correct them individually or all at once.

As you can see using Quicken with your online bank account can save you a lot of time and is an excellent way to monitor your account for errors or any fraudulent transactions