Is there a problem with having many many different categories?

delmerd

Another question of switching over from spreadsheet to Quicken: My wife keeps a spreadsheet with an itemized list of her grocery shopping. The only way I can see that this can be done in Q is using a category for each item purchased e.g. Ham Slice, Turkey Slice, Mozzarella Cheese, Cheddar Cheese, etc etc...

Would there be a problem using this method, or are there any better ways of doing it?

volvogirl

You want to track that much detail?? Off the store receipt?   Or just to have a list?  I just found a good App called AnyList.  I love it.  My husband can see the same list on his phone and check off things he buys.

Sherlock

Quicken is limited to 32,768 categories and may be nested as many as 16 levels deep: https://www.quicken.com/support/size-or-capacity-limitations-quicken-data-file

Unless you're really interested in tracking how much you're spending or how often purchasing mozzarella, it may be a bit over board.  We simply use Groceries for our groceries.

delmerd

@volvogirl Actually yeah, I'm looking to track that much detail. I know it's not necessary in most cases, however it's one of those things that my wife is doing with the spreadsheet she's using now, and wants to be able to do that before switching over.

volvogirl

So you want a category probably called Grocery then have sub categories for Ham Slice, etc?  Then when she buys a Ham Slice for $1.59 you can enter it as an expense?  Then like at the end of the month you can print a report of how much you spent for each item?  Would you need this in your main Quicken data file?  I'm thinking you could set up another data file for her Itemized items.   You know you can have more than 1 Quicken Data File.  

NotACPA

OR, how about using Tags?  You can have 32,768 of them also. 

So it would be recorded with GROCERY as the category and "Ham Slice" as the tag.

Does she have more than 32,768 lines in her spreadsheet?

delmerd

> @NotACPA said:
> OR, how about using Tags?  You can have 32,768 of them also. 
> So it would be recorded with GROCERY as the category and "Ham Slice" as the tag.Does she have more than 32,768 lines in her spreadsheet?

But with tags you can't report on how much spent on each item, right?
And no, that amount of tags (or categories) should be plenty.

delmerd

> @volvogirl said:
> So you want a category probably called Grocery then have sub categories for > Ham Slice, etc?  Then when she buys a Ham Slice for $1.59 you can enter it as > an expense?  Then like at the end of the month you can print a report of how > much you spent for each item?  

This is what I have in mind as the best option if I want to do it.

As far as using a second file, that would make it double entry work, so I don't think that would be an option.

Tom Young

"But with tags you can't report on how much spent on each item, right?"

No, you can isolate reports on Tags, just like you can on Categories and SubCategories.

"Tags" are just another way of "earmarking" transactions within Quicken, similar in most respect to Categories.  The problem with Tags is that Quicken's program doesn't "control" tags as well as it does Categories and SubCategories.

delmerd

@Tom Young I believe you're right. I just entered a transaction, and I can go to split category, and then enter multiple "Groceries" categories each with a different tag to track the different items. I believe this is the way to go for me, as that way it doesn't show in the category report, I can still see at a glance an uncluttered report of how much spent on groceries, yet be able to run a report on tags to see how much spent on each item.

I believe I have my answer. Thanks to each one who contributed.

NotACPA

In my mortgage payment, I have 2 transfers to my escrow account.  One has a tag of "Insurance" and the other a tag of "RE Taxes".

They show up in the Escrow account as 2 separate transactions ... and I can easily run a report by tag (it's under the Reports -> Banking menu to see how I'm doing re: those 2 items.