register reports, searching for keyword in categories and subcategories

KJTatu

I just upgraded from Quicken 2010 (windows) to 2018 (Version: R24.11) for Windows.

I used to be able to perform a Register Report for one a particular register/acct.

Old Quicken: I would click on Register Report, Customize it, pick my date range, and select my account. Under the "Categories" tab, I would type the keyword "..auto.." under the "Matching" box and in the Category box.

A report would come up and ANY time Quicken found the word "auto" in a category or subcategory such as: 1) offexp-auto 2) auto:smith; or 3) just plain ol' "auto", everything would come up that had the word "auto" during the time period selected.

Now it appears to only show in the report the items that are listed as a CATEGORY only, but not as a SUBcategory that have the word "auto" in it.

Does my problem have something to do with the fact that Quicken will no longer search in the subcategories anymore?

I have been using Quicken since 2006. I work for a small law firm and we basically just use Quicken as a tracking tool for expenses for our office and individual clients.

I am NOT even close to be computer savvy, so I would appreciate it if you could use simple language/instructions when responding. I'm an old dog and these new tricks are very confusing!! LOL!

If anyone can point me to a Quicken manual or YouTube video, it would be much appreciated. The only issue that I am having now are using the reports.

Thank you in advance!!!

Jim_Harman

Try clicking on the Edit menu then pick Find and choose Category and Contains and then type auto and click on Find all.

You can sort the results by clicking on a column heading. Click again to reverse the order. You can also restrict the range by clicking oning the first item then scrolling to the last item you want and holding down the Shift key while you click on that.

So for example if you want all the transactions for categories that contain "auto" for last year staritng with January, you would click on the Date column header until the earliest dates are first, then click on the first 2019 entry then scroll to the last 2019 entry and shft-click on that. To print, click on the printer icon.

KJTatu

Hi Jim,

Thank you so much for the quick response.

I tried doing it as suggested, but it doesn't give a total. I would also need a total for each categeory/subcategory.

Are you saying that I can no longer perform a Register Report by searching the categories and subcategories?


Kim

Jim_Harman

Oddly, it appears that the reports do not support a "Category contains" search (technically called a filter).

When you customize a report and click on Payees, there is a Payee contains option. But when you click on Categories, there is a Category box at the right but it only selects main categories that begin with the letters you type.

It appears that if you must have Quicken produce a total at the bottom, you will have to go down your whole list of categories and subcategories and select the ones you want included in the report. Another option would be to export the results of the Find I desribed above to Excel and have Excel compute the total.

KJTatu

Wow! That is quite upsetting.

Thank you so much for your help!

UKR

Have you tried using the Search boxes in either the individual register or the Global Search box at the top of the Quicken window?

Global Search as well as Register Search searches in all fields of a transaction, not just Category, for the string that you type in.
After you're done searching and working with these transactions, click the "X" that now appears at the right edge of the Search box, to exit Search mode.

The above only works in banking registers. A similar "Find" function is available in investment account registers.

q_lurker

@KJTatu :  I think you have happened upon a bug, especially if it worked in 2010.

The .. prepended or appended to a filter string is supposed to be a leading or ending wildcard or match filter.  So per the help file info, you are using your "..auto.." filter correctly.  


As I try that with my QW2017 file and the Category string "..ins.." I get Insurance:Health and Insurance:Home, but not Auto:Insurance.  Similarly a search for "Auto" yields Automobile as if the search was "Auto.." rather than "=Auto" (incorrect in my opinion).  Search for "..mob.." yields nothing (incorrectly).  

While as Jim noted, the field is not labeled as "Category contains", the help file information certainly describes it as being based on 'contains or other matching criteria'.. 

My experience has been using those matching wildcards on the memo field.  

I suspect you may need to customize and save a report with your specific desired categories.  

KJTatu

I am not sure if I am responding to everyone's comments. If not, sorry.

Yes, I believe it is a bug. Unfortunately, I cannot use my memo field to search for some of the items which I need to. It will work for some, but not all.

While I was on with Quicken Chat, she had me make a new category (which I named "TEST") and then a subcategory of that (which I named "subcategory of Test") and the report was able to bring it up. Odd?????!!

So, it looks like I may need to recategorize my categories and subcategories. Which is unbelievable, because I have so many of them.

I will give that a try later today.

Thank you everyone!

Jim_Harman

Or you might want to consider using Tags as a way to add another "dimension" to your categories

KJTatu

Thank you! I will have to look into that. I've never used them before.

Thank you again.

Jim_Harman

Tags are particularly helpful if for example you want to track several categories by client or something like that.

KJTatu

Ok. =)