Reference Field information disappeared

Imaginebp

I created a reference column in my cash account, in which I had noted which accounts the cash used had come from. When I reopened Quicken, all of the reference information I had entered was simply gone... 1.) Why might this have happened? 2.) Is there a better way to enter these notes about the source the cash payments have come from? (between our business and personal accounts, not all of which are able to noted in Quicken because some are foreign banks, I need to be able to note which account paid what.)

RickO

Are you saying you enabled the Reference column in the register and entered data into it? That should not be possible. The Reference column in for info that comes in from a download only. It is not normally editable. It should remain solid blue and not changeable when editing a transaction. If this where you entered data, some screenshots of the editing would be really helpful to see how this happened.

On the other hand, perhaps you entered the info in the Memo/Notes column? That's a perfectly fine approach. If the entries disappeared, that definitely should not happen. Is there any chance you opened an earlier copy of the file from before the data was entered. If not, then contacting Quicken Support is your best bet so they can look at (a sanitized copy of) your actual file to see if it is corrupted.

Back to your original question: Are you showing the money coming into the cash account as a Transfer transaction from the source account to the cash account? If so, most people would consider this sufficient documentation of the money flow. The existence of the cash account kind of says that once the money moves there, you no longer care where it came from. If you do care, then you would/could show the spending directly in the source account without the intermediate cash account. 

BTW, just because a bank if foreign doesn't mean you can't track it in Quicken, albeit manually.

If you continue to want to notate source account when spending from the cash account, there are several possibilities:

1. The aforementioned Memo/Notes field (although it may get messy if combined with other notes you need to record).
2. The Action field. This can be anything you define and is not used by Quicken for anything else (that is useful). Actions cannot be used to filter/control reports.
3. The Tag field. Tags can also be anything you define and can be filtered for and used to set up various reports.

RickO

Are you saying you enabled the Reference column in the register and entered data into it? That should not be possible. The Reference column in for info that comes in from a download only. It is not normally editable. It should remain solid blue and not changeable when editing a transaction. If this where you entered data, some screenshots of the editing would be really helpful to see how this happened.

On the other hand, perhaps you entered the info in the Memo/Notes column? That's a perfectly fine approach. If the entries disappeared, that definitely should not happen. Is there any chance you opened an earlier copy of the file from before the data was entered. If not, then contacting Quicken Support is your best bet so they can look at (a sanitized copy of) your actual file to see if it is corrupted.

Back to your original question: Are you showing the money coming into the cash account as a Transfer transaction from the source account to the cash account? If so, most people would consider this sufficient documentation of the money flow. The existence of the cash account kind of says that once the money moves there, you no longer care where it came from. If you do care, then you would/could show the spending directly in the source account without the intermediate cash account. 

BTW, just because a bank if foreign doesn't mean you can't track it in Quicken, albeit manually.

If you continue to want to notate source account when spending from the cash account, there are several possibilities:

1. The aforementioned Memo/Notes field (although it may get messy if combined with other notes you need to record).
2. The Action field. This can be anything you define and is not used by Quicken for anything else (that is useful). Actions cannot be used to filter/control reports.
3. The Tag field. Tags can also be anything you define and can be filtered for and used to set up various reports.