Categorization of account types should be consistent (Checking vs. Cash accounts) (Q Mac)

CyborgOne

When generating a report, syncing to mobile, or otherwise viewing a large set of content from my datafile, each account type is categorized alongside accounts similar to it. These include defined categories such as Checking, Savings, Credit Card, Brokerage, Retirement, Property, Debt, etc.

However, there is one oddity which is not apparent: While "Checking" accounts are indeed a separate "Type" selection, all such accounts merely shown under the "Cash" heading in the accounts list in the desktop app. They are correctly identified as a type of "Checking" when creating them, or after being modified in the Account settings themselves, but all still appear under merely a category of "Cash" in the desktop.

This is not the case in exports, reports, or on Mobile - where they are correctly categorized separately as "Checking" accounts. See screenshots, comparing desktop and mobile. Similar behavior when exporting to a report, or similar: Checking accounts are separate from Cash accounts in all of these other instances.

Why the discrepancy with the display of these accounts on Desktop?

Quicken_Tyka

Hello all,

This Idea seems to have fallen stagnant and due to the Age of the request and lack of User Votes/Comments, will be archived within the next 7 business days.

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smayer97

Definitely UI oddity

jacobs

The left sidebar has main categories and sub-categories. For the main category of Banking, sub-categories include Cash, Savings and Credit Card. The Cash sub-group includes accounts with Types of Checking and Cash. The Savings sub-group includes accounts with Types of Savings and Money Market. Checking is not a separate sub-category in Quicken Mac; it's part of the Cash sub-group.

Clearly Quicken Mobile separates out Checking accounts to be a separate sub-group. I'm guessing that might be to be consistent with Quicken Windows? In any case, it's not that Quicken Mac is internally inconsistent, it's that Quicken Mac and Quicken Mobile treat checking account differently. I don't know that either one is "right", but certainly many new users are confused by checking accounts showing up under the Cash sub-group. (Why is a checking account under Cash, but savings accounts are not; both are completely liquid assets which are typically characterized in financial statements as "cash and cash equivalents".)

Breaking out Checking as its own sub-group under Banking -- e.g. Checking, Savings, Cash and Credit Cards -- would make more sense to more users, and would additionally be consistent with Quicken Mobile.

Chris_QPW

EDIT to include details on credit/liability and mark sections.

The "inconsistency" is with Quicken Mobile.  Quicken Mac is grouping the accounts in the same "default" way that Quicken Windows does it.  But there is an inconsistency between Quicken Mac and Quicken Windows that makes this "strange looking".

jacobs said:

I don't know that either one is "right", but certainly many new users are confused by checking accounts showing up under the Cash sub-group. (Why is a checking account under Cash, but savings accounts are not; both are completely liquid assets which are typically characterized in financial statements as "cash and cash equivalents".)

Here is how Quicken Windows does it:


You will notice that there is a separation line between the cash and savings account at the top, but not between the checking and cash account, and another between the savings accounts and the credit card accounts.  This is the "default" separation.

Note the separation line in the Investing section is between "Investing" and "Retirement".

Also notice that High Yield Savings is in the Investing section, where you would expect to find it in the "Savings" section.

So indeed the cash and checking are together, why?
And why is that one savings account in the investment section?

Because in fact there is more to with Quicken Windows.
The first thing to notice is that Quicken Windows doesn't give that group a name "Cash", it is just separated off.
It is this labeling of that section "Cash" that is inconsistent with Quicken Windows.

The account type doesn't determine where it is going to appear in this grouping, except for the default setting for the "Account Intent".

For any given account type they can have multiple "Account Intents".  Here is for a checking account type.


So that first group isn't "Cash" like it is labeled in Quicken Mac, it is "Spending".
Now that makes more sense of why a checking and a cash account are grouped together.

Note that when it comes to investment accounts, retirement accounts have no "Account Intent" they are always in the retirement section.  For regular brokerage accounts the choices are investment, and retirement.

For credit cards they are either Credit or Liability.

smayer97

Though the auto-grouping should be consistent across all products, I say give users complete freedom to group accounts at they see fit. Period.

This does necessarily mean getting rid of the labelling of accounts with a type.

Chris_QPW

smayer97 said:

This does necessarily mean getting rid of the labelling of accounts with a type.

By "type" are you talking about that "Cash" label on the Quicken Mac's Account bar?
If so, yes that has to go.

But if you are talking about the actual account type, that has to stay.
The account type is more than a "label".  As you can see with Quicken Windows the "grouping" can be more flexible, but it can't be just anything the user likes, and there has to be a "type".

The type is needed because clearly you have to treat an investment account, credit card account and other kinds of accounts "differently".

And the account intents reach farther than just the Account bar, it also controls some display aspects of the reports.
Whereas it you can take a savings account and display it in an investment report as cash as the security, you can't take an investment account and display it in a spending report.

smayer97

Agreed... keep account type Chequing, Savings, Credit Card, Brokerage, etc. Default groupings is arguably ok (for beginners) BUT allow users to remove or change as desired.

jacobs

@Chris_QPW  As a Mac-Only user, thanks for clarifying how things are handled in Quicken Windows. Of course, Quicken Mac doesn't have the whole "intent" paradigm, which affects lots of things from the account groupings to how transfer data shows up in reports and budgets. I actually like that the Mac sidebar has labels for subgroups, unlike the Windows version; I think the "Cash" label is the only one that's proven to be problematic. (The Mac version uses "Brokerage" as the label for the first sub-group under Investing, followed by "Retirement"; that doesn't seem to cause any confusion or unhappiness.)

@smayer97 Allowing users to make custom account groupings in the Quicken Mac sidebar is a separate long-standing Idea thread on this site (started by you!), which the developers have said they intend to do sometime in the future.  Of course, they said that two years ago, and so far, it hasn't ascended to the top of the development list… but we can hope they'll deliver on it at some point in the not too distant future. I suspect the consider this in the category of ease-of-use-/aesthetic improvements, which they generally seem to rank as a lower priorities than adding capabilities the program currently lacks. In any case, this thread could be considered a subset of that broad idea, I suppose -- but the question of the "Cash" sub-group label, and whether checking accounts should fall under Cash or have their own "Checking" sub-group still would come up with regard to Quicken's default groupings, even if users were then able to change it.

Chris_QPW

I think the important thing to note here is that the change should be to Quicken web and maybe mobile to make it consistent with the desktop not the other way around.

And a side note for maybe changing cash to spending or something.

BTW I think Quicken Windows doesn't have the labels just to save space.

CyborgOne

First off: Thanks to all who have taken the time to revive this discussion, and show that there is interest in resolving this oddity in the UI between different Quicken versions.

However, I would disagree with @Chris_QPW - although I greatly appreciate your insights into the Windows version (which I have no ability to utilize). I believe I agree with @jacobs and @smayer97, that it really seems the more-granular approach taken by the Mobile version, should be the one to emulate. If the desktop versions (both Windows & Mac) are already inconsistent with each other, as well as with Mobile, then why not pursue an update to both of them, to match the platform which more and more users are using as their primary interface?

Yes, the enhancement of allowing for _customizable_ groupings is wonderful - but unless/until that capability becomes possible, it seems that Quicken should try to at least ensure consistency between the existing platforms. There are a myriad of other "small" changes which impact users' ability to easily process their financial data when switching between platforms; so, it would be nice to have this particular obstacle resolved.

Chris_QPW

CyborgOne said:

However, I would disagree with @Chris_QPW - although I greatly appreciate your insights into the Windows version (which I have no ability to utilize). I believe I agree with @jacobs and @smayer97, that it really seems the more-granular approach taken by the Mobile version, should be the one to emulate. If the desktop versions (both Windows & Mac) are already inconsistent with each other, as well as with Mobile, then why not pursue an update to both of them, to match the platform which more and more users are using as their primary interface?

What "pressure"?

I don't think you really understand the situation.  This suggestion was about to be archived because of the lack of votes/interest.  It has only one vote.  The likelihood of anything being done on this is very small.

I think you need to scale down your expectations maybe getting them to make the minor change in Quicken Mac to change Cash to something else more appropriate.

Also there are zero complaints on the Windows side for how it is currently done.  ANY change on the Windows side would be meet with more complaints than you can every imagine (all changes are, especially ones that take up more screen space).  And with all due respect I don't believe that Quicken Mobile/Web is the future of Quicken.  Most long time users of Quicken are very much in the Desktop camp.  And at least on the Windows side the syncing to the cloud data set has a long history of corrupting the Desktop data files.  There isn't a single Quicken Windows SuperUser that will use it for anything other than testing.  Yes, some "unknowing" people use it, but it is mostly because they want to monitor their finances while away from home, they don't consider it the "primary interface".  It is lacking way to many features, and the likelihood of it getting those features is about as likely as Quicken Mac getting business features in the near future.

For the people that want Mobile/Web as their primary interface they should be looking to Simpilif.  It has a much better chance to be extended than Quicken.