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Need account register report (and export) without split detail

jacobs

There is no way to print a simple account register, just as you see it on the screen. The problem is that printing from a register offers only two options in a "Format As" drop-down menu: "Transaction Detail" or "Category Detail". What is needed is a third option: "Transaction Summary" or "Transaction (without splits)".

The problem with the current Transaction Detail is that it shows each split line as a separate line in the report. If you want a report that looks like the transaction register -- without splits -- there is no way to do that currently. There should be an option to suppress split lines. (There is also no other way to create such report using any available options on the Reports menu.) This option should also apply to exporting an account register.

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Under Consideration

Printing

Reports

Mac

Status: Under Consideration

Comments

smayer97

Yes, there needs to be an option to show split lines or not when printing the register, like it is done in QM2007, as shown here:

Meanwhile, similar control is needed on other reports, so you may also want to add your VOTE to
Create Useful Category/Transaction Detail Report. This includes a report related feature to choose to show/hide split lines, just like QM2007 can, as captured here: Show/Hide Splits in registers and reports.

First, click on each underlined link above to go there, then click VOTE at the top of THAT page, so your will vote count for THAT feature and increase its visibility to the developers by seeking to have the features you need or desire end up in the latest version.

While you are at it, you may want to add your VOTE to related IDEAS found on the
List of Requests for Downloading Data into Quicken. Click on the underlined link, then follow the instructions to add your vote to more related ideas.

Meanwhile, I highly recommend you to add your VOTES to related IDEAS found on the:

List of Requests for Report Related Features,
with the essential ones described and listed here
List of Requests for Report Types

Click on each underlined link, then follow the instructions to add your vote to more related ideas. Your VOTES matter!

For background, you may want to read this post too. BTW, the columnar-type report is the basis for MANY other reports, as described in detail in this post a little lower; only the selection and formatting criteria are different.

(If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)

jacobs

I think it's important to note that what's being asked for here is not something that would appear in the Reports section, although it's a report of a sort. What we're talking about here is selecting Print in a register. Whether the developers can use the same logic or report format as something in the Reports menu I'll leave up to the developers to figure out; I'm trying not to make assumptions about that. Again, all that's being asked for here is a single idea: the option to suppress split lines in the existing print register report.

You point to the thread about Expanding split transactions as being sufficient. @smayer97, I'd note that what the actual title of the thread you link above as "Show/Hide Splits in registers and reports" is "Expanding split transactions," and I am concerned that from the title, the developers might overlook it as an already-implemented suggestion. (Reading through it, almost all of the requests in that thread have been implemented.) I think it is less likely for the developers to re-visit a thread on a topic they feel they've addressed, read through all the many comments, and parse out that there's one aspect of the multi-idea thread that they didn't yet implement; I think it's far easier for them to see a single-idea thread like this and immediately grasp the missing feature. (The other thread you reference, "Create a useful Category/Transaction Detail Report in Quicken For Mac," is also a compendium of many ideas for reports, some of which now have been implemented and some which have not.)

I also think it's easier for fellow users to find and vote for a single-idea topic like this than pore through all the nuances and cross-links of the other threads. (For what it's worth, this idea was actually brought up by another user, who hadn't found any of the existing threads which touch on this; that reinforced in my mind that this deserved its own idea post.) Finally, users can vote for as many topics as they like, so there's no harm in having this as a stand-alone request; it doesn't take away from any other thread or visa versa.

smayer97

My opening line..."I don't disagree with the need for control over the format..."

So I agree with this need in concept but not as a separate report. That said, if this idea is restricted to the printing of a register, then yes, I agree it should stand alone (it was rather late so that may not have fully sunk in the first time).

So as I understand it now, this would be like the options in QM2007:

So I would recommend users vote for this and then also consider voting on the other 2 threads so that there is consistency throughout Quicken to control when split lines show up or not.

(If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)

smayer97

And to be clear, I was not disagreeing with the idea...just pointing out that this may be an overlap with an existing idea... I hope you see that is not the same thing.

I will adjust my previous post above to better reflect that.

jacobs

Thanks for editing your original language to reflect that it may be an overlap in idea requests, but that there's no reason not to implement this idea.

Just to clarify what I think this would look like in Quicken 2019, here is the current pop-up pane when you select to Print a register:

Image httpsd2r1vs3d9006apcloudfrontnets3_images1763120RackMultipart20181119-25050-1v7dlfq-Screen_Shot_2018-11-19_at_44244_PM_inlinepng1542665249

And when you pull down the "Format as" menu, it currently shows two choices of format:

Image httpsd2r1vs3d9006apcloudfrontnets3_images1763121RackMultipart20181119-46987-1790k3z-Screen_Shot_2018-11-19_at_44257_PM_inlinepng1542665302

All I am proposing is the addition of a third format choice, depicted in this mock-up:

Image httpsd2r1vs3d9006apcloudfrontnets3_images1763123RackMultipart20181119-15179-8tlnzj-Print_dialog_mock-up_inlinepng1542665608

I think this would be clear to users and be an easy UI change for the developers to make. The report would remain the same as the current register report, except it would show only the main transaction lines and not the splits, which should again be fairly easy to implement.

smayer97

...should again be fairly easy to implement.

famous last words...are you sure? ;-)

jacobs

Haha, no, one can never be sure what will or won’t be easy to implement! Since the database query to do this already exists for displaying data in a register, and the existing report fields don’t need to be changed at all, it *seems* like printing the main transaction line and omitting the split lines should be pretty straightforward — but I know that’s not always the case.

SimonSezSo

I am surprised that no one mentioned this workaround. When I want a quick register report, I just select the transactions from the account register, and then copy and paste transactions into Excel. No matter what selection I make, it always brings in headers, and parses very nicely. It works well for me, but I am using QWIN, so I am not sure how it would work in QMAC. But I think it's worth a try.

P.S. - This is also how I create reports with Notes/Reminders. Currently, it is not possible to report on Notes/Reminders using the Reports feature in QWIN.

jacobs

It wasn't mentioned as a workaround because because it doesn't work. The copy function simply doesn't exist for transactions in a register in Quicken Mac.

SimonSezSo

Jacobs - thanks, I wasn't sure. I don't know how the Mac version works at all. But I thought I would mention it anyway. At least, I think it might be a helpful thing for Qwin users.

unknown

Can anyone tell me if this is an option to not have a splits included in the transaction report. I do not want to update if I still cannot do this.

unknown

As of now I don't believe there is an option to do this. However, I have been able to get all the reports in the format I want by exporting the data to a CSV file and bringing the data into Excel. Although a little more work it does do the job to my total satisfaction.

unknown

While the copy function does not work in the Mac version, I found I could export the data to a CSV file and import the file into Excel. Works great and I can manipulate the data anyway I wish. If one has a working knowledge of Excel this is the way to go.

josgavin

Printing a simple check register is the most basic report there is is. Not printing splits should be the default.

jacobs

@josgavin and anyone else reading this who wants to see this enhancement made, please be sure to vote for the idea. (Go to the first post in this thread, and under it in the large yellow box, click the little gray arrow under the vote counter and wait to see the count go up by one.) This Idea requires more votes in order for it to be forwarded to the developers, much less actually implemented.

Quicken Jasmine

Hello All,

The Community Support team regularly reviews long-standing posts and Ideas for relevancy and current interest. This Idea seems to have stalled and we would like to gauge the current interest in this request.

If you would like to see this idea implemented, please add your vote and a comment explaining how this idea would be beneficial for you. More information, including steps to vote and how to submit your own Ideas for future product features/improvements, is also available here.

Thank you,

Quicken Community Support Team

jacobs

I'm frustrated that a feature request like this — for a feature which existed in the legacy Quicken Mac 2007 as well as Quicken Windows, for a feature that isn't for ease-of-use but to do something which simply cannot be done in Quicken Mac — is possibly on the chopping block because people haven't found and voted for it. I understand that's why the moderators have bumped this thread, but it's frustrating nonetheless that a straightforward enhancement like this from five years ago hasn't been put in front of the developers to even make them aware of it because this thread doesn't have enough votes. I don't know how to explain how this would be beneficial beyond what has been explained in the initial post and follow-up comments in this thread. This comes up as a question/source of frustration from fellow users on this forum probably about once a month.

I guess all I can do is hope more users will see this and please add your vote for it, so it isn't discarded as a "stalled" idea. Please scroll to the top of this page, and in the yellow box under the top post, click the little arrow if it is dark gray in order to add your vote.

7domino

did not know about this as I never used Quicken for Windows. I already need this. I painfully do it manually via excel by moving the totals to an extra column and remove the splits. It would save me a lot of time and frustration if this existed. Thanks

Levanah10

Another difference from Q-Win: My Quicken 2001 H&B register report started with a "beginning balance", included transactions with or without splits (it was an option), and ended with the ending balance, plus "total inflows" and "total outflows". (It also had a way to customize how the report printed—column widths, etc.) This year I finally updated to Q-Mac, and while I can create a pdf of the register for a given date range, there's no beginning or ending balance — which my accountant may need. Very frustrating; I'll have to add the balances by hand, no less.

jacobs

@Levanah10 I can't speak for the developers, but I think one of the problems with showing a starting and ending balance is that there are several things which affect the balance but perhaps shouldn't be on an accounting report. One is a scheduled transaction which has not yet been marked as paid/deposited; it is counted in the running balance in Quicken, but unless it is posted (marked paid/deposited), it doesn't correspond to real-world transaction activity. the other can be transactions enter but not yet marked as having cleared the bank.

That said, there are several other ways you might consider getting the data you want in a report for an accountant.

New in this past year is the Reconciliation Report, which does show a beginning balance, cleared payments, cleared deposits, and ending balance. So if the information you need to provide to your accountant coincides with your bank account or credit card account monthly reconciliation, this report provides what you're looking for.

Another option, although not on a single report, is to create a Net Worth report for just the one account you are interested in. Run it as of the beginning date and print it, and then change to the ending date and print it. While this wastes two pieces of paper, it is a way to provide your accountant the beginning and ending balance of an account, professionally printed from Quicken — with no manual math required. 😁

jacobs

@moski @nafinahmot An Idea you had previously voted for and commented on was recently archived by the moderators for not achieving enough votes. 😥 However, there were two other Idea threads requesting similar functionality which are still alive, so you should add your vote for this Idea — scroll up to the top of the page, locate the yellow box under the first post, and if the arrow under the vote counter is dark gray, click it to add your vote — if it's something you would like to see added to Quicken Mac.

BobWilliamson

I love quicken for mac .. but it is frustrating when I cant print a transaction report without splits .. I use that as a quick reference on my budget so I can just open a pdf and browse the pdf without getting into the program on my mac …. I used this in quicken for windows but that meant I would have to run a virtual windows environment with quicken for windows installed. This is extra processing not necessary on my mac …. since I dont use windows for anything else on my mac …. I have tried to go to the bug report links to add my vote and they give me a 503 error and do not work.

I have also exported the transaction data to excel and found even then it is just a pain in the but to edit out all the splits and would just rather do a quick print to pdf.

in order to make quicken for mac a true replacement for quicken windows, your developers need to make this a priority and get it out to us asap.

Then posts I have seen go back for months with no response other than to vote. this is unacceptable.

Thank you in advance.

Please make this a priority since I am not the only one asking for this feature.

jacobs

@BobWilliamson I just wanted to give you some insight into how these Idea topics are handled by Quicken, so you can re-set your expectations accordingly.

You said "please make this a priority since I am not the only one asking for this feature" — which is absolutely true, but only part of the story. There are hundreds of other features Quicken Mac users have asked the developers for, and with the developers only being able to work on a few enhancements at a time, it means they have to decide how to prioritize them and order their work. For instance someone who uses the budget features of Quicken Mac may feel the absence of a YTD actual-versus-budget report should be a top priority, while users who focus on the investment features in Quicken Mac may feel robust investment reports or the ability to handle merges/spinoffs should be a top priority, while retired users may feel handling of RMDs and other retirement investment should be a top priority, and so forth… We Quicken users collectively have a lot of feature requests, and many of them rightly feel like they are obvious needs and urgently required. But the developers can't do them all at once, or even within a short period of time. So they use the requests on this forum as one of their factors in deciding what order to prioritize feature development, but they also use other factors (for example, feedback/input from their customer support team about reported problems).

Next: the posts on this forum are generally not read by the developers. The exception is these Idea topics, which are passed to the developers for consideration — but only once each Idea thread reaches a threshold of votes. Currently, for Quicken Mac, that threshold is 30 votes. So this Idea, which as of my writing this has 19 votes, is not something the developers are even aware of at this point. Only if/when this thread gets to 30 votes will the site moderators document it and send it on the the developers. So that's why voting is important! (Earlier this year, I made a list of my feature wishes for Quicken, and this feature was in my Top 15.)

You also said: "The posts I have seen go back for months with no response other than to vote; this is unacceptable." You may find it unacceptable, but it's the reality of how Quicken works. Users post their thoughts/wishes/needs here, but Quicken doesn't respond to these posts. If/when the thread reaches the amount needed to forward to the developers, then the development team will review it. They decide if they think it's a good idea and fits their vision of the direction of the product, as well as assessing how much work it would take to implement the request, and when it can fit in their development schedule. If they agree to implement the feature request, and assign it a slot on their schedule, they pass a message back to the moderators of this site to mark the topic as "Planned." There's no other feedback. So while we can feel happy that a feature is officially denoted as "Planned" and know that it is coming in the future, we never know when in the future it will arrive. It sometimes takes years. Sigh.

As someone who has been actively involved in following the development of Quicken Mac over the past decade, I know this process and the sometimes-glacial pace of change can and does feel frustrating. The only solace is that if you look at Quicken Mac now and compare it to 3 or 5 or 7 years ago, it's actually impressive how much the program has improved — and much of that change was influenced by user feedback on this site. Quicken management and the Quicken Mac development team do seem committed to continuing to drive the development of the program, so I find there is reason for optimism for the future, even while I'm frustrated at how many of my top wishes for the program remain undone.

I hope that explanation helps you have a better understanding of how the company works. Anyone else reading this thread who wants to see this feature, please add your vote at the top of the thread!

jacobs

It has been 10 months since the last post in this Idea thread, and the vote total has grown to 27 — only 3 short of what it needs to be forwarded to the developers for consideration. Anyone out there who would like to add a vote for this request to be able to print a register with or without split lines? Please scroll to the top of the page and click in the yellow box to add your vote.

Quicken Anja

Hello All,

The status of this Idea has been changed to Under Consideration as it has reached enough votes and has been submitted to our Product and Development team for further review.

Thank you!

MauryJ

I am literally trying to do this right now. It's very frustrating. I'm trying to reconcile a list of transactions to figure out where my register balance went sideways vs what the bank has. Sometimes the reconciliation feature in Quicken helps with this but the delta amount doesn't often match. The best way to compare is to side by side compare the bank's transaction download in csv to the Quicken transactions.

The output from Quicken's transaction report is useless since 1 credit card transaction is the equivalent of 20 lines or so. With the advent of cards with benefits and Apple Wallet you end up charging way more of what you might pay cash for, plus using multiple cards. So the sheer number of transactions is extremely labor intensive to export to Numbers or Excel, total the splits, etc.. I've been banking with Quicken for 30 years, 3+ with Mac, so this is a major PITA. I still love Quicken, but this a such an obvious and basic requirement,

jacobs

@MauryJ Yes, exactly. I hope the developers will tackle this needed change sooner than later because it doesn't have a work-around.

I did want to circle back to something you wrote…

The output from Quicken's transaction report is useless since 1 credit card transaction is the equivalent of 20 lines or so.

If I'm understanding correctly, it sounds like you are entering one transaction each time you pay a credit card and recording many splits to categorize all the transactions. If that's what you're doing, allow me to suggest a different way which better aligns with how Quicken is designed. That is to create a credit card account in Quicken for each credit card, and to download (or manually enter) each transaction into that credit card account. Then, when you pay the credit card bill, you enter a transaction which is a simple Transfer from the checking account to the credit card account — no splits. There are a few advantages to doing it this way:

Each transaction is recorded on the date it happened, not the date you pay the credit card bill, which can be helpful if you need to find a transaction in the future, and possibly for your annual expense reporting for budget or tax purposes.
Each transaction has the name of the actual Payee of the credit card charge, and you can use the Memo field for any additional description of what you bought.
It's easier to record when a single transaction splits several categories; it's a regular split transaction in the credit card account
You reconcile the credit card account the same way you reconcile your checking account, making sure all the transactions on the credit card statement are checked transactions in the credit card account, instead of entering one payment transaction with 20+ splits and then not having it match the account total correctly and having to review all your entries and math.

If you haven't done it this way in the past, my suggestion would be to start with your credit card that has the fewest monthly transactions; you can just enter them manually, and see how it works at the end of the billing cycle to reconcile the account to the statement and make your payment. then add your other cards so you're no longer doing it the old way.

MauryJ

Jacobs - thanks for that suggestion. I remember hearing about this before, but it was confusing to me. That was explained very well. I've thought about setting up credit cards in Quicken. I have an LLC with a card that has very few charges - maybe 10 a year at most, and it might make it more useful for accounting purposes.

For my personal use, of course I've been doing it this way since 1995, so I don't think cards were downloadable then. But the reason I do it is because of the categories. I don't care much about payees because I'd rather know what I'm spending my money on rather than who with. I do occasionally look at that, and it's interesting, but it doesn't affect my spending decisions. I never log into my credit cards - so I'd have to create logins since I have no user names or passwords for most of them, or it's been so long I'd have to reset it anyway. Most cards I use in my Apple Wallet only, so I don't carry them. I'd have to get them out and find their numbers and all the stuff you need to create an online presence.

I do need to go back and find a purchase on occasion - it's usually something significant, like a home improvement, or an appliance, etc. and I search the category to find those. "Home" has subs like "Maintenance," "Lawn & Garden," "Appliances," "Improvements," etc. So if I want to search for when I bought my lawnmower, I can probably just try "mower" and I probably wrote "lawn mower" in the memo, but if not, just searching "lawn" will bring up all the "Lawn & Garden" purchases and that generally works - I just look for the big ones. I just tried this and I see I bought my mower in May of '09. Or, "what did we give so and so's sister for her graduation?" so we can be in the ballpark with the sibling. That sort of thing.

Maybe this is a misperception, but a category like Auto might include subcategories for "Maintenance," "Fuel," "Insurance," "Loan," and "Tolls." So, I don't want 4 trips to the gas station, an oil change, and a toll pass reload to show up as 6 items when it would normally be 3 categories, or 5 trips to the grocery store as 5 transactions when it's just "Groceries," etc. Maybe I'm missing a nuance here? I mean, it sounds like work either way. But at the end of the day, top line numbers are the most useful, and sub categories are revealing in certain instances, but when I'm reconciling my checking, single instance payments are all that matters, not splits, categories, or payees. I realize, your helpful suggestion is not about any of that, but rather making my life easier.

jacobs

@MauryJ Some of this is a matter of personal preference for workflow — and yes, when you've been doing it a certain way for 30 years, it can be hard to rock the boat!

Yes, having credit card accounts in Quicken with individual transactions recorded is (or can be) more work than simply recording a single monthly payment with splits for every category. But you have to factor in how much time it takes you to review your monthly credit card statement to add up the amounts for each category (e.g. 5 trips to the grocery store added together for the "Groceries" split line). And how often you get to the end and it doesn't add up and you need to review your combinations to see which transaction was not included or where you made a math error. (I've watched my parents enter their credit card this way and spend more time getting it straight than I do entering all my transactions manually!)

Of course, if you connect your credit cards to download transactions, you can significantly reduce the time involved, but there are many people (like me) who enter the transactions manually. Since a lot of my purchases are at repeat Payees, and quicken will supply the category I've used previously, I find I can enter a lot of transactions pretty quickly. And to be clear, I'm not suggesting everyone should do it this way; I'm just describing what works for me.

Doing it your way, let's say you go to Home Depot and buy a lawn mower, fertilizer and cleaning supplies; you need to separate that one charge into your monthly tallies for the three different categories involved. If you make a math error — say with apportioning the sales tax — it can take time to review your work and get it correct. But if you're recording transactions in a credit card account register, it's a simple single transaction with three split lines, and not much place to make an error.

You gave several examples I use myself, such as when I got my lawn mower, or when I replaced the hot water heater. But with individual transactions, there's more gradual detail. For your "what did we give so and so's sister for her graduation?" you need to remember what month and year you gave a gift, and then hope there were no other gifts that month, because you can't identify who you gave the gift to without separate transactions. (If you wrote a check, then you've got that detail.) I like to be able to answer questions such as "when did we first go to that restaurant" or "have we ever stayed at XYZ hotel" or "did I buy a service contract on that purchase?". Also, with individual transactions, I can record more detail in my Memo field. So for magazine or online service subscriptions, the Payee is the name of the subscription provider and in the Memo field I record the date it expires. If you ever share costs with/for someone (restaurant, tickets, travel), recording individual transactions with splits can make it quick and easy to settle up who owes whom after the fact.

But I get it: if your methodology provides enough detail for your needs, it may not be worth it to you to record the individual transactions.

when I'm reconciling my checking, single instance payments are all that matters, not splits, categories, or payees

Just to be clear, when you reconcile an account (checking or credit card), you're just reconciling the transactions in Quicken versus your bank/credit card statement, and not looking at splits or categories. My checking account reconciliation takes about 2 minutes a month, and credit cards, with more transactions, only slightly longer (unless I find I've missed entering a transaction along the way). So your 4 trips to a gas station would be four charges on the credit card statement, and four transactions in Quicken; whether you split several of those transactions into more than one category of expense doesn't come into play doing a reconciliation.

So going back to your original comment above about frustration trying to reconcile a list of transactions to find the discrepancy between your Quicken account and your bank statement, you shouldn't run into such problems if you're Quicken register is a one-for-one mirror of the transactions on your banks statement.

MauryJ

OK. So now I'm a little confused. I've never seen these screens in Windows, much less Mac. I rarely reconcile, so I'm almost always current except in a one off scenario. I suspect the reason I'm off right now is because somehow Quicken started automatically adding the decimal on entry, so a $297 charge would get recorded as $2.97. Decades of muscle memory are hard to overcome, so I finally changed it back, but now I'm convinced somewhere down the line between October and now there's a bad transaction I didn't catch, or a split in a transaction which would be even harder to find.

I don't want 5 gas transactions in my check register. I guess you are referring to the credit card register? So then I run a spending category report and that would include all the cards and checking? Or a spending dashboard shows a summary of categories from all those accounts (credit cards, checking)? Because if I'm going to the trouble of setting up 5-6 cards from scratch, I need to set up web relationships with 4 of them first. Do credit cards show up in the sidebar under their own section so I can just collapse it? I would normally not want to lengthen my sidebar any more than it already is. This is all very educational, but if Quicken would just let me see my top line transactions out of checking, none of this would be on my radar