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quicken auto-filling categories between accounts -- I don't want it to do that

pdxmaven

I have a number of checking and savings accounts. I have started by getting all my transactions in one account categorized, which happens to be my business account. This was no small project!!
I am now moving on to start categorizing one of my personal accounts. I see that Quicken has gone ahead and filled in many categories in that account based on what I categorized them as, in my business account, when the payee is the same.
I want to have business categories for my business account -- which I think I have, as I set them all up to correspond to Schedule C tax line items.
But I want all the charges in my PERSONAL account to be personal charges.
And just because I purchased something at Amazon in one account, that doesn't mean another purchase from Amazon is in the same category in another account.
How do I remove all these business categories in that Quicken has entered for my personal charges and credits. And let me have "a blank slate", as it were, to "teach Quicken" what personal categories I want to be using for these transactions in my personal account.
But to be VERY SURE that I am in NO WAY removing all the categories I just laboriously set up for my business account.
thanks in advance for all input

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Accepted answers

Chris_QPW

There are various ways to change the categories for a given payee in an account.
Here are a few:

The first one actually invokes a new feature they just recently added.
If you go to a transaction in the register and change its category you will get a dialog like this.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6031128/uploads/editor/1l/6rp08or2krlf.png

If you say yes it will change all of the categories for this payee to the one you entered, but only in this account.

Another way would be to use a combination of the search in the upper right hand corner of the register and multiple select and the replace function.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6031128/uploads/editor/z5/vl7xdzeysb2t.png

Results in:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6031128/uploads/editor/0w/mzoyo274wnb4.png

From there you can use Windows multiple select. For a range of transactions click in the first, and then hold down shift and click on the last. Then right click to get the edit menu. Or better yet on the second click right click instead of left click and the edit menu will come up. Note you can Ctrl+click to toggle an individual transaction's selection.

From there select "Edit Transactions" and you get the Find and Replace dialog with just those transactions selected. And you can below select to change the category, and with what you want.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6031128/uploads/editor/rp/k5iacdgfxk6p.png

Be sure to clear the search box by clicking the X when finished.

Using reports:
Reports -> Banking -> Transaction
Customize to only show the account/category you want to replace.
Use the same standard multiple select feature to select the transactions.
(Note I see a slightly different behavior here for multiple select than in the register. For the report you can't combine using shift+right click. You have do click the first, shift+click the last, and then right click)

Once you have the edit menu up, you can select Recategorized transaction(s)

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6031128/uploads/editor/pb/9z5uhm86j5z8.png

All comments

Chris_QPW

Unfortunately the renaming rules and memorized payees are all "global", you [edit] can can't restrict them based on what account the transaction is in.

There is a suggestion that this be implemented, but I guess it isn't popular enough for them to implement it (very little amounts of votes).
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20007344

Note it isn't your categories that matter. If renaming rules were to allow an option to apply to a list of accounts then you could renaming payees so that they got different memorized payees, which are what is used to decide on the category.

pdxmaven

I am still a little confused after reading Chris' comment above. How to do restrict the memorized payees as he mentions above?
And I'm not sure I quite understand the third paragraph..........

Chris_QPW

Let me see if I can make it clearer.

Currently there isn't any way to do that in Quicken.

The second part is about the suggestion, and how it would make this possible if Quicken implemented. You should vote on it. There are also some suggestions there on how you might workaround the problem.

The third part is just pointing out that you said you didn't want to change your categories, but it isn't the categories that have the problem. The problem is how those categories get assigned. And that is done by first passing the payee through the renaming rules, and then from there selecting a memorized payee that has the category you want.

Chris_QPW

On my first post I made a typo.

"Unfortunately the renaming rules and memorized payees are all "global", you can restrict them based on what account the transaction is in."

Should have been:

"Unfortunately the renaming rules and memorized payees are all "global", you can't restrict them based on what account the transaction is in."

pdxmaven

Thanks Chris. I understand more now. I will also read up on renaming rules and memorized payees.
In the account that I am working on (the one that is NOT my business but that all these payees and categories were transfered into, or onto), do I now just have to go through and manually delete the ones that are incorrect, one by one?
PS And I will echo the wish of others for this to be different, in the comments link you noted

pdxmaven

PSS: If I now change the categories in my personal account, will Quicken try to "help me" by going ahead and, when it sees a payee that I have categorized in a certain way in my personal account, change the categories in my business account to match the personal account, rather than keeping them (in my business account) as I have so laboriously entered them as, in that account......
That would be a disaster!!

Chris_QPW

Results in:

Chris_QPW

P.S. Be sure to vote, they do look at that to help decide:
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20007344

Chris_QPW

pdxmaven said:

PSS: If I now change the categories in my personal account, will Quicken try to "help me" by going ahead and, when it sees a payee that I have categorized in a certain way in my personal account, change the categories in my business account to match the personal account, rather than keeping them (in my business account) as I have so laboriously entered them as, in that account......
That would be a disaster!!

All the methods I gave above will not affect the other accounts.

pdxmaven

thank you for this very thorough and helpful information. Am digging into it today!