How to remove bill/income reminder items from banking totals

Ray Spickler

Hello,
I am trying to find a way to easily see in a report how much I've spent/received on my bill/income reminders and how much I've spent/received that are not in this list. I've never used Tags, not sure how they are useful. But would that be a way to do this? For example, if I Tag all my bill and income reminders as "B/I", then could I sort them in a report that puts "B/I" items together with a total, and the rest of the month's items in another section of the report with a total? Or is there an easier way to do this??? Thanks.

Rich_M

Yes, I think that's an easy way to accomplish what you want to do.  Tags simply mark transactions with a unique identifier, so that you can filter them out or group them together in reports.

I would suggest you simply tag a couple of transactions from the past couple of months in your register first to see if you can get the desired report you're looking for first.

If you're happy with the result you can then update all of your reminders with that tag.

The only downside I can see to this is that you will only get the result you want going forward, unless you're willing to update your past transactions with this tag.

An alternative to tags is a custom report which includes or excludes reminder transactions from the result, identifying them by payee.

mshiggins

@Ray Spickler it sounds like you may be trying to see your mandatory vs. discretionary spending.

If so, I would look at Category Groups. You could have one Category Group for categories used in your bill and Income reminders and a second Category Group for your other expense categories. 

There are various reports that have Category Group selection, sorting, and subtotals. 

Using Category Groups would be a one time set up as opposed to Tagging, which depending how you apply tags may be an ongoing effort. 

Ray Spickler

Mshiggins, that's what I want. I quickly found that I couldn't do tags in the bill reminder. Thanks, and I'll create those two categories. Thanks to all who chimed in!

Rich_M

I like mshiggins suggestion best also.  For future reference you can add a tag to a bill reminder in the details section where you enter splits and the memo.

Rich_M

Yes, I think that's an easy way to accomplish what you want to do.  Tags simply mark transactions with a unique identifier, so that you can filter them out or group them together in reports.

I would suggest you simply tag a couple of transactions from the past couple of months in your register first to see if you can get the desired report you're looking for first.

If you're happy with the result you can then update all of your reminders with that tag.

The only downside I can see to this is that you will only get the result you want going forward, unless you're willing to update your past transactions with this tag.

An alternative to tags is a custom report which includes or excludes reminder transactions from the result, identifying them by payee.

Frankx

Hi @Ray Spickler

Yes, that would be a way to effectively do that.  Also, I can't think of another way to accomplish what you want to do.

Good luck!

Frankx

mshiggins

@Ray Spickler it sounds like you may be trying to see your mandatory vs. discretionary spending.

If so, I would look at Category Groups. You could have one Category Group for categories used in your bill and Income reminders and a second Category Group for your other expense categories. 

There are various reports that have Category Group selection, sorting, and subtotals. 

Using Category Groups would be a one time set up as opposed to Tagging, which depending how you apply tags may be an ongoing effort. 

Ray Spickler

Mshiggins, that's what I want. I quickly found that I couldn't do tags in the bill reminder. Thanks, and I'll create those two categories. Thanks to all who chimed in!

Rich_M

I like mshiggins suggestion best also.  For future reference you can add a tag to a bill reminder in the details section where you enter splits and the memo.

Ray Spickler

Rich_M I did that, but on a previous month with transactions already in the register. I'll look at which way is easier for a future month, editing the reminders so it works on all months going forward. Not sure if categories can be applied to previous transactions, but will check that too. I've never really gotten the budget to work well for me. I think separating them this way will satisfy my needs. Thanks!

Rich_M

You can easily recategorize or retag previous transactions easily depending on which choice works best for you.

mshiggins

The standard advice is before starting any mass transaction updates - like recategorizing - is to make a backup so you have a way to recover in case the results are not what you expected. 

Ray Spickler

I backup every time I enter transactions. Thanks.

Ray Spickler

@mshiggins I discovered that things like car loans do not allow you to assign them to a Category Group, at least it doesn't appear that way. I have them set up as Transfers. Can you confirm if this is true? Is there a way around it? I'd like to have them appear with the other monthly bill reminders in the same Category Group total. Thanks.

Ray Spickler

@mshiggins @Rich_M I ended up taking my loan splits, and tagging them as bills on all the lines. That way it captures them with my other monthly bills, and I can tailor the report along Tag lines. There might be a more elegant way, but it works. Thanks both for your help, and I'm going to show Rich's answer as accepted too, if the system lets me do more than one acceptance.