Home Quicken for Mac Errors and Troubleshooting (Mac)

How to have an expense which is a transfer to another account show up in a report

ericgericg Member ✭✭✭
I am using Quicken 2017 Version 4.4.3 (Build 44.15091.100)

It seems like there should be solution for this, but I am not sure how to handle it properly. Or, perhaps, I am just thinking about this in the right way.

I have a liability account (a mortgage loan) which shows up in the accounts list at a Debt and which is used to track the payments on principal. I make payments on this mortgage from my checking account. Each payment of X is split into three parts - Principal, Interest, & Taxes. The money which goes into interest and taxes shows up in a a category summary report, but the money which is going towards principal does not. I would like to be able to track the money going towards principal as any other expense so I can see a "true" money out total. Is this possible? 

I suppose what would work is to not have the split include the principal payment as a transfer to a liability account and then add the deductions to the loan account seperately. Is that the only solution? 

Is there something I could be doing better or differently?

Comments

  • RickORickO SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2017
    Perhaps this will help... you can have a category and a transfer on a transaction at the same time. The category does not need to be "Transfer". 
    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
  • ericgericg Member ✭✭✭
    edited March 2017
    RickO said:

    Perhaps this will help... you can have a category and a transfer on a transaction at the same time. The category does not need to be "Transfer". 

    I do. The category is Mortgage Principal. It still will not show up in the Category Summary report as Money Out which is where I would like it to. The principal payment only shows up in the Other Transactions section which is where every transaction between accounts shows up.
  • RickORickO SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2017
    RickO said:

    Perhaps this will help... you can have a category and a transfer on a transaction at the same time. The category does not need to be "Transfer". 

    I have not dealt with this myself, so I was only taking a stab at it. is the Mortgage Principal category set up as an expense or an income category?
    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
  • ericgericg Member ✭✭✭
    edited March 2017
    RickO said:

    Perhaps this will help... you can have a category and a transfer on a transaction at the same time. The category does not need to be "Transfer". 

    Expense category. It should be easy enough to reproduce.
  • RickORickO SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2017
    RickO said:

    Perhaps this will help... you can have a category and a transfer on a transaction at the same time. The category does not need to be "Transfer". 

    If I have time tomorrow, I'll play with it a bit.
    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
  • ericgericg Member ✭✭✭
    edited March 2017
    RickO said:

    Perhaps this will help... you can have a category and a transfer on a transaction at the same time. The category does not need to be "Transfer". 

    great. thanks.
  • ericgericg Member ✭✭✭
    edited March 2017
    RickO said:

    Perhaps this will help... you can have a category and a transfer on a transaction at the same time. The category does not need to be "Transfer". 

    I am not necessarily convinced Quicken is doing anything wrong, but it would seem to make at least some sense to somehow treat the entire mortgage payment as an expense even though technically the payment on principal is adding equity to my home and the money remains mine -- just converted to equity.
  • RickORickO SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2017
    Eric...

    I've played with this a bit and I see what you're talking about and completely agree. Here's an example from my data. Two transactions in the category "Personal", one of which has a transfer to another account:

    image

    The Category Summary report for these looks like this:

    image

    I agree that one would expect to see both "Personal" transactions listed in the Money Out section. After all, you categorized the transaction so that you'd be able to see the total of expenses in that category. If you didn't care about the category, you would have just used the built-in "Transfer" category.

    As you say, this is not necessarily a bug. But it does appear to be a poor design and is incompatible with how users would expect the report to work.

    In your case, I don't see a great workaround. You could do as you mentioned: stop using a transfer in your mortgage payment transaction and enter a separate transaction in the liability account. But that's double work and hides the relationship between the checking and loan accounts. The only other alternative I see is to just be aware that you have to generate a report for your principal payments separately.

    In my case, your having pointed out this flaw is going to make me change how I record my PayPal transactions.

    I will report this issue on our SU channel. I'm not sure it's going to have any impact. In the mean time, there are a couple of IDEA threads you may want to go VOTE on. After you go to and read the thread, make sure to click VOTE in the upper right. Here they are:

    https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/create-a-useful-category-transaction-detail-repo...

    https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/add-ability-to-include-or-exclude-transfers-on-r...
    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
  • ericgericg Member ✭✭✭
    edited October 2018
    Great. Another consequence of the current behavior is how it effects budgets as well. It would make sense to budget for a mortgage payment, but like the reports, the budget calculations are category based and do not pick up transfers as well.
  • NotACPANotACPA SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2017
    ericg said:

    Great. Another consequence of the current behavior is how it effects budgets as well. It would make sense to budget for a mortgage payment, but like the reports, the budget calculations are category based and do not pick up transfers as well.

    Eric, you're confusing Budgets (which are Income and Expense based) with Cash Flow, which includes the movement of monies between accounts (i.e., transfers).

    A transfer is neither an Income nor an Expense ... because you are neither richer nor poorer after a transfer.  Just as moving your wallet from pocket to pocket (a transfer) makes you neither richer nor poorer.
    Q user since DOS version 5
    Now running Quicken Windows Subscription,  Home & Business
    Retired "Certified Information Systems Auditor" & Bank Audit VP
  • RickORickO SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 2018
    ericg said:

    Great. Another consequence of the current behavior is how it effects budgets as well. It would make sense to budget for a mortgage payment, but like the reports, the budget calculations are category based and do not pick up transfers as well.

    What we are saying is that if a transaction (or split line) has both an expense category and a transfer, then it should be treated as both. The expense should not be ignored for the purpose of the Category Summary report or for budgets. This will give the user control over whether to think of these items as expenses or simple transfers.
    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
  • mistertheplaguemistertheplague Member ✭✭✭
    edited March 2017
    In another thread about this issue, I posted the workaround I use to get around this limitation/blindspot/bug in QM (link at bottom is from original thread the workaround comes from):

    "I use the following workaround to deal with this situation in QM17 to accurately budget and report loan payments. I learned it courtesy of QM user Snoopy FC. Here's Snoopy's description of the workaround:

    'I don't have any issues with the budget or reports with the following setup.  I have one scheduled payment for the mortgage payment in my bank account.  That payment is split to account for the payment on the mortgage, interest, real estate taxes, insurance, additional principal payment, etc.  This transaction is budgeted and reported. The other scheduled payment is for the transaction in the mortgage balance account (principal reduction).  This uncategorized transaction is not "budgeted or reported."  This way there's no double accounting.'

    (Note: Both scheduled transactions have to be manually modified every month when they come in. In your budget and in reports, make sure "Uncategorized" is deselected in the customization window)"

    https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/loan-amortization-isnt-supported-in-q-2017-for-m...
  • RickORickO SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2017

    In another thread about this issue, I posted the workaround I use to get around this limitation/blindspot/bug in QM (link at bottom is from original thread the workaround comes from):

    "I use the following workaround to deal with this situation in QM17 to accurately budget and report loan payments. I learned it courtesy of QM user Snoopy FC. Here's Snoopy's description of the workaround:

    'I don't have any issues with the budget or reports with the following setup.  I have one scheduled payment for the mortgage payment in my bank account.  That payment is split to account for the payment on the mortgage, interest, real estate taxes, insurance, additional principal payment, etc.  This transaction is budgeted and reported. The other scheduled payment is for the transaction in the mortgage balance account (principal reduction).  This uncategorized transaction is not "budgeted or reported."  This way there's no double accounting.'

    (Note: Both scheduled transactions have to be manually modified every month when they come in. In your budget and in reports, make sure "Uncategorized" is deselected in the customization window)"

    https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/loan-amortization-isnt-supported-in-q-2017-for-m...

    It certainly works, but requires double entry. And it breaks the link between the two accounts. 

    Much better, I think, would be if Quicken would treat the transaction as both a transfer and an expense if the user has put a non-"Transfer" category in along with the transfer-to account.
    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
  • Jim BigelowJim Bigelow Member ✭✭
    edited March 2017
    ericg said:

    Great. Another consequence of the current behavior is how it effects budgets as well. It would make sense to budget for a mortgage payment, but like the reports, the budget calculations are category based and do not pick up transfers as well.

    Using Q2017 Deluxe, the budget view of budget by month and total for year allows selection of categories to budget.  In the category selection screen there is also a chance to select transfers to budget.  I have used this method to budget loan payments both to interest accounts and loan accounts.  Many reports also allow the inclusion of transfers in the Advanced tab, and works provided the account including the transfers is included in the Accounts tab of the report.


  • mistertheplaguemistertheplague Member ✭✭✭
    edited March 2017

    In another thread about this issue, I posted the workaround I use to get around this limitation/blindspot/bug in QM (link at bottom is from original thread the workaround comes from):

    "I use the following workaround to deal with this situation in QM17 to accurately budget and report loan payments. I learned it courtesy of QM user Snoopy FC. Here's Snoopy's description of the workaround:

    'I don't have any issues with the budget or reports with the following setup.  I have one scheduled payment for the mortgage payment in my bank account.  That payment is split to account for the payment on the mortgage, interest, real estate taxes, insurance, additional principal payment, etc.  This transaction is budgeted and reported. The other scheduled payment is for the transaction in the mortgage balance account (principal reduction).  This uncategorized transaction is not "budgeted or reported."  This way there's no double accounting.'

    (Note: Both scheduled transactions have to be manually modified every month when they come in. In your budget and in reports, make sure "Uncategorized" is deselected in the customization window)"

    https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/loan-amortization-isnt-supported-in-q-2017-for-m...

    Much better, I think, would be if Quicken would treat the transaction as both a transfer and an expense if the user has put a non-"Transfer" category in along with the transfer-to account.
    @RickO, I couldn't agree more. This blindspot in QM is what caused me to return the product last year before I learned these (cumbersome) workarounds. 
  • ConcordmanConcordman Member ✭✭✭✭
    edited January 2018
    QM Does not treat transfers as an expense , if I recall correctly many moons ago when I dealt with loans using QW this was not an issue. I agree that certain type of expenses which are inherently transfers , like loan principal need to be dealt with both as an expense & transfers. Not sure if/when this is going to implemented
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