Tips and tricks using Quicken Savings Goals

Valderi

Is there a category in the Community where we can share our tips and tricks using Quicken? I think it will be helpful to share our little tricks with savings goals and tags and so on.

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NotACPA

YEP, just post them anywhere here.  But, I'd suggest that you post them one at a time, in order to increase visibility of each.

Valderi

Ok. I start with one tip about "Saving Goals". I name them with a star and a space like "* Immatriculation" or "* gifts". This will help in two ways. First, you immediately know that you are transferring money between a bank account and a saving goals. 

Then all your saving goals will be grouped together as their names start with a star and thereafter they will be listed alphabetically.

If you have saving goals linked with two accounts, you name those linked with account "A" with one star and those linked with account "B" with two stars.

Valderi

Another tip with the saving goals: all my saving goals are linked to my saving account. When I want to withdraw money from a saving goal, I transfer it into the same account and then I move the money from the savings account to my cheque account, for example. It is important to return the money in the same account from where it comes from, otherwise, Quicken is going to be mixed up.

Valderi

Does anyone have any other tips concerning the saving goals?

Valderi

Another tip: I have a saving account where all of my savings goal are taken. I keep the balance of my saving account at zero because every dollar is transfered to a saving account.
If I right-click over my saving account and I check "Show savings goal transactions in register and reports", the balance will be "Zero". If I uncheck, the balance will be the same as the balance in my saving account at my bank.

Valderi

By making savings goal, you end up with a lot of money that will bring in interests which are taxable. That's why I opened two tax-free savings accounts, One for me and one for my wife. Each month, I transfer an amount of money from my saving account to those tax-free saving accounts. Doing so, I get a negative balance in my Quicken saving account.
I've created a customized report from "Net Worth & Balances - Account balances summary". I unchecked every accounts but the two tax-free savings accounts and my saving account. In the display, I check "exclude savings goal". The total will be the same as be sum of your savings goal.

Valderi

Another idea: I created as many savings accounts as I have cards with points to track. I edited each account and entered the number of points per dollar spent (so I don't forget how to calculate them).

All these accounts are named with the code  "PTS " before the name like  "PTS-Visa" or "PTS-Air Miles"

Subsequently, I selected the option  "keep this account separated " in the tab  "display".

Thus, all accounts  "PTS " are grouped together and the sums of money are not included in the total of my other accounts.

Periodically, I register a transaction to update my balance in each account by selecting the same account in the categories. So these amounts of money are not included in my budget.

I stayed over to see how much money I have in these accounts.

It would be interesting if Quicken inserts an option to compile our cards with points like air miles, Visa, etc.