How to force Deposits to be positive amounts

ken deemer

When I enter a DEPOSIT transaction in my check register, it always defaults to a negative amount. I need to edit the amount cell to change it. Surely Quicken is smart enough to realize that a deposit is a positive amount.

jacobs

How does Quicken know what you're entering is a deposit? If you assign a revenue category before entering the amount, Quicken assumes the number you enter in the Amount field is positive; if you use an expense category, Quicken assumes the value should be negative.

But the other way to avoid this is to use two columns for money in and out instead of the single, signed Amount column. So for a checking account, you'd click on the Columns icon in the bottom toolbar, uncheck Amount, and check Payment and Deposit. This takes up more space for two columns, but you now have a column for your deposits and a separate column for your payments. (The columns have different names depending on the type of account; in a credit card account it's Charge and Payment, in a loan or debt account, it's Increase and Decrease, etc.) I prefer working this way, because I never get my transactions signed incorrectly.

jacobs

How does Quicken know what you're entering is a deposit? If you assign a revenue category before entering the amount, Quicken assumes the number you enter in the Amount field is positive; if you use an expense category, Quicken assumes the value should be negative.

But the other way to avoid this is to use two columns for money in and out instead of the single, signed Amount column. So for a checking account, you'd click on the Columns icon in the bottom toolbar, uncheck Amount, and check Payment and Deposit. This takes up more space for two columns, but you now have a column for your deposits and a separate column for your payments. (The columns have different names depending on the type of account; in a credit card account it's Charge and Payment, in a loan or debt account, it's Increase and Decrease, etc.) I prefer working this way, because I never get my transactions signed incorrectly.

John_in_NC

You can create/enter anything you want into the (optional) Action column (Deposit, ATM, EFT, etc.), and as you found, Quicken won't decipher if this is a cash inflow/outflow. It will do that based on the Category being setup as income or expense when entering a new (unique) payee.

Older versions of QMac will base the sign of the Amount (and other fields) via QuickFill of the last used transaction for that payee. The latest version of Quicken (5.14) will use Payee information and (memorized) QuickFill rules to populate the Amount field. You can alter/edit rules if needed in the Payee list. The Payee/Category is what will determine the default sign.