Has anyone experienced this on reports? QMac

mta

Travel is an expense category and should appear in reports as such..here’s the problem..i received refunds/credits that totaled more than I spent thus creating a credit balance in the travel category..because there’s a positive balance in the travel category it appears in the income portion of the report inflating your income and that is incorrect. You should be decreasing your expenditures not inflating your income.......
Perhaps a bug?
Called tech support said I had to report the problem and post here

jacobs

@NotACPA Actually, this is a specific Quicken Mac issue. And I'd respectfully disagree from an accounting perspective as well: an expense category which has a negative balance is shown under expenses with a negative value on financial statements; it is not moved up to revenues. 

@mta I think the problem is that you're using the Category Summary report. This is an older report in Quicken that has some quirks, one of which is using the account balance rather than the category type to place an account under Money In or Money Out. my suggestion is to stop using the Category Summary report. It will be retired by the developers eventually, because it's successor has already been created.

Select "New Report" on the Reports menu. This single menu command is currently hiding all the power of the new reports engine the developers have been building over the past two years. Select Transaction, then Rows=Category. After the report is created, click Customize to set your date range or limit it to certain accounts or categories if you wish. On this report, you'l notice that it shows Income and Expense (Not money in and out), and a negative Expense will be listed under Expense with a negative balance -- as you'd expect. Much better.

mta

Thank you.......I totally agree.....will try your suggestion in the morning👍🤗

NotACPA

In that Travel category, when were the actual expenses?  When were the refunds/credits?  What period does the report cover?  Which report.

BECAUSE, if the refunds/credits were the only transactions (or the predominant dollar value during) the period of the report ... then yes you have a Credit balance in that time period for your Expense category.

And no, it's not a bug ... it's how accounting works.

mta

Category Report, 1/1/19-12/31/19....All transactions 2019 and I do not disagree with your second paragraph. The category shows a credit balance as it should. However...the placement of the travel category with the credit balance is incorrect. Technically it is money in but It is not income and should not be part of the Income portion of the report...and no, that is not correct accounting practice. Why would you overstate your income?
FYI. Quicken/ Quickbooks user since 1988 on both platforms...using Q Mac Premier edition currently

NotACPA

Sorry, but you're simply wrong. If an expense category has a credit balance it IS included in the income side.  Just as an Income category with a Negative balance would be on the expense side.

You have received, during the period of the report, more money that you call "Travel" than you've paid.  That's income.

And, look at the last line of my signature.

jacobs

@NotACPA Actually, this is a specific Quicken Mac issue. And I'd respectfully disagree from an accounting perspective as well: an expense category which has a negative balance is shown under expenses with a negative value on financial statements; it is not moved up to revenues. 

@mta I think the problem is that you're using the Category Summary report. This is an older report in Quicken that has some quirks, one of which is using the account balance rather than the category type to place an account under Money In or Money Out. my suggestion is to stop using the Category Summary report. It will be retired by the developers eventually, because it's successor has already been created.

Select "New Report" on the Reports menu. This single menu command is currently hiding all the power of the new reports engine the developers have been building over the past two years. Select Transaction, then Rows=Category. After the report is created, click Customize to set your date range or limit it to certain accounts or categories if you wish. On this report, you'l notice that it shows Income and Expense (Not money in and out), and a negative Expense will be listed under Expense with a negative balance -- as you'd expect. Much better.

mta

Thank you.......I totally agree.....will try your suggestion in the morning👍🤗

mta

Jacobs..... worked like a dream...thank you

jacobs

Great! 👍