How do I categorize a transfer to an outside account?

dgoudy

We transfer money to our children to their bank accounts and vice versa for different reasons. For example, we have a family phone plan, which we pay and they pay their portion to us. How do I categorize the transfer? I am new to Quicken and have searched but I have been unable to find the solution. We also transfer money to them for various reasons.

I thought maybe setting up an account for each of them would work, but it only increases my worth and that is not accurate. My only choices for a Category are accounts. I know I am missing something but not sure what it is. 

Thanks in advance for your help.

NotACPA

If the "other" account isn't recorded in your Q data file ... it isn't (at least according to Q) a "transfer".  It would be an expense.  Any reimbursement from them should be recorded to the same expense category ... to net out.

dgoudy

The problem is when I go to update the category, it only allows me to choose an 'account' either a credit card account that I have added or one of my bank accounts. I would love to give each of the kids a category but it will not allow me to choose those for this payee (transfer 'child name')

dgoudy

Although I was just playing around with it and renamed one of the transfers (a deposit) to 'childs name' and gave it the category I wanted. I was not sure if I could do this without screwing something up.

However, I am not sure what to do with the transfers to them.

Rocket J Squirrel

If you have entered Transfer (shows as TXFR) in the Check# field of a transaction, your categories are limited to accounts. Remove the TXFR and you'll see all available categories.

You can even add a new string to the list of Check# items. You could add KIDS, for example. It won't have any effect in Quicken, but it will be visible to your eyes.

dgoudy

awesome, thank you! I will give this a try.

splasher

You could create a cash account, called kid-bills for example.  When the kids give you money to pay a bill, you would make a deposit into this account using the account's name as the category, [kid-bills] (internal transfer which is not counted as income) and Tag = kid's name. 

When you pay the telephone bill, make it a split, with the gross amount being the complete bill and the split lines being as follows:

1. Your part of the bill categorized as Utility:Telephone (or whatever you use)
2. The kid's part of the bill categorized as a transfer from the cash account (Category = [kid-bills] ) with a Tag of the kid's name
3. Extra kid lines if necessary

The reason for the tags is that you can track if which kid (if more than one) still owes you money, you might pay before being paid putting the cash account into a negative balance.

Using this schema, reports will only show how much you are spending on phones without the kid's portion, the incoming funds are not considered income and will not affect your networth since the Ins should equal the Outs all in one account which you can exclude from the networth report.

You could make a test file with just two accounts (both could be cash) to test this out and if it works for you, then make the changes in your regular data file.

dgoudy

I will definitely give these a try today - thanks everyone!