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New category invented on my reports?

Don Awalt

I have noticed an odd thing - if I run the standard Spending/Itemized category report or the Spending/Spending by category report, I have two new categories that show up! I have two categories I use - Charitable donations and Healthcare Expenses. In both cases, what shows up now, and never did before, is maybe one transaction shows up under Charitable donations in the YTD report, and every other transactions is listed as a sub category "Other Charitable Donations". A similar thing for Healthcare expenses - in this case no transactions are under Healthcare Expenses, everything is categorized under a sub category "Other Healthcare expenses." In the case of Charitable donations, there are no tru sub categories, so it looks like:

Charitable Donations
Other Charitable Donations

for Healthcare it is:

Healthcare Expenses
Other Healthcare Expenses
Healthcare Premiums (a legit sub-category I created)

I have gone into Tools/Category List and verified these "Other..." sub categories do not exist. I have double clicked into individual transactions from the report to verify the category entry is correct for the transaction.

Note these "Other" categories do NOT show up on the Tax/Schedule A Itemized Deductions report, which show Charitable Donations and Healthcare expenses properly with no sub categories. I see now customization of the report that would affect this behavior. It also does not happen for other tax-related expense categories.

This seems like a bug, where is this coming from? Thanks!

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Accepted answers

smayer97

If you have a subcategory and assign transactions to that subcategory within a report period, anything that is not assigned a subcategory but instead is assigned to the parent category shows up as Other on a report. If you want to get rid of Other, you have to assign each transaction with only a parent category to a subcategory.

All comments

smayer97

Don Awalt

Thank you @smayer97 for the reply. In the case of Charitable Donations, there are no sub categories. Yet running a report like Itemized Categories shows one transaction with a category "Charitable Donations" under Charitable Donations line item on the report, and every other transaction that all have category as "Charitable Donations" show on the report under a sub category "Other Charitable Donations" that does not exist! "Charitable Donations" is also not a sub category of anything, and I verified all this in the Category list. This is not what you are talking about is it?

(PS - this behavior has changed - I have not run the report for probably several months, but I have not added/changed/deleted categories in years).

Bob_L

Have you set up a budget? Checking the parent category will create the “other” categories.

Don Awalt

No budget. And going to Tools/Category List does not show the "Other" category names either.

volvogirl

There is no category called "Other". That is just where they lump all the ones that are not assigned a category or subcatagory. Check each transaction in Other and see what it is cateorgized to and change it to the parent category and make sure there are no subcategories listed under Charitable Donations.

UKR

When looking at the Category List, please make sure that "Show hidden categories", a checkbox at the bottom of the view has a checkmark.
You might have a hidden "Charitable ..." subcategory. If that is the case, un-hide it.

Don Awalt

@volvogirl - thanks, as I stated all the transactions are categorized as "Charitable Donations". And this is not a "Parent category", there are no sub categories for Charitable Donations.

@UKR, thank you for your reply, hidden categories checked, there are no sub categories, there are not categories "Other Charitable Donations" either as a sub category or a top level category on its own. I searched for "Other" and "Charitable" to see what it came up with - nothing.

All - this is just a SINGLE, STANDALONE category that I have used in a series of transactions. When I run the standard reports, these transactions re erroneously lumped into "Other Charitable Donations" as a sub category that does not exist.

Wouldn't you say this is an error or bug of some sort, especially since I have not added/changed/deleted categories in years?

volvogirl

Might need to see a screen shot of one of those transactions showing the category on it and maybe the report and maybe the category list of that section.

smayer97

Don Awalt said:

@volvogirl - thanks, as I stated all the transactions are categorized as "Charitable Donations". And this is not a "Parent category", there are no sub categories for Charitable Donations.

@UKR, thank you for your reply, hidden categories checked, there are no sub categories, there are not categories "Other Charitable Donations" either as a sub category or a top level category on its own. I searched for "Other" and "Charitable" to see what it came up with - nothing.

All - this is just a SINGLE, STANDALONE category that I have used in a series of transactions. When I run the standard reports, these transactions re erroneously lumped into "Other Charitable Donations" as a sub category that does not exist.

Wouldn't you say this is an error or bug of some sort, especially since I have not added/changed/deleted categories in years?

Any top level category, whether it has sub-categories or not is a Parent category. ANy OTHER category is not a saved or created category...it is a catch all for anything that is assigned to the parent category.

Are the amounts for Other = to the Parent category? If so, then at least there are not "stray" amounts. If not, that seems like a data problem. Have you tried a Validate on your data file (always make sure you have good backup before you try this).