Credit Card Payments and reporting

carpacheco

Hi, I dont understand how quicken reports my credit card payments. I have added my credit cards as separate accounts that I can download transactions to. However when I post a payment from my checking to each one I set the category as transfer as many suggest. The issue is that because is a transfer my Money In Money out report is inaccurate cause it does not include the transfers(payments) I made to the credit cards. It only reports them as Other transactions but it does not count them as money OUT. What am I missing? 

jacobs

@carpacheco The reports in Quicken are in a somewhat confusing state right now. The reports listed by name underneath "New Report" on the Reports menu are all the old reports which were originally developed for Quicken Essentials back in 2010-2011 and were brought forward when Essentials evolved into Quicken Mac 2015. There are a lot of limitations with those reports, so starting two years ago, the developers set out to build an all-new reporting engine. The results of that work are tucked away under "New Report", which looks simple but is actually the gateway to all the new reports. Eventually, once they finish adding functionality to the new reports, they will likely do away with the old reports.

So, that all said, I'd suggest you try building a report using the new reports engine. Click on Reports > New Report. Click on Transaction. Give it a name, like "Transactions This Month" and select Category from the drop-down menu. Click Create Report. Then click Customize. Set the Date Range to This Month.

This report will also not include transfers, but it is an accurate depiction of your income and expenses for the month. I don't know if that will help you, but there isn't a "Cash Flow Report" in Quicken Mac yet, and that' what it seems you want.

jacobs

When you record the individual credit card transactions, that is the actual spending. The payment of the credit card is simply a transfer of funds from an asset (your checking account) to a liability (your credit card account).  So while from a cash flow standpoint you're thinking of the payment of your credit card as your outflow of cash, Quicken is treating your credit card charges as the outflow. It's not entirely a satisfactory solution, but Quicken can't show both the individual charges and the credit card payment as money out, because that would double-count your credit card activity.

carpacheco

so my in and out report will not be correct unless I substract all transfers to the credit cars assuming no new transactions in each of them?

jacobs

Which report are you using in Quicken that you're referring to as your "in and out report"?

carpacheco

Sorry its called:
This Month shows all your transactions for the current month, for each account, in a single place. For each account, the report lists any income, any scheduled expenses, and any other expenses. The Other Expenses section of each account helps you understand where your discretionary dollars are going.

jacobs

@carpacheco The reports in Quicken are in a somewhat confusing state right now. The reports listed by name underneath "New Report" on the Reports menu are all the old reports which were originally developed for Quicken Essentials back in 2010-2011 and were brought forward when Essentials evolved into Quicken Mac 2015. There are a lot of limitations with those reports, so starting two years ago, the developers set out to build an all-new reporting engine. The results of that work are tucked away under "New Report", which looks simple but is actually the gateway to all the new reports. Eventually, once they finish adding functionality to the new reports, they will likely do away with the old reports.

So, that all said, I'd suggest you try building a report using the new reports engine. Click on Reports > New Report. Click on Transaction. Give it a name, like "Transactions This Month" and select Category from the drop-down menu. Click Create Report. Then click Customize. Set the Date Range to This Month.

This report will also not include transfers, but it is an accurate depiction of your income and expenses for the month. I don't know if that will help you, but there isn't a "Cash Flow Report" in Quicken Mac yet, and that' what it seems you want.

carpacheco

Thanks, I will try that. Quicken should really have a cash flow report.