Add ability to "lock" categories

Rocket J Squirrel

I have some top-level categories with several subcategories each. I never want to use the top-level categories themselves; I always want the detail provided by the subcategories.

Examples, I have category Medical, but I always want to use subcategories like Medical:Doctor or Medical:Prescriptions, etc.

Suggestion: allow categories to be "locked" to prevent them from being accidentally used.

(I originally thought to lock only top-level categories, but with multiple levels, a user might want to lock a subcategory that itself has subcategories.)

bmciance

I agree. I never want to use any category other than the lowest level in the hierarchy. 

eqpu

Very useful feature. I also do this but manually by re categorizing such transactions by viewing the reports. Ability to lock category will be very useful indeed.

Chris_QPW

It seems to me that if they were to give the ability to hide the top category without hiding the sub categories it might accomplish the same thing without changing the settings UI and be less "invasive" than say a popup dialog that tells you you can't use a given category.

mjrudi

Agree. A "Total Category" should not include transactions. It should be the sum of its subcategories

Quicken SangeethaS

Hi all

Wanted to post an update on this thread. We reviewed this requirement, reached out to users and below is what / how we can address. 

• We can give you an option to lock categories.
• If you try to use a locked category in a transaction (while editing or while entering a new transaction) we can show you a message that the category is locked and prevent you from using it.
• Transactions that are auto categorized as part of transaction download from the FI, will have locked categories. Alternatively we can leave those transactions as 'uncategorized'.
• Memorized payee when used will retain the category that is on the payee, even if it's a locked category.

This is the least intrusive, quick solution that we can implement at this time to achieve this requirement. If the above doesn't address your need, we will have to leave this in the backlog to revisit again later.

Please let us know if you would like us to proceed as above or leave it as it is.

Thanks
Sangeetha

NotACPA

@Quicken SangeethaS  Those options look pretty good to me.

UKR

Same here. Those options look good.
Maybe there's a way to do a one-time conversion, a prompt to the user to review and fix categories as a locked category is encountered.

Chris_QPW

@Quicken SangeethaS

Well this statement is confusing to me:

• Transactions that are auto categorized as part of transaction download from the FI, will have locked categories. Alternatively we can leave those transactions as 'uncategorized'.

What is confusing is that it sounds like you are still asking for opinions on this.  And as such a yes/no to all of the rules above doesn't seem to answer this question.

Or maybe I'm reading this wrong and there is an option for the users to decide what they like?

Quicken SangeethaS

Thank you for your feedback. On the 'auto categorization' bullet, I would like to know what you prefer so that we can implement it that way. We can either mark them uncategorized or leave them with the locked category for you to go back and fix later if you like. Thoughts?

Quicken Jeff

To be very clear on what SangeethaS mentioned, based on the other discussion we were leaning to this behavior on downloaded transactions:

1. If the downloaded transaction has a payee with a Memorized Payee rule, we will use that memorized rule even if the category in the rule is locked (i.e. it is up to you to make sure your rules have the categories you want)
2. If the downloaded transactions do NOT have a payee with a Memorized Payee rule AND the transaction is then Autocatgorized AND the auto-category is be a locked category, then we would not use the locked category and leave the transacttion uncategorized. 

Does the make sense?

The alternative would just allow the auto-categorization engine to use the locked category (like #1 above) and then you could just change it and/or create a memorized payee to handle that payee in the future.

Thanks.

Chris_QPW

Personally I don't have a preference, I just wanted to make sure people understand that they are being asked to give their opinions on this, not just "yes or no".

As a side note the reason I don't have an opinion on this is because I don't see me ever using the feature.  Its just not something that comes up for me.

Rocket J Squirrel

As the OP of this idea, it is starting to feel a little too complicated. I admit when I proposed it I hadn't thought it all the way through to auto-categorized downloads.

IMHO, this would be a convenience feature because a disciplined user could self-enforce it without any code changes. If it involves a deep dive into code which might be considered fragile, or requires touching many code modules, or requires deep cognition on the user's part to comprehend, it might not be worth the effort.

Quicken Jeff

Rocket J Squirrel, speaking just for yourself on the auto-categorize question: which would you prefer? 

A:  Just auto-categorize - let the customer fix/set rules

B: Leave it uncategorized if the automatic category is a locked category.

C: No strong preference

And to your point, the solution we can implement will be influenced by effort, etc. 

Thanks again for the feedback.

q_lurker

I would be included to leave it as it is.  Leave it up to the disciplined user to self-manage.  I agree that this looks more complicated than initially expected.  

In particular, the implementation is saying -- The category is locked and can't accept transactions --- except in these cases we will use the category ... .  (Is there a user override case exception?)  That tends to confuse users and thus I would vote for the status quo. 

But I am also in Chris's camp.  I probably would not use the feature and I am OK with my own self management.      

Rocket J Squirrel

Quicken Jeff said:

Rocket J Squirrel, speaking just for yourself on the auto-categorize question: which would you prefer? 

A:  Just auto-categorize - let the customer fix/set rules

B: Leave it uncategorized if the automatic category is a locked category.

C: No strong preference

And to your point, the solution we can implement will be influenced by effort, etc. 

Thanks again for the feedback.

I think I'd choose A. As in "the category is locked for future transactions but not for existing memorized transactions."