Agreed, this is pretty much the last thing I need to have all of my budgets and accounts worked out on Quicken for Mac. The new(-ish) loans feature has been awesome, but its ultimate utility is significantly reduced if I can't see payments to my loans in my monthly budget!
I hope that this is something the team can add "easily" as all of the underpinnings to support this are there already for other account types.
No reporting capabilities of transfers. No budgeting capabilities for transfers.
This is a real deal breaker for me and makes it difficult for me to use Quicken Mac efficiently and really gives me doubts about continuing with this software.
What I've done is pretty much eliminated transfer entries altogether...which eliminates the feature of "double entry".
I just categorize everything (including categorizing some transactions as "Excluded Amount") in every account register. Then I set up whatever report to not include the category "Excluded Amount" in the report.
Very rudimentary and very non-efficient. Don't know what the Quicken programmers were thinking by not putting this in any of the past four versions.
Not sure I want to sink any more money into Quicken, as their development of Quicken Mac isn't fast enough to meet my needs.
Agreed, this is pretty much the last thing I need to have all of my budgets and accounts worked out on Quicken for Mac. The new(-ish) loans feature has been awesome, but its ultimate utility is significantly reduced if I can't see payments to my loans in my monthly budget!
I hope that this is something the team can add "easily" as all of the underpinnings to support this are there already for other account types.
I agree with your comments about Quicken Mac development. With the slow pace of development for the Mac, especially for basic, essential budgeting capabilities, one has to wonder about their commitment to the Mac platform. I really want to use Quicken Mac. But for now, I use a virtual machine to run Quicken for Windows, the only thing I use that VM for. I'm considering alternatives.
Agreed, this is pretty much the last thing I need to have all of my budgets and accounts worked out on Quicken for Mac. The new(-ish) loans feature has been awesome, but its ultimate utility is significantly reduced if I can't see payments to my loans in my monthly budget!
I hope that this is something the team can add "easily" as all of the underpinnings to support this are there already for other account types.
Considering that Quicken for Mac was just about dead a few years ago (remember the Quicken 2007 mess?) and has always been wildly underserved compared to Windows, I think the new team has done a great job bringing it back from the ashes.
On top of that, migrating away from Inuit to their own cloud platform was probably a massive undertaking to get right. From a new feature perspective, they added Loan support which I have found extremely useful (vs. tracking as a debt/liability).
Personally I am more confident in the future of Quicken for Mac now than I was when it was run by Intuit. I had 100% given up on Quicken until this year when I found they had all of the essentials I needed to track my finances in a system I am comfortable with.
Do I wish I had parity with Windows today? Always. Did they fall behind competition? Yup. But in reality, we are fretting over a feature they will no doubt add and the team has released far more feature updates per year then Inuit ever did.
Agreed, this is pretty much the last thing I need to have all of my budgets and accounts worked out on Quicken for Mac. The new(-ish) loans feature has been awesome, but its ultimate utility is significantly reduced if I can't see payments to my loans in my monthly budget!
I hope that this is something the team can add "easily" as all of the underpinnings to support this are there already for other account types.
Good point on the Mac development effort, which was likely large after years of neglect by Intuit. It could be a matter of prioritizing development, with migration activities taking a priority as Mattyv123 says. But Quicken began separating from Intuit late last year, and we've gone through previous years of Quicken for Mac updates without this fundamental, essential budgeting capability.
To me, it's like releasing a spreadsheet program without the ability to add two numbers. Sure, it's released, and it may have a lot of features, and a lot of work went in to it, but it's not useful in practice.
How can Quicken for Mac omit a loan transfer in a budget? If you transfer a mortgage loan payment, there is no way to track that in a budget? How useful is a budget if it does not reflect your cashflow? I just discovered this as I was finishing my conversion to Quicken for Mac 2017 from Quicken Windows. And now it is refund time.
It's my understanding HS converts your mac HD to APFS automatically but not any external drives. So Quicken 2007 must be living with APFS.on my main internal HD. It does hiccup when I do a backup to an external HD but no worries so far.
How can Quicken for Mac omit a loan transfer in a budget? If you transfer a mortgage loan payment, there is no way to track that in a budget? How useful is a budget if it does not reflect your cashflow? I just discovered this as I was finishing my conversion to Quicken for Mac 2017 from Quicken Windows. And now it is refund time.
A very simple way to check is to do a Get Info on your hard drive and see what formatting it says, as per below. If you would please check and let us know, that would be appreciated.
Also please clarify what "hiccups" you are encountering when doing a backup, so we can all learn. TIA.
How can Quicken for Mac omit a loan transfer in a budget? If you transfer a mortgage loan payment, there is no way to track that in a budget? How useful is a budget if it does not reflect your cashflow? I just discovered this as I was finishing my conversion to Quicken for Mac 2017 from Quicken Windows. And now it is refund time.
High Sierra only automatically converts solid state drives to APFS. Fusion drives and rotating drives are NOT converted at this time. (They will be in some future update from Apple.)
QMac 2007 & QMac Subscription • Quicken user since 1993
How can Quicken for Mac omit a loan transfer in a budget? If you transfer a mortgage loan payment, there is no way to track that in a budget? How useful is a budget if it does not reflect your cashflow? I just discovered this as I was finishing my conversion to Quicken for Mac 2017 from Quicken Windows. And now it is refund time.
Agree. System report says the file system is still Journaled HFS+.on internal mac HD. Disk Utility, however, offers to convert a new External drive to APFS - a USB physical volume but not older external spinning drives
How can Quicken for Mac omit a loan transfer in a budget? If you transfer a mortgage loan payment, there is no way to track that in a budget? How useful is a budget if it does not reflect your cashflow? I just discovered this as I was finishing my conversion to Quicken for Mac 2017 from Quicken Windows. And now it is refund time.
@Les are you by any chance using automated backups using the QM2007 Preferences? It looks like you are still using the HFS+ drive format. Users have reported having problems with automated backsups using APFS drive format. Your feedback would be helpful.
Has anyone been able to verify that the ability to include or exclude transfers in budgets exists in the new Quicken for Mac 2018?
I am pretty sure product manager Marcus said this would not be in Quicken Mac 2018 at the start but would be something they'd address sometime further in the future. But I don't have 2018 yet, so I can't personally confirm. I'm sure someone else will shortly.
QMac 2007 & QMac Subscription • Quicken user since 1993
Has anyone been able to verify that the ability to include or exclude transfers in budgets exists in the new Quicken for Mac 2018?
This is still the number one voted feature request here on the forum (behind the whole subscription thing). I certainly hope that product management recognizes this and prioritize accordingly.
Has anyone been able to verify that the ability to include or exclude transfers in budgets exists in the new Quicken for Mac 2018?
Actually 2nd...as the loan amortization has only been partially implemented...and there are other considerations than simply # votes, though definitely influential... That said, Marcus did confirm that this is on the roadmap, as pointed out here.
Has anyone been able to verify that the ability to include or exclude transfers in budgets exists in the new Quicken for Mac 2018?
Just to give the dead horse a couple more whacks, it needs to be the first stop on the road map, not "long term" as Marcus stated, since this (in)capability kneecaps budgeting and reporting without the ridiculous workarounds I and others have posted.
Agree as well. The inability to include/exclude transfers or accounts in the budget is the single most irritating thing about 2017. Adding to this frustration is the fact that budgets have been completely disabled in iOS (at least on my devices). Until budgets are fixed, I don't see me upgrading to 2018.
Just updated to quicken for Mac 2018. I can not for the life of me understand why this capability isn't included. This needs to be a priority Quicken - it's not a budget if I can't track money going to my mortgage, saving for my kids colleges, saving for my retirement. Please add this capability.
Just updated to quicken for Mac 2018. I can not for the life of me understand why this capability isn't included. This needs to be a priority Quicken - it's not a budget if I can't track money going to my mortgage, saving for my kids colleges, saving for my retirement. Please add this capability.
Exactly! I transfer money to various savings accounts such as property taxes and homeowner's insurance monthly so when the bill comes at the end of the year the money is there. Not tracking the transfer is killing me.
There is a way to account for transfers in Quicken Mac 2017.
First, you'll need to make sure you have selected "Category" and "Transfer" from the "Columns" setting at the bottom of each Quickern register. You should now see the Category AND Transfer columns in the registers.
Then, you can categorize a "transfer" transaction as a "normal" category AND as a transfer.
For example, my mortgage payment amount consists of the mortgage principal and the mortgage interest.
The mortgage principal is a transfer to the mortgage loan liability account, which in turns reduces the balance there.
The way you NOW look at how Quicken Mac handles this is to put the mortgage loan account in square brackets in the category field.
INSTEAD, use the category as "Mortgage Principal" and in the transfer field put in [MyMortgageLoan]...the name of your Quicken Loan account enclosed in square brackets (or select from the drop down list).
Same for Retirement Benefits from a 401K or an IRA.
Categorize the transaction in the checking account as a category of "Retirement Benefits" AND in the transfer field put in [My401K].
In order to do this however, your Mortgage Loan account must NOT be automatically downloaded and the Bill Reminder must be turned off in the Loan settings.
Now, for the fun part.
You'll now notice that if you select the Banking Sub-Group heading, your graph and amount of cash flow is correct. There is no "incorrect" amount because before the mortgage principal amounts cancel each other and the cash flow is therefore over-inflated.
If you create a month to date or year to date report in New Reports (make sure you use NEW REPORTS by category), you can filter the accounts and categories for that report.
ONLY include your cash flow accounts...such as cash, checking and credit card accounts. DO NOT include your Mortgage Loan account or retirement accounts.
You'll notice you now have a perfect report for the actual cash flow of your funds...in and out.
Then, you can also create a budget...because instead of categorizing things as a transfer, you're categorizing them with a "normal" category and including the transfer in another field. Therefore the Mortgage Principal is now accounted for in the budget, since it's a category.
And you can still create reminders for your mortgage payment or retirement transfer to checking or whatever transfer you created...because you're categorizing the transaction as well as designating a transfer.
Try it...this works so well I'm shocked no one else has recommended this.
The only downside is that your loan is now a manual loan...and you'll need to enter the actual principal and interest amounts manually. But your amortization schedule is apparent in the loan account section, so it's easy to see what those amounts are.
Here's a screenshot of the Checking account register showing the mortgage payment split:
Notice the Category has both Mortgage Principal and Mortgage Interest...but the Transfer column is only for the Mortgage Principal amount and designates my mortgage account in Quicken.
And of course, the mortgage account shows the transfer from my checking account for the mortgage principal.
Now, as I said before, it's important in the report created to ONLY include your cash flow accounts, such as cash, checking and credit cards. If you leave ALL accounts included, the Mortgage Principal amounts will cancel each other out. But since you only use the cash flow accounts I mentioned, only "one side" of the transfer will be included.
Thanks for this recommendation and detailed workaround write up!
I did try something like this but it didn’t work, I assume because of the fact I am using automatic downloads.
Do you have a sense as to why automatic downloads won’t work, even though I have a “mortgage principle “ category with the transfer to the appropriate loan account (just like your screenshot)?
It’s a shame we have to pick between automatic downloads for loans vs. budget, but I suppose there is really only one transaction per month per debt account to have to manually enter... Also I assume you can create a templated Scheduled Transaction that would just require you to change the split values every month to ease the admin burden and still be able to project payments...
It would be good for quicken to do a proper fix, but this would at least allow us to get by in the mean time...
I’ll give that a go when I have more time to test.
There is a way to account for transfers in Quicken Mac 2017.
First, you'll need to make sure you have selected "Category" and "Transfer" from the "Columns" setting at the bottom of each Quickern register. You should now see the Category AND Transfer columns in the registers.
Then, you can categorize a "transfer" transaction as a "normal" category AND as a transfer.
For example, my mortgage payment amount consists of the mortgage principal and the mortgage interest.
The mortgage principal is a transfer to the mortgage loan liability account, which in turns reduces the balance there.
The way you NOW look at how Quicken Mac handles this is to put the mortgage loan account in square brackets in the category field.
INSTEAD, use the category as "Mortgage Principal" and in the transfer field put in [MyMortgageLoan]...the name of your Quicken Loan account enclosed in square brackets (or select from the drop down list).
Same for Retirement Benefits from a 401K or an IRA.
Categorize the transaction in the checking account as a category of "Retirement Benefits" AND in the transfer field put in [My401K].
In order to do this however, your Mortgage Loan account must NOT be automatically downloaded and the Bill Reminder must be turned off in the Loan settings.
Now, for the fun part.
You'll now notice that if you select the Banking Sub-Group heading, your graph and amount of cash flow is correct. There is no "incorrect" amount because before the mortgage principal amounts cancel each other and the cash flow is therefore over-inflated.
If you create a month to date or year to date report in New Reports (make sure you use NEW REPORTS by category), you can filter the accounts and categories for that report.
ONLY include your cash flow accounts...such as cash, checking and credit card accounts. DO NOT include your Mortgage Loan account or retirement accounts.
You'll notice you now have a perfect report for the actual cash flow of your funds...in and out.
Then, you can also create a budget...because instead of categorizing things as a transfer, you're categorizing them with a "normal" category and including the transfer in another field. Therefore the Mortgage Principal is now accounted for in the budget, since it's a category.
And you can still create reminders for your mortgage payment or retirement transfer to checking or whatever transfer you created...because you're categorizing the transaction as well as designating a transfer.
Try it...this works so well I'm shocked no one else has recommended this.
The only downside is that your loan is now a manual loan...and you'll need to enter the actual principal and interest amounts manually. But your amortization schedule is apparent in the loan account section, so it's easy to see what those amounts are.
Here's a screenshot of the Checking account register showing the mortgage payment split:
Notice the Category has both Mortgage Principal and Mortgage Interest...but the Transfer column is only for the Mortgage Principal amount and designates my mortgage account in Quicken.
And of course, the mortgage account shows the transfer from my checking account for the mortgage principal.
Now, as I said before, it's important in the report created to ONLY include your cash flow accounts, such as cash, checking and credit cards. If you leave ALL accounts included, the Mortgage Principal amounts will cancel each other out. But since you only use the cash flow accounts I mentioned, only "one side" of the transfer will be included.
Easy-peasy.
Good write-up. It does work as you describe, with one big caveat I'll mention down-post. Some months back, I and others posted some incredibly convoluted workarounds that rely on double-accounting to register transfers in QM's reports. (I use a couple of other PFMs for budgeting, so I can say little about how anything works in Quicken's budgeting module on either platform). Anyway, I was actually messing around in QM 17/18 with a procedure similar to what you just posted, but you beat me to the punch, so you get the cookie.
What occurred to me was that in QW's cash flow reports you can account for these kinds of transfers by deselecting the transfer account and keeping the cash account, so I wondered if QM would work similarly. Your post motivated me to get off my **** and test the procedure more rigorously. I tested it with my mortgage account and two student loan accounts, none of which were set up to auto-download anyway.
Now for the caveat: in a category summary report, income transfers, like pre-tax 401k deductions, will not register under their Income subcategories using this procedure.
If I split a paycheck, e.g., with $1500 per pay period transferred to my Voya 401K, and deselect Voya 401K under accounts, my total income in the report drops by $1500 PPP because QM is registering that $1500 as a debit transaction.
If I leave the Voya account selected, my total income returns to what it should, because the $1500 debit is also a $1500 credit in Voya, but now the 401K contribution category is zeroed out in the report.
I don't know if my Voya account being set up to auto-download has anything to do with that or not. Getting it set up to auto-download was such a titanic **** I didn't want to monkey around with it. Not to mention the stark difference between manually tweaking a mortgage split every month and manually adjusting investment transactions multiple times per week. And it's late.
There is a way to account for transfers in Quicken Mac 2017.
First, you'll need to make sure you have selected "Category" and "Transfer" from the "Columns" setting at the bottom of each Quickern register. You should now see the Category AND Transfer columns in the registers.
Then, you can categorize a "transfer" transaction as a "normal" category AND as a transfer.
For example, my mortgage payment amount consists of the mortgage principal and the mortgage interest.
The mortgage principal is a transfer to the mortgage loan liability account, which in turns reduces the balance there.
The way you NOW look at how Quicken Mac handles this is to put the mortgage loan account in square brackets in the category field.
INSTEAD, use the category as "Mortgage Principal" and in the transfer field put in [MyMortgageLoan]...the name of your Quicken Loan account enclosed in square brackets (or select from the drop down list).
Same for Retirement Benefits from a 401K or an IRA.
Categorize the transaction in the checking account as a category of "Retirement Benefits" AND in the transfer field put in [My401K].
In order to do this however, your Mortgage Loan account must NOT be automatically downloaded and the Bill Reminder must be turned off in the Loan settings.
Now, for the fun part.
You'll now notice that if you select the Banking Sub-Group heading, your graph and amount of cash flow is correct. There is no "incorrect" amount because before the mortgage principal amounts cancel each other and the cash flow is therefore over-inflated.
If you create a month to date or year to date report in New Reports (make sure you use NEW REPORTS by category), you can filter the accounts and categories for that report.
ONLY include your cash flow accounts...such as cash, checking and credit card accounts. DO NOT include your Mortgage Loan account or retirement accounts.
You'll notice you now have a perfect report for the actual cash flow of your funds...in and out.
Then, you can also create a budget...because instead of categorizing things as a transfer, you're categorizing them with a "normal" category and including the transfer in another field. Therefore the Mortgage Principal is now accounted for in the budget, since it's a category.
And you can still create reminders for your mortgage payment or retirement transfer to checking or whatever transfer you created...because you're categorizing the transaction as well as designating a transfer.
Try it...this works so well I'm shocked no one else has recommended this.
The only downside is that your loan is now a manual loan...and you'll need to enter the actual principal and interest amounts manually. But your amortization schedule is apparent in the loan account section, so it's easy to see what those amounts are.
Here's a screenshot of the Checking account register showing the mortgage payment split:
Notice the Category has both Mortgage Principal and Mortgage Interest...but the Transfer column is only for the Mortgage Principal amount and designates my mortgage account in Quicken.
And of course, the mortgage account shows the transfer from my checking account for the mortgage principal.
Now, as I said before, it's important in the report created to ONLY include your cash flow accounts, such as cash, checking and credit cards. If you leave ALL accounts included, the Mortgage Principal amounts will cancel each other out. But since you only use the cash flow accounts I mentioned, only "one side" of the transfer will be included.
Easy-peasy.
Thank you! I printed out your directions and will try it later today. Fingers crossed! All I wish to do was this: I borrowed $200k from an investment account to buy a house. Each month I pay the account back with a $1,500 transfer back to Edward Jones. I categorize the transfer to EJ as Mortgage Payment...but in my Budget, Mortgage Payment category always remains at zero because it's a transfer. I will try your workaround.
There is a way to account for transfers in Quicken Mac 2017.
First, you'll need to make sure you have selected "Category" and "Transfer" from the "Columns" setting at the bottom of each Quickern register. You should now see the Category AND Transfer columns in the registers.
Then, you can categorize a "transfer" transaction as a "normal" category AND as a transfer.
For example, my mortgage payment amount consists of the mortgage principal and the mortgage interest.
The mortgage principal is a transfer to the mortgage loan liability account, which in turns reduces the balance there.
The way you NOW look at how Quicken Mac handles this is to put the mortgage loan account in square brackets in the category field.
INSTEAD, use the category as "Mortgage Principal" and in the transfer field put in [MyMortgageLoan]...the name of your Quicken Loan account enclosed in square brackets (or select from the drop down list).
Same for Retirement Benefits from a 401K or an IRA.
Categorize the transaction in the checking account as a category of "Retirement Benefits" AND in the transfer field put in [My401K].
In order to do this however, your Mortgage Loan account must NOT be automatically downloaded and the Bill Reminder must be turned off in the Loan settings.
Now, for the fun part.
You'll now notice that if you select the Banking Sub-Group heading, your graph and amount of cash flow is correct. There is no "incorrect" amount because before the mortgage principal amounts cancel each other and the cash flow is therefore over-inflated.
If you create a month to date or year to date report in New Reports (make sure you use NEW REPORTS by category), you can filter the accounts and categories for that report.
ONLY include your cash flow accounts...such as cash, checking and credit card accounts. DO NOT include your Mortgage Loan account or retirement accounts.
You'll notice you now have a perfect report for the actual cash flow of your funds...in and out.
Then, you can also create a budget...because instead of categorizing things as a transfer, you're categorizing them with a "normal" category and including the transfer in another field. Therefore the Mortgage Principal is now accounted for in the budget, since it's a category.
And you can still create reminders for your mortgage payment or retirement transfer to checking or whatever transfer you created...because you're categorizing the transaction as well as designating a transfer.
Try it...this works so well I'm shocked no one else has recommended this.
The only downside is that your loan is now a manual loan...and you'll need to enter the actual principal and interest amounts manually. But your amortization schedule is apparent in the loan account section, so it's easy to see what those amounts are.
Here's a screenshot of the Checking account register showing the mortgage payment split:
Notice the Category has both Mortgage Principal and Mortgage Interest...but the Transfer column is only for the Mortgage Principal amount and designates my mortgage account in Quicken.
And of course, the mortgage account shows the transfer from my checking account for the mortgage principal.
Now, as I said before, it's important in the report created to ONLY include your cash flow accounts, such as cash, checking and credit cards. If you leave ALL accounts included, the Mortgage Principal amounts will cancel each other out. But since you only use the cash flow accounts I mentioned, only "one side" of the transfer will be included.
Easy-peasy.
Thanks, this works well and it has solved my problems.
There is a way to account for transfers in Quicken Mac 2017.
First, you'll need to make sure you have selected "Category" and "Transfer" from the "Columns" setting at the bottom of each Quickern register. You should now see the Category AND Transfer columns in the registers.
Then, you can categorize a "transfer" transaction as a "normal" category AND as a transfer.
For example, my mortgage payment amount consists of the mortgage principal and the mortgage interest.
The mortgage principal is a transfer to the mortgage loan liability account, which in turns reduces the balance there.
The way you NOW look at how Quicken Mac handles this is to put the mortgage loan account in square brackets in the category field.
INSTEAD, use the category as "Mortgage Principal" and in the transfer field put in [MyMortgageLoan]...the name of your Quicken Loan account enclosed in square brackets (or select from the drop down list).
Same for Retirement Benefits from a 401K or an IRA.
Categorize the transaction in the checking account as a category of "Retirement Benefits" AND in the transfer field put in [My401K].
In order to do this however, your Mortgage Loan account must NOT be automatically downloaded and the Bill Reminder must be turned off in the Loan settings.
Now, for the fun part.
You'll now notice that if you select the Banking Sub-Group heading, your graph and amount of cash flow is correct. There is no "incorrect" amount because before the mortgage principal amounts cancel each other and the cash flow is therefore over-inflated.
If you create a month to date or year to date report in New Reports (make sure you use NEW REPORTS by category), you can filter the accounts and categories for that report.
ONLY include your cash flow accounts...such as cash, checking and credit card accounts. DO NOT include your Mortgage Loan account or retirement accounts.
You'll notice you now have a perfect report for the actual cash flow of your funds...in and out.
Then, you can also create a budget...because instead of categorizing things as a transfer, you're categorizing them with a "normal" category and including the transfer in another field. Therefore the Mortgage Principal is now accounted for in the budget, since it's a category.
And you can still create reminders for your mortgage payment or retirement transfer to checking or whatever transfer you created...because you're categorizing the transaction as well as designating a transfer.
Try it...this works so well I'm shocked no one else has recommended this.
The only downside is that your loan is now a manual loan...and you'll need to enter the actual principal and interest amounts manually. But your amortization schedule is apparent in the loan account section, so it's easy to see what those amounts are.
Here's a screenshot of the Checking account register showing the mortgage payment split:
Notice the Category has both Mortgage Principal and Mortgage Interest...but the Transfer column is only for the Mortgage Principal amount and designates my mortgage account in Quicken.
And of course, the mortgage account shows the transfer from my checking account for the mortgage principal.
Now, as I said before, it's important in the report created to ONLY include your cash flow accounts, such as cash, checking and credit cards. If you leave ALL accounts included, the Mortgage Principal amounts will cancel each other out. But since you only use the cash flow accounts I mentioned, only "one side" of the transfer will be included.
Easy-peasy.
Ok, so this is not working for me. I tried by removing automatic payments and bill reminders and manually entering in entries as you recommended. I even created a new Loan account with the same results. I must be missing something...
I have created a "Mortgage" category with "Mortgage Interest" and "Mortage Principal" as sub categories. For the ledger entry, I crated a split with each of the above two sub-categories, but used the "Transfer" field to transfer to the loan account.
When I am in the budget view, only the interest is being counted in the numbers. The weird part is when I click on the "Mortgage" category, both the interest and mortgage values appear in the report and give the proper sum total!
Are you sure that you are able to get your principal amount to appear in the budgets view? See screenshots below.
There is a way to account for transfers in Quicken Mac 2017.
First, you'll need to make sure you have selected "Category" and "Transfer" from the "Columns" setting at the bottom of each Quickern register. You should now see the Category AND Transfer columns in the registers.
Then, you can categorize a "transfer" transaction as a "normal" category AND as a transfer.
For example, my mortgage payment amount consists of the mortgage principal and the mortgage interest.
The mortgage principal is a transfer to the mortgage loan liability account, which in turns reduces the balance there.
The way you NOW look at how Quicken Mac handles this is to put the mortgage loan account in square brackets in the category field.
INSTEAD, use the category as "Mortgage Principal" and in the transfer field put in [MyMortgageLoan]...the name of your Quicken Loan account enclosed in square brackets (or select from the drop down list).
Same for Retirement Benefits from a 401K or an IRA.
Categorize the transaction in the checking account as a category of "Retirement Benefits" AND in the transfer field put in [My401K].
In order to do this however, your Mortgage Loan account must NOT be automatically downloaded and the Bill Reminder must be turned off in the Loan settings.
Now, for the fun part.
You'll now notice that if you select the Banking Sub-Group heading, your graph and amount of cash flow is correct. There is no "incorrect" amount because before the mortgage principal amounts cancel each other and the cash flow is therefore over-inflated.
If you create a month to date or year to date report in New Reports (make sure you use NEW REPORTS by category), you can filter the accounts and categories for that report.
ONLY include your cash flow accounts...such as cash, checking and credit card accounts. DO NOT include your Mortgage Loan account or retirement accounts.
You'll notice you now have a perfect report for the actual cash flow of your funds...in and out.
Then, you can also create a budget...because instead of categorizing things as a transfer, you're categorizing them with a "normal" category and including the transfer in another field. Therefore the Mortgage Principal is now accounted for in the budget, since it's a category.
And you can still create reminders for your mortgage payment or retirement transfer to checking or whatever transfer you created...because you're categorizing the transaction as well as designating a transfer.
Try it...this works so well I'm shocked no one else has recommended this.
The only downside is that your loan is now a manual loan...and you'll need to enter the actual principal and interest amounts manually. But your amortization schedule is apparent in the loan account section, so it's easy to see what those amounts are.
Here's a screenshot of the Checking account register showing the mortgage payment split:
Notice the Category has both Mortgage Principal and Mortgage Interest...but the Transfer column is only for the Mortgage Principal amount and designates my mortgage account in Quicken.
And of course, the mortgage account shows the transfer from my checking account for the mortgage principal.
Now, as I said before, it's important in the report created to ONLY include your cash flow accounts, such as cash, checking and credit cards. If you leave ALL accounts included, the Mortgage Principal amounts will cancel each other out. But since you only use the cash flow accounts I mentioned, only "one side" of the transfer will be included.
Easy-peasy.
After opening up a budget in QM (and being reminded why I despise Quicken's budgeting functions and don't use them -- I digress), first thing that jumps out is that the budget doesn't permit selecting/deselecting accounts, which is what in turn permits categorized expense transfers to show up in summary reports.
Bottom line is that, unless the Mac team adds some secret sauce, if you can't delimit the transfer account, an expense transaction is going to zero out and therefore remain invisible to QM's reporting engine.
As I mentioned upthread, this is a distinct but presumably related issue to income transfers not registering properly in reports or the budget.
There is a way to account for transfers in Quicken Mac 2017.
First, you'll need to make sure you have selected "Category" and "Transfer" from the "Columns" setting at the bottom of each Quickern register. You should now see the Category AND Transfer columns in the registers.
Then, you can categorize a "transfer" transaction as a "normal" category AND as a transfer.
For example, my mortgage payment amount consists of the mortgage principal and the mortgage interest.
The mortgage principal is a transfer to the mortgage loan liability account, which in turns reduces the balance there.
The way you NOW look at how Quicken Mac handles this is to put the mortgage loan account in square brackets in the category field.
INSTEAD, use the category as "Mortgage Principal" and in the transfer field put in [MyMortgageLoan]...the name of your Quicken Loan account enclosed in square brackets (or select from the drop down list).
Same for Retirement Benefits from a 401K or an IRA.
Categorize the transaction in the checking account as a category of "Retirement Benefits" AND in the transfer field put in [My401K].
In order to do this however, your Mortgage Loan account must NOT be automatically downloaded and the Bill Reminder must be turned off in the Loan settings.
Now, for the fun part.
You'll now notice that if you select the Banking Sub-Group heading, your graph and amount of cash flow is correct. There is no "incorrect" amount because before the mortgage principal amounts cancel each other and the cash flow is therefore over-inflated.
If you create a month to date or year to date report in New Reports (make sure you use NEW REPORTS by category), you can filter the accounts and categories for that report.
ONLY include your cash flow accounts...such as cash, checking and credit card accounts. DO NOT include your Mortgage Loan account or retirement accounts.
You'll notice you now have a perfect report for the actual cash flow of your funds...in and out.
Then, you can also create a budget...because instead of categorizing things as a transfer, you're categorizing them with a "normal" category and including the transfer in another field. Therefore the Mortgage Principal is now accounted for in the budget, since it's a category.
And you can still create reminders for your mortgage payment or retirement transfer to checking or whatever transfer you created...because you're categorizing the transaction as well as designating a transfer.
Try it...this works so well I'm shocked no one else has recommended this.
The only downside is that your loan is now a manual loan...and you'll need to enter the actual principal and interest amounts manually. But your amortization schedule is apparent in the loan account section, so it's easy to see what those amounts are.
Here's a screenshot of the Checking account register showing the mortgage payment split:
Notice the Category has both Mortgage Principal and Mortgage Interest...but the Transfer column is only for the Mortgage Principal amount and designates my mortgage account in Quicken.
And of course, the mortgage account shows the transfer from my checking account for the mortgage principal.
Now, as I said before, it's important in the report created to ONLY include your cash flow accounts, such as cash, checking and credit cards. If you leave ALL accounts included, the Mortgage Principal amounts will cancel each other out. But since you only use the cash flow accounts I mentioned, only "one side" of the transfer will be included.
Easy-peasy.
ProGolfer,
I've been doing this for quite some time and the amounts still do not show up in my budget.
Comments
This is a real deal breaker for me and makes it difficult for me to use Quicken Mac efficiently and really gives me doubts about continuing with this software.
What I've done is pretty much eliminated transfer entries altogether...which eliminates the feature of "double entry".
I just categorize everything (including categorizing some transactions as "Excluded Amount") in every account register. Then I set up whatever report to not include the category "Excluded Amount" in the report.
Very rudimentary and very non-efficient. Don't know what the Quicken programmers were thinking by not putting this in any of the past four versions.
Not sure I want to sink any more money into Quicken, as their development of Quicken Mac isn't fast enough to meet my needs.
On top of that, migrating away from Inuit to their own cloud platform was probably a massive undertaking to get right. From a new feature perspective, they added Loan support which I have found extremely useful (vs. tracking as a debt/liability).
Personally I am more confident in the future of Quicken for Mac now than I was when it was run by Intuit. I had 100% given up on Quicken until this year when I found they had all of the essentials I needed to track my finances in a system I am comfortable with.
Do I wish I had parity with Windows today? Always. Did they fall behind competition? Yup. But in reality, we are fretting over a feature they will no doubt add and the team has released far more feature updates per year then Inuit ever did.
Just my two cents!
To me, it's like releasing a spreadsheet program without the ability to add two numbers. Sure, it's released, and it may have a lot of features, and a lot of work went in to it, but it's not useful in practice.
Also please clarify what "hiccups" you are encountering when doing a backup, so we can all learn. TIA.
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BTW, please continue any discussion regarding compatibility between QM2007 and High Sierra here: Is Quicken for Mac 2007 (QM2007) Compatible with High Sierra (macOS 10.13)? so all that info and replies can be captured in only one place.
(If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)
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That said, Marcus did confirm that this is on the roadmap, as pointed out here.
- Where to find a Help Guide for Quicken for Mac?
- Quicken Mac FAQ list
- Quicken Windows FAQ list
- Help Guide and FAQs for Quicken Mobile
COMPLETE list of Product Ideas - Quicken for Mac to VOTE onObject to Quicken's business model, using up 25% of your screen? Add your vote here:
Quicken should eliminate the LARGE Ad space when a subscription expires
(Canadian
First, you'll need to make sure you have selected "Category" and "Transfer" from the "Columns" setting at the bottom of each Quickern register. You should now see the Category AND Transfer columns in the registers.
Then, you can categorize a "transfer" transaction as a "normal" category AND as a transfer.
For example, my mortgage payment amount consists of the mortgage principal and the mortgage interest.
The mortgage principal is a transfer to the mortgage loan liability account, which in turns reduces the balance there.
The way you NOW look at how Quicken Mac handles this is to put the mortgage loan account in square brackets in the category field.
INSTEAD, use the category as "Mortgage Principal" and in the transfer field put in [MyMortgageLoan]...the name of your Quicken Loan account enclosed in square brackets (or select from the drop down list).
Same for Retirement Benefits from a 401K or an IRA.
Categorize the transaction in the checking account as a category of "Retirement Benefits" AND in the transfer field put in [My401K].
In order to do this however, your Mortgage Loan account must NOT be automatically downloaded and the Bill Reminder must be turned off in the Loan settings.
Now, for the fun part.
You'll now notice that if you select the Banking Sub-Group heading, your graph and amount of cash flow is correct. There is no "incorrect" amount because before the mortgage principal amounts cancel each other and the cash flow is therefore over-inflated.
If you create a month to date or year to date report in New Reports (make sure you use NEW REPORTS by category), you can filter the accounts and categories for that report.
ONLY include your cash flow accounts...such as cash, checking and credit card accounts. DO NOT include your Mortgage Loan account or retirement accounts.
You'll notice you now have a perfect report for the actual cash flow of your funds...in and out.
Then, you can also create a budget...because instead of categorizing things as a transfer, you're categorizing them with a "normal" category and including the transfer in another field. Therefore the Mortgage Principal is now accounted for in the budget, since it's a category.
And you can still create reminders for your mortgage payment or retirement transfer to checking or whatever transfer you created...because you're categorizing the transaction as well as designating a transfer.
Try it...this works so well I'm shocked no one else has recommended this.
The only downside is that your loan is now a manual loan...and you'll need to enter the actual principal and interest amounts manually. But your amortization schedule is apparent in the loan account section, so it's easy to see what those amounts are.
Here's a screenshot of the Checking account register showing the mortgage payment split:
Notice the Category has both Mortgage Principal and Mortgage Interest...but the Transfer column is only for the Mortgage Principal amount and designates my mortgage account in Quicken.
And of course, the mortgage account shows the transfer from my checking account for the mortgage principal.
Now, as I said before, it's important in the report created to ONLY include your cash flow accounts, such as cash, checking and credit cards. If you leave ALL accounts included, the Mortgage Principal amounts will cancel each other out. But since you only use the cash flow accounts I mentioned, only "one side" of the transfer will be included.
Easy-peasy.
I did try something like this but it didn’t work, I assume because of the fact I am using automatic downloads.
Do you have a sense as to why automatic downloads won’t work, even though I have a “mortgage principle “ category with the transfer to the appropriate loan account (just like your screenshot)?
It’s a shame we have to pick between automatic downloads for loans vs. budget, but I suppose there is really only one transaction per month per debt account to have to manually enter... Also I assume you can create a templated Scheduled Transaction that would just require you to change the split values every month to ease the admin burden and still be able to project payments...
It would be good for quicken to do a proper fix, but this would at least allow us to get by in the mean time...
I’ll give that a go when I have more time to test.
Thanks again!
Anyway, I was actually messing around in QM 17/18 with a procedure similar to what you just posted, but you beat me to the punch, so you get the cookie.
What occurred to me was that in QW's cash flow reports you can account for these kinds of transfers by deselecting the transfer account and keeping the cash account, so I wondered if QM would work similarly. Your post motivated me to get off my **** and test the procedure more rigorously. I tested it with my mortgage account and two student loan accounts, none of which were set up to auto-download anyway.
Now for the caveat: in a category summary report, income transfers, like pre-tax 401k deductions, will not register under their Income subcategories using this procedure.
If I split a paycheck, e.g., with $1500 per pay period transferred to my Voya 401K, and deselect Voya 401K under accounts, my total income in the report drops by $1500 PPP because QM is registering that $1500 as a debit transaction.
If I leave the Voya account selected, my total income returns to what it should, because the $1500 debit is also a $1500 credit in Voya, but now the 401K contribution category is zeroed out in the report.
I don't know if my Voya account being set up to auto-download has anything to do with that or not. Getting it set up to auto-download was such a titanic **** I didn't want to monkey around with it. Not to mention the stark difference between manually tweaking a mortgage split every month and manually adjusting investment transactions multiple times per week. And it's late.
I have created a "Mortgage" category with "Mortgage Interest" and "Mortage Principal" as sub categories. For the ledger entry, I crated a split with each of the above two sub-categories, but used the "Transfer" field to transfer to the loan account.
When I am in the budget view, only the interest is being counted in the numbers. The weird part is when I click on the "Mortgage" category, both the interest and mortgage values appear in the report and give the proper sum total!
Are you sure that you are able to get your principal amount to appear in the budgets view? See screenshots below.
Bottom line is that, unless the Mac team adds some secret sauce, if you can't delimit the transfer account, an expense transaction is going to zero out and therefore remain invisible to QM's reporting engine.
As I mentioned upthread, this is a distinct but presumably related issue to income transfers not registering properly in reports or the budget.
I've been doing this for quite some time and the amounts still do not show up in my budget.