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Mileage Expenses Not Included in P&L Report

unknown

I posted this once already, but it was helpfully archived by a moderator. I Tweeted this issue to Quicken as well, and they said they've never heard of it, but the forums have many posts about it.

The P&L Report needs to include Mileage Expenses. I have the MileageBus category turned on and included in the report, but it's not grabbing any of my mileage transactions and including them. This is screwing up my quarterly tax reporting, since I pay based on my net profit rather than my gross. With this expense not being included in the report, I either overpay or have to manually run everything in a spreadsheet, which rather defeats the purpose of using software.

How do you get this to work correctly in Quicken Home and Business 2016? If there's no way, is there a way in 2017 or is it just time to dump Quicken for real small business accounting software?

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unknown

Small business owner here ... this thread was very helpful to me as I was searching all over the place trying to figure out why the mileage expense was not included in the P&L. This thread was helpful showing me I was not missing something, and concluded to quit wasting time - Quicken does not work correctly. It also shows me those supporting/developing Quicken do not understand small business owners (which I believe is the target of this product). The mileage tracker expense does transfer to the Schedule C reports, but why the expense does not compute in the P&L reports is beyond reason and very frustrating. This will probably be my last update with Quicken.

unknown

Does anyone else have a different Net Worth in the bar chart on the home page than any other place or report within Quicken. It appears that Quicken is deducting the mileage value as an Account named "Other Liabilities". If nobody else has this issue, does anyone know how I can offset the mileage value with a corresponding credit? I tried crediting the Account _mileagebus, but this didn't correct the issue. I would rather not have business mileage deducted from my net worth, but I would really like for all net worth calculations and reports to be consistent. Please don't tell me I'm asking for too much to have a consistent Net Worth across Quicken, just help me solve the problem/issue.

unknown

Quicken also seems to have no way to selectively export mileage data for TXF file based on a per car selection.. Turbo Tax , which claims to be integrated with Quicken, does not import the TXF data as individual cars. Just lumps it all into one. The best way to do a work around would be to export only one car at a time. But there is no way to run a TXF export report selecting one car..

mshiggins

I'm confused. Did you not see the example report posted that shows the date, trip, miles, mileage rate, and product of miles and mileage rate? And totals for all?

mshiggins

From C. D. Bales:

"I was able to locate the report under the printer button - still unable to search for a specific time period (last year, past 6 months, etc), but I will keep looking. In the print options, the only options I see are the printer choices and page range."

From my previous post: "And - prior to printing the [Mileage] report - you can select the date range of transactions you want in the report (see the Customize button in the Mileage Tracker dialog)".

unknown

Thanks for the info Sarah! I will look into this. I won't have anymore issues with Quicken. This will be my last Quicken upgrade.

unknown

There's a text file you can manually edit to update the mileage rates. Look for the file milerate.txt (easiest to just search from File Manner), open it with a text editor (like notepad), and add the rates you need following the format of the others in the file. This is a known issue that Quicken introduced, presumably to force you to upgrade to a more recent version. It's an easy fix though!

unknown

Thank you! Your comments were somewhat helpful. I use Home & Business for the farm, all the rental properties, and a small business. I use the mileage tracker for all three entities, tracking mileage on 3 different vehicles, so this problem is a big deal to me.
I was able to locate the report under the printer button - still unable to search for a specific time period (last year, past 6 months, etc), but I will keep looking. In the print options, the only options I see are the printer choices and page range. At this point, I appreciate your showing me where the report is and your willingness to try to help- just wish that report could be manipulated to just include a specific time period and the specific vehicle and trip type I need. Quicken may or may not have changed the mileage tracker, but I've used Quicken 20+ years and the mileage tracker isn't as easy to use as it once was - my problems started when I purchased the 2015 version.
Downloading current rates is not as big a problem as getting mileage totaled, I do get the info on mileage allowance from the IRS site, but in the past, I've been able to download the current rates into Quicken. I can't get any updates past 1/1/15. Quicken tells me to use One Step Update, but that is only downloading credit card transactions, no mileage rate updates are showing. No big deal, but I'm concerned it may be missing other updates also.
Sarah, sorry to highjack your post, but I've not been able to get any help on this mileage tracker problem and finally found this thread and jumped in. At this point, an Excel spreadsheet seems to be the preferred method to track mileage until I can locate something better. Hope you're able to develop an easy work around for your situation.

unknown

Original poster here. Fell free to hijack this thread. Nothing useful is going to come of it anyway. The "Champion" is going to swoop in every time, tell anyone with a complaint they're wrong for wanting a useful report, and we're all going to leave frustrated. Having to hand calculate my quarterly IRS tax payments because Quicken is "working as designed" is the dumbest thing ever. Entering all that data, just to have to manually pull it out and calculate my net income so I can pay my taxes is a waste of my time (except I'm legally bound to do it). I NEED a P&L report that takes into account all of the things that count toward my bottom line, whether they're an actual expense or an allowed deduction. That's what I have to pay taxes on. It would be a very simple thing for Intuit to add that one category to the P&L report. It belongs there since it is used to calculate quarterly taxes. If I can do it with a calculate, they could surely do it with their program, saving us all a lot of hassle.

We all get your point that it's working as intended. Their intentions simply don't effectively support small business owners. I've quit using the mileage tracker at all. It's a pointless and redundant endeavor since I have to do all the math by hand anyway.

mshiggins

From C. D. Bales:

"In the 2015 version, I am able to locate a listing of mileage in schedule C, although I have a farm and file schedule F. I am not able to locate a total miles for the year number. Looks like we have to scroll through every day adding up the mileage manually".

Nonsense.

I have no idea what you did in the past, but Quicken's treatment of the Mileage Allowance has not changed in a decade or so.

This discussion has NOT been about getting a listing of "mileage" traveled:

it's been about seeing the Mileage Allowance (which is a dollar "amount", not a number of miles) in reports. You're hijacking this discussion, which is a disservice to the original poster, and to others who would read this discussion looking for insights into the problem definition of this discussion.

As already noted, the Mileage Tracker tracks miles traveled; it would be difficult not to notice that.

The Mileage Tracker "Trip Type" drop down allows you to select the type of each trip you record. The choices are: Business, Charity, Medical, Rental Property, Unreimbursed Business, Other.

You can print a report from the Mileage Tracker which will give you totals of miles traveled, subtotaled by "Trip Type" ... as already noted. To get that report, click the printer icon in the lower left of the Mileage Tracker dialog. And - prior to printing the report - you can select the date range of transactions you want in the report (see the Customize button in the Mileage Tracker dialog).

Quicken calculates the "Mileage Allowance" (which is a dollar amount, not

miles traveled) and includes the Mileage Allowance in the appropriate category in the tax reports. See the post by NotACpa for an example of a couple of the Quicken categories used for the various

When Quicken displays the Mileage Allowance in Tax reports, it includes the actual miles in the Category column of the report - the report should contain one row per trip, with the miles traveled on that trip in the Category column. The Mileage allowance amounts in a Tax report are only for the date range of the report - so there is nothing there that needs "adding up": if your Tax report is for "Last Year", the Mileage Allowance in that report is for "Last Year".

[If one trip spans two tax report periods, I believe you'll need to break the trip up into two trips in the Mileage Tracker, to get the mileage allowances into the correct Tax periods.]

"Trip Type" options.

If you're looking for the Mileage Allowance (AMOUNT) in tax reports, you need to look in the appropriate Tax Schedule. For example:

- The Medical Mileage Allowance amount appears in Schedule A

- The Business Mileage Allowance amount appears in Schedule C

- The Rental Property Allowance amount appears in Schedule E

Quicken does not recognize Schedule F as a "Business", or as a Mileage Tracker "trip type". Quicken H&B is not intended to treat Schedule F transactions (or any non-Schedule C transactions) as "business" transactions. Nor does Quicken intend to treat Schedule F miles traveled as a separate trackable mileage allowance deduction (my guess is: use the "Other" Trip Type for Schedule F miles). Again: see the "Trip Type" drop down in the Mileage Tracker.

If this troubles you, I suggest you make a suggestion to Quicken: while remembering that Quicken is in business to make money not to satisfy everyone's desires, and it is very unlikely that Schedule F filers are going to be a big profit center for Quicken.

I believe Quicken is working as intended, and it is working correctly, as far as the Mileage Tracker is concerned.

An example report:

mshiggins

Well without seeing some example numbers it is difficult to tell the report will convey the necessary information.

NotACPA

Take a look at my post of 4 hours ago ... that IS a screen shot from the Tax Summary report ... I just left off the numbers.

mshiggins

Perhaps a screen capture of the Tax Summary report would help?

NotACPA

It does ... in the Mileage Tracker, keep track of the miles. It doesn't record those miles in any account ... because Miles aren't dollars. There's a report within the Mileage tracker that can be used to replace all of that scrolling, jotting, and calculating.

But note, that the Mileage Tracker is only available in the "Home & Business" and "Rental Property Manager" versions of Q.

And, if I didn't understand what the IRS allowed, why would I be tracking "Charity Mileage" and "Medical Mileage" in my Q ... which produced the report that I excerpted and displayed. It's the "Tax Summary" report.

unknown

I understand what you're saying and I think we're talking about two separate issues. IRS allows a mileage rate per business, charity, or medical mile traveled. We record these trips in hopes that Quicken will add up the total # of business miles traveled, the total # of charity miles driven, and the total # of medical miles driven. I know this is not an expense (so let's not run circles around that), but we are allowed a deduction for this (that's why we keep track of it). Why can't Quicken total these miles up for us? Right now, I've scrolled through the year and jotted down the mileage for each day, then totaled it myself using a calculator. If I remember correctly, this was available with Quicken several years ago - unless I'm getting it confused with another software. Why is this no longer available in Quicken?

NotACPA

Let's come at this from another angle.
In Q H&B (which I've used for years, both for my service business and continuing, even though I'm now retired), there is NO Q account in which the "Mileage expense" is recorded.

That's because it's not something that you've paid out. You pay for gas, tires, repairs, insurance, etc ... but you never PAY for mileage. Thus, it doesn't appear on any "Expense" type report ... because there has been no expense.

It only appears in the Tax type reports because this non-expense DOES have a tax component.

unknown

In the 2015 version, I am able to locate a listing of mileage in schedule C, although I have a farm and file schedule F. I am not able to locate a total miles for the year number. Looks like we have to scroll through every day adding up the mileage manually. I've used Quicken for many years and this is the first time I can't locate a summary. Sorry to interfere with your post, but my frustration with Quicken is pretty much through the roof at this point. Can't get it to update the mileage rates either, so I'm having to do that manually also. Quicken used to be so easy to use. Don't know what happened - maybe I just got dumber!

unknown

Oh and sorry for high jacking your post. I have been trying to find my answer and came across this thread. The journal entry thing might work for you if there is a way to do that in quicken?? It definitely works for Quick Books... shows right up on my P&L but now I am trying to decide if I really want it there. LOL

unknown

OK, so please forgive my ignorance here but I am hoping you can help me. I am not an accountant--just a home birth midwife running a solo practice. My work involves TONS of driving--I don't have an office and all care is provided at the client's home. It adds up to around 30k miles per year and my gross income right now is around 45-50K so travel expenses are by far my biggest expense--to the tune of $15K. However I use the standard deduction as opposed to actual expenses because its higher--more money in my pocket, right? So... I thought I needed to show this significant expense on my P&L statement. I had the same issue (using QB though not Quicken) and my accountant helped me set up a journal entry for mileage and then offset it with another journal entry. Which has worked well for my original purposes. But... I am now rethinking this approach. Is it ok that I don't show my largest business expense in my P&L? Does it matter? I keep a log of all miles driven--anywhere from 2000-3000 a month. This is only for tax purposes. As far as showing my P&L for something like obtaining a personal mortgage (since I am self employed) for example is it ok if that isn't included in my P&L since it is as you say not an actual expense? I mean all my gas, maintenance, etc, comes out of my personal account and never shows up as an expense in my business account, but obviously my P&L is going to look very different from my schedule c.... I guess my question is what is the right way to do it? Thanks!

mshiggins

From C. D. Bales:

Apparently you didn't read my post very carefully.

You say, "Mileage expenses are part of your P&L for quarterly reporting purposes".

But, as I said previously: The trips you record in the Mileage Tracker are NOT "expenses" - there were no expenditures involved ... your net worth was not reduced.

Since they are not expenses (and certainly not income), it's hard to see how they belong in the Profit & Loss report.

Therefore, contrary to your original claim: I contend Quicken is working "correctly".

I can find no justification for expecting Quicken to create a Profit & Loss report that is incorrect for accounting purposes, just because you want to use the report for tax purposes.

You can determine the Quicken computed mileage allowance anytime you like.

You will find the Quicken computed mileage allowance in Reports > Business > Schedule C - Profit or Loss from Business (as well as other tax reports that include Schedule C). You can also print the Mileage Tracker report to see the computed mileage allowance for whatever date range you wish.

unknown

Thanks so much for your wonderfully helpful comment. It's evident from it that you do not own a small business where you have to pay accurate quarterly taxes based on your quarterly profit or loss. Mileage expenses are part of your P&L for quarterly reporting purposes. Without them in the report, you end up overpaying, thus giving the government a no-interest loan. Nobody really wants to do that, so we then have to manually subtract the mileage expenses.

I understand that the program is working as designed. I'm saying it's designed stupidly and creates extra work every quarter when taxes are due.

mshiggins

From C. D. Bales:

I hate to burst all your bubbles, but everyone in this discussion has totally misunderstood the function of the Quicken Mileage Tracker.

Had anyone in this discussion read Quicken Help, there's a good chance the false expectations would have become apparent, or at least created different comments.

There is NO Quicken problem to be solved, there is only false user expectations to be clarified.

The Quicken Mileage Tracker has one, and only one - very limited - purpose: to account for the tax deduction allowed by the IRS for business travel mileage.

The Quicken Mileage Tracker has nothing to do with your regular business travel expenses. Those expenses should be recorded in Quicken as transactions in a Quicken account register. Expenses such as Lodging, Air Fare, Dining, etc. Those expenses will appear in Quicken reports

just where you would expect them to appear, in exactly the categories you assigned to them when you recorded your "actual" expenses.

The "mileage allowance" is specifically NOT an actual expenditure, not an actual "expense": it is an allowance provided by the IRS, which provides a tax deduction not represented by any expenditure you made. The allowance is based solely on the mileage traveled, not on any specific expenses incurred.

The only place in Quicken that you will see the mileage allowance reported is in Quicken Tax reports; tax reports that include Schedule C tax line items ... such as the Tax Schedule and Tax Summary reports.

So: you will get the tax deduction you need from your recorded Quicken Mileage Tracker trips, but that deduction will not be represented in your Profit & Loss report (because you did not spend any money on the "mileage allowance" - there are no Quicken "transactions" for the mileage allowance): that deduction will appear as a separate item in your Quicken tax reports.

unknown

I thought I had the problem solved but no such luck. When you customize the report there is a Tab for Categories. When you select show hidden categories there are four or so categories for mileage near the bottom of this having _ before the name. However, even checking the business mileage for rentals did not change the output of the reports. What we need is an enhancement to the software which takes into account this category.

unknown

I am having a similar problem! And, I wasted over 2 hours trying to get any help from both chat and phone technicians--they had NO idea what to do--NOTHING!! I also have an expense that I have tried to set up many different ways. It will debit the amounts from my running balance, along with many other expenses, but then this almost $8,000 in expenses does not show up in the P&L. (oh, by the way, I had to tell the Chat room technician what P&L meant!!). The only way it shows up is as a sub-category?? Which makes absolutely no sense?? How in the world can this be??

unknown

Sorry, it's the Mileage Tracker that's built into Quicken to track Mileage. The MileageBus category is set to the correct group and tax schedule. The expenses show up properly on the Schedule-C: Profit or Loss from Business Report for the same time period. Comparing the Profit and Loss Statement side by side with the Schedule C report for the same time period, they are exactly the same EXCEPT for the missing data in the MileageBus category on the Profit and Loss Statement. The category itself shows up on the report, but with no expense information. I can manually add a dummy transaction for a credit to the category and the credit shows up, but none of the data from the Mileage Tracker does.

unknown

Maybe I'm missing something. First off, where is the Vehicle Mileage Report you are discussing?

Second, do you have the MileageBus category set to Group: Business Expense in the category description? Do you have the Tax Reporting set to Tax Related Category/Standard line item list/Schedule C:Business mileage?

I think there is something wrong with the way you have customized the report. Certainly, a custom expense report should show your MileageBus category, provided you have the correct date range, the correct categories and the correct account. Plus, check how you handle transfers with the report. Sometimes you need to play with the transfers settings to get that to work correctly. Look under the ADVANCED tab in the report customization.

I would go through each of the tabs in the report customization and make sure everything is checked as you need. Groups...tags...payees...etc.

I'm just grasping at stuff now. I've weeded out a lot of the business categories I haven't used over the years and MileageBus isn't in my list...but I probably deleted it years ago.

unknown

As an example, I created a custom Expense report and included ONLY the categories for mileage expenses. No expenses show up.

unknown

Yes, I'm aware of that. Which is how I got the MileageBus category to show up at all. But it will not pull the Mileage Expenses from the Vehicle Mileage Report into the Profit and Loss Statement, only into the Schedule C report.

unknown

You can customize any report in Quicken to include or exclude any or all accounts, categories and tags.

Once you customize it, you can save it. You can even add it to the Quicken toolbar for quick and easy access.

If the profit and loss statement fails to do that, you can accomplish the same thing with a customized income/expense report.

unknown

Had a long, annoying, and ultimately unfruitful online chat with Quicken Support. Pretty sure he was just having me try random things. I finally had no more time to spend on trying random things because I had a meeting to get to. So my MileageBus expenses still don't show up on P&L, though they do on Schedule C.