Exclude Zero Account Balances from Reports

steveweaver48

When preparing my Net Worth Report, I would like to exclude all accounts that have a zero account balance. How can this be accomplished without making each account inactive? I am using Quicked 2019.

Jim_Harman

One way is to click on the gear at the top right of the report, click on the Accounts tab, and de-select any accounts you do not want to include in the report.

If you have a lot of zero-balance accounts, you can click on Clear All and just select the active ones. 

Be aware however that if you set up the report to show your net worth over time and you exclude formerly active accounts, you will distort your past net worth because those accounts will be excluded for the whole reporting period.

steveweaver48

Thank you Jim for your response. My concern with this approach is exactly as you stated, which I'd like to avoid. It seems to me there should be a way to exclude any accounts that have a zero account, similar to what other software developers have in place.

Jim_Harman

Some Quicken reports do exclude zero values but people complain when this month's report has different rows from last months so it is hard to say exactly how it should work.

Jim_Harman

To exclude certain accounts from the reports by default, you can mark them "Separate". You can include them by clicking "Show hidden accounts" in the report customization and selecting them.

You can remove the Separate designation any time you want.

steveweaver48

Hi Jim, Thanks again for your thoughts regarding this issue. One way to address " the month's report with different rows from last months " would be to base the algorithm on year-to-date values rather than month-end values. I'm sure there are other ways as well.

Jim_Harman

That would work for some cases, but not for example for this user
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7857566/export-reports-showing-0-categories

who has the opposite problem from you and wants to be able to make the Spending by Category report show zero-amount categories.

I am not saying this could not be done with a customization option, just that it would need to be carefully thought out and it would be difficult or impossible to please everyone.