Everything else category

JonnyRando

I'm having an issue with the "Everything Else" category of the Planning --> Budgets Screen.

So I have Credit Card Payment and Transfers: To Savings show up and I want them excluded.

I've gone into the manage budget categories and unselected both. Transfers: To Savings is a sub category of Transfers. The parents nor any sub category are selected, but it keeps showing in the Everything else area at the bottom of the screen.

Same thing with the Credit Card Payment. It was a sub category of Bills and I didn't have it selected (nor the parent checkbox). I also edited the sub category and make it into a main category - same thing, still shows at the bottom.

Read the other posts to not check the parent check box and select the sub-categories that I only want to track, but am not able to get these to stay hidden.

Ideas?

GeoffG

If you have a category named Credit Card Payment, that is your problem. Payments to credit cards is a transfer of funds from checking to credit cards and is represented in the register for category in [ ] brackets. So [Chase checking] txfr to [Citicards] as an example.

JonnyRando

Negative.

I do all my payments and transfers manually, so there are no brackets. I have everything for auto transfers + payments disabled - there are no transactions like that listed. Disabled those months ago.

There are only a handful of sub categories that are still showing in the everything else bucket on the planning screen.

GeoffG

I believe you missed the point. Transfers are neither manual or automatic, they are an action you need to perform. Missing brackets in a transfer is an indication that your income and expenses are incorrect.

https://www.quicken.com/support/how-do-i-categorize-transfer-quicken-windows

JonnyRando

Not trying to start an argument.

>>Quicken records a transfer in your "transfer from" account register and creates a parallel transaction in the "transfer to" account.
This doesn't happen. I'm handling ALL transactions manually. Credit Card Payment is listed under bills. My net worth is the same - all accounts balance out to the penny, but it's simply not a programmed automatic transfer in this case.

>>(Instead of an income or expense category, the name of the account you're moving the money to or from appears in the Category field in the register.)
This also doesn't happen, because I'm doing everything manually. Eons ago when I first started Quicken yes, but it's been at least 6 months since I've been doing it manually. I prefer doing it manually.

volvogirl

Entering transactions manually doesn't matter or factor into it.  How are you entering the credit card transactions?

Just in case you are doing it the wrong way,

The proper way is to set up a credit card ACCOUNT and enter the charges into it when the purchase is made and assigning it to a category. Then when you pay the bill you TRANSFER the payment from your checking account to the credit card account. Then when you download the payment from the bank you match it to the one you already entered.

When you enter the payment in your checking account you put the credit card account name in for the category using square brackets around the name to indicate it is a transfer...like this… [credit card] or newer versions have a Transfer column.

I used to do it the wrong way for years!  Then I wised up and now enter them properly. I would split my credit card payment into all the categories on one transaction in my checking account. And since I always pay more than the bill I would need to figure the difference and put it to another category.  But then I needed to have them entered on the date the charges actually happened. So I finally set up a credit card account. It makes it much easier to enter and balance!

JonnyRando

I have a credit card account that has points, so I pretty much buy everything with that. At the end of the day, I enter in my receipts and put the transactions into Quicken (that are categorized) in the CC account.

I then pay the total each day from my checking account. Both accounts (checking and CC) balance out - I'm just doing that part manually. Like GeoffG said, my net worth doesn't changed - which is exactly why I don't want to see CC payments in the "Everything Else" bucket. I don't have any CC debt, it's just a means to collect points.

Having said that, if the only way to get them not to show is to do payments\transfers with [ ]s, I'll do it. That seems like a pain (ironically), because I like to do everything manual on both sides.

In my opinion, another possible option *would be to add a "Hide everything else" from the budget option* so that it's not displayed or taken into account with the budgeting. It's a great feature to check now and then, but can be an annoyance sometimes with stuff like this.

Snowman

There is a way NOT to have the everything else category show up. This is how:

First backup you data file so you have it to fall back on.

Click the Planning Tab and click the Manage Budget Categories button.  A window titles "Select Categories To Budget" should open.  For those categories that DO NOT have subcategories select those categories.

IF a category has subcategory(s) then you must do the following.  I have attached a screen shot to show an example.  I have a main category HOMES.  There are sub-categories for each home and for each home there are more subcategories. 

For EACH subcategory deselect the top category, in my example Home-WP.  Then for the main category that has subcategories deselect those as well.  In the example those are Insurance, Maint, Mortgage.  In the subcategories select those categories that you want but DESELECT all categories labeled "Other".  This "Other" category can cause all sorts of issues. It appeared a couple of versions ago and in my opinion is a kludge to make things work.

If you need a catch all category create one, for example I might create a Maint-Misc category under Maint instead of using the Other category.

One final thing that you need to do to get this to work, DO NOT categorize any transaction to a category that has subcategories.  In my example those would be Home-WP, Insurance, Maint, and Mortgage.

JonnyRando

For the sake of clarity, I'm adding 3 screenshots to prove my point. I'm not able to add them inline because the typical toolbar in the FAQ isn't listed for me. Tried multiple different browsers with the same issue. Just emotes for me.

Anways...

My categories are setup like yours, yet they still show up in the everything else area despite the parent category not being checked. The two I have listed also are not a grouped parent to other categories.

What is wrong with this setup? I don't want Bills & Utilities: Credit Card Payment and Transfers: To Savings to show. Or the ability to not include the "everything else" which is throwing off the budget I did set. That's all I want.

>>One final thing that you need to do to get this to work, DO NOT categorize any transaction to a category that has subcategories. In my example those would be Home-WP, Insurance, Maint, and Mortgage.
Understood. I went through all accounts, sorted by category and verified no transactions were categorized using the parent category.

Snowman

This happens because of the way you have your category structure set up.  You have listed under everything else you have a "Bills & Utilities:Credit Card Payments"  There is no need for any category of this natures.

When you enter a credit card charge that should go into the appropriate account set up as a credit card account.  When you enter the charge you assign the proper category.  When you pay a credit card bill it should be a TXFR type from a funding account either a checking or savings account. 

Also under everything else you have "Health & Fitness:Doctor".  This will cause you all types of issues.  You should have a Medical Expense category pointed to the tax line for Medical Deductions.

Finally Transfer To Savings and Transfer From Savings.  These are also unnecessary.  You should have a category listed as Savings Expense (to cover transfers to Savings) and a category for Savings Income (to cover transfers from savings),

When I do a report I EXCLUDE all transfers because they just cancel each other out.

Until you redo you categories you will have this problem

JonnyRando

> @Snowman said:
> When you enter a credit card charge that should go into the appropriate account set up as a credit card account.  When you enter the charge you assign the proper category.  When you pay a credit card bill it should be a TXFR type from a funding account either a checking or savings account. 
Got it. Will do transfer\payments as you have specified and give that a go for this month.

> Also under everything else you have "Health & Fitness:Doctor".  This will cause you all types of issues.  You should have a Medical Expense category pointed to the tax line for Medical Deductions.
I'm confused on this part. Could you post a screenshot so I can see how you have your doc\medical expenses listed? Thanks for the assist.

Snowman

I have a main expense category called Medical.  Under that I have subcategories for my wife, my son, and I plus one for Medical Insurance and another for Reimbursements.  All of these categories point to the tax line item :Schedule A:Medicine and Drugs.

The insurance subcategory will used if you have a private insurance (as I do).  If you insurance is paid by a company you will not need this unless your employer pays only part of the total.  Then the remaining amount would go here.

If you want to keep track of how much goes to what doctor you can use the tag field and enter the Dr.'s name. 

Reimbursements are monies that are sent from your insurance company for covered items that you may have paid directly for.  Let's say you go to the eye doctor and paid $110 but you should have only paid $100.  The eye doctor may send you a check for the $10.  You would categorize the into the subcategory that was set up for you.  Now if you got a reimbursement check directly from your insurance company that would go in the subcategory Reimbursements.

The Schedule A will be correctly calculated to take you medical costs and deduct any reimbursement.