It appears that reports in Quicken 2019 automatically ignore categories with no activity or zero Val

bweight5

Jim_Harman

Sorry, I don't think there is any way to force Quicken to include the categories with zeros.

I haven't tried this, but hokey way of doing it might be to create a fake account with an expense of $0.0001 in each category. You would only include that account in reports whare you want all the categories to show.

Or you could export the budget report to Excel and manipulate the data there.

bweight5

It appears that reports in Quicken 2019 automatically ignore categories with no activity or zero Value when it generates a spending or income report.  I can’t find a way to have it show the the zero categories so that the reports across a time spectrum are compatible.  How do I force Quicken to use my complete category list, regardless of activity

Jim_Harman

If you use the comparison reports such as Income and Expense by Category and set the Interval as desired, you will see all the Categories that are nonzero over the whole time period of the report, with a column for each interval.

Is that what you are looking for?

bweight5

Sorry I wasn't clear, Jim - I need all the categories both zero and non-zero in my Budgeting report.  It include the nonzero ones just fine, but ignores the categories which are zero during the term  of the report.

Jim_Harman

Sorry, I don't think there is any way to force Quicken to include the categories with zeros.

I haven't tried this, but hokey way of doing it might be to create a fake account with an expense of $0.0001 in each category. You would only include that account in reports whare you want all the categories to show.

Or you could export the budget report to Excel and manipulate the data there.

bweight5

I think you are right, and it is just the kind of thing that should be avoidable.  Is this forum monitored by any of the experts from quicken???

NotACPA

"Is this forum monitored by any of the experts from quicken??? "

That would be the SuperUsers ... and the Quicken employees whose ID here starts with the word "Quicken".  Such as "Quicken Sarah", "Quicken Harold", or the boss, "Quicken Kathryn".

smayer97

"...experts from quicken???"

Just to be clear, SUs are not "from" Quicken, just volunteers recognized to be very helpful.

bweight5

smayer97 said:

"...experts from quicken???"

Just to be clear, SUs are not "from" Quicken, just volunteers recognized to be very helpful.

Would any of these SU's care to investigate my issue - Surely this is not the first time someone has questioned the apparent inability to generate reports with consistent categories

Jim_Harman

I did investigate your issue and I agree that Quicken reports do not show categories that are zero for the entire period of the report.

I have been following this forum for several years and I don't think anyone else has requested a change in this area.

I gave you a work-around: Enter a transaction of less than one cent for the categories that are otherwise zero. I just verified that this indeed does force the category to display.

I also suggested that you could export the report to Excel and manipulate the data there if you want.

Here is a question for you: If your problem is that you want to be able to run reports at different times and have tham all show the same list of categories even if some of them are zero, how would you handle the situation where a user has added or removed categories over time?

bweight5

Jim - Thanks for all of your input and help -  If I am the only (or one of the few) who find this a problem, I certainly agree that it doesn't have  a high priority.  Your suggested work around will do the trick for me.  I have also found that if transaction with zero value is in the account - that category will be reported and I can live with that.

I am not a programmer and sometimes not too logical, but it seems to me that if a category is removed, previous transactions in that category (almost) have to to be recategorized.  If a new category is added, transactions in that category would be reported the first time that category is used.  Earlier lists of transactions, would be modified and show zero.  I'm sure there are issues with any scheme - Again, my thanks for your interest and help.

Bob

Jim_Harman

Even better that zero value transactions are sufficient to get a category included!