Credit Card payments: Category and Payee Columns in checking account

fchatfield

Hi - I've read about this and still have a question.

SCENARIO:
-I have Banking accounts for Checking and Credit Cards.
-I pay credit cards with checking.
-In Checking, I categorize the credit card payment as a transfer as [Chase Credit Card 1234] in the "Category" Column.
-It then appears in Chase Credit Card 1234 account, and the Category Column there is [Chase Bank Account 0987].
-This all makes sense and seems the best way to do it, yes?

QUESTION:
I am confused, however, because:
-The Payee Column is sometimes different for the checking and credit card accounts. It does not update in both if I only change one.
*Q: Is there a way to do this? Since they are linked transactions I was hoping changes in one account would affect changes to the other.
*Q: What should be used for the Payee Column when creating/editing the transaction from the Checking Account bank that pays(transfers) the credit card balance?

I believe I understand conceptually how of transfers and credit card payments work (vs income/expense). I'd love some help more so understanding how to input these details in Quicken. I am on WINDOWS - it was very confusing going from a Transfer Column in Mac, but I understand the concept of brackets in Category now. Thanks!

splasher

When the "transfer" transaction is originally created in one account, the matching transaction is created in the other account and the only things different between the two transactions is the category and the amount being a credit vs debit.

Subsequent changes to either transaction in the Payee or Memo fields is made only to the transaction being edited.  If you are creating the "transfer" by matching two downloaded transactions, their Payees will be as downloaded.

Personally (I manually enter all of my checks), I enter mine prior to the download and I always start in the Checking account with the Payee being the receiving FI's name like Chase or Discover  and don't worry that in the Credit Card account it shows its own name in the Payee.

If you really wanted to get real precise, the Payee in the CC account would be "Me", but how much sense would that make and it probably isn't a Payee, but "Remitter" or "Payor", but Q doesn't use a different title for the column if it is a credit vs a debit.

Bottom line is "it really doesn't matter as long as you understand what you have done".  Just be consistent.

UKR

> *Q: What should be used for the Payee Column when creating/editing the transaction from the Checking Account bank that pays(transfers) the credit card balance?

When I pay my credit card using a Scheduled Reminder, the Payee Name always is the name of the credit card + the last 4 of the card number.
If you're paying by paper check that you print with Quicken, you should use the name of the credit card company, as shown in the mailing address on the statement. You can add the last 4 digits of the card number in {curly braces} for easier identification, e.g., "ABC VISA {1234}". Text in curly braces does not print in the "Pay to order of" line of the check, to give you a correct Payee Name on the check, but prints and displays everywhere else in Quicken.

splasher

When the "transfer" transaction is originally created in one account, the matching transaction is created in the other account and the only things different between the two transactions is the category and the amount being a credit vs debit.

Subsequent changes to either transaction in the Payee or Memo fields is made only to the transaction being edited.  If you are creating the "transfer" by matching two downloaded transactions, their Payees will be as downloaded.

Personally (I manually enter all of my checks), I enter mine prior to the download and I always start in the Checking account with the Payee being the receiving FI's name like Chase or Discover  and don't worry that in the Credit Card account it shows its own name in the Payee.

If you really wanted to get real precise, the Payee in the CC account would be "Me", but how much sense would that make and it probably isn't a Payee, but "Remitter" or "Payor", but Q doesn't use a different title for the column if it is a credit vs a debit.

Bottom line is "it really doesn't matter as long as you understand what you have done".  Just be consistent.

UKR

> *Q: What should be used for the Payee Column when creating/editing the transaction from the Checking Account bank that pays(transfers) the credit card balance?

When I pay my credit card using a Scheduled Reminder, the Payee Name always is the name of the credit card + the last 4 of the card number.
If you're paying by paper check that you print with Quicken, you should use the name of the credit card company, as shown in the mailing address on the statement. You can add the last 4 digits of the card number in {curly braces} for easier identification, e.g., "ABC VISA {1234}". Text in curly braces does not print in the "Pay to order of" line of the check, to give you a correct Payee Name on the check, but prints and displays everywhere else in Quicken.

volvogirl

Basically the payee or description column can be anything you want.  It doesn't affect the category or transfer.  Why are you changing it afterwards? 

You can also also add a transfer column to your register.  But if you don't need it much it will take up space.

Sounds like you are doing it right and understand this.  But to explain it more and for other people reading......

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!

fchatfield

@splasher & @UKR - Thanks for the replies! This solved my question: I will put the Payee as my Credit Card.

@volvogirl - I download transactions so credit card transactions go to cc account and checking transactions go to checking account. Sometimes the cc account Payee will appear as something like "THANK YOU - webpayment" and the Payee for checking will be "Chase Card Ending In" - for the same linked transaction.

I think what I'll do is just change both of these to the credit card, but will keep in mind it won't break anything as long as I make sure the Category is correct and linked.

fchatfield

Update (for anyone who may come across this in the future):
I think I will make the "Payee" Column list both the checking account and credit card it is going to.

So paying (transferring) a credit card payment from my checking account will look like:
Payee: Chase Checking 1234 >> Chase Credit Card 0987
Category: will remain the same as mentioned above.

This way, it will allow me to have an extra layer of being able to see which checking is going to which credit card account. Probably a bit overkill but I'm learning about setting rules for naming Payee when Downloaded Transactions come in, so shouldn't be too much extra work.

Thanks again to everyone who gave me some feedback on this process - really appreciate you!