How do I get transfers to and from an account to show up as a category, such as credit card payments

Pamela S. Tierney

I would like to see my transfers, such as credit card payments or savings transfers to show up in the category they're assigned to in a monthly report instead only at the end in "Other Transfers". Is there a way to see them in my report?

Quicken_Tyka

Hello @Pamela S. Tierney

Thank you for taking the time to visit the Community to ask your question, although I apologize that you have not received a response.

We'll need a bit more information to be able to assist. Please navigate to Quicken > About Quicken and provide the version that you are currently running.

May I also ask that you provide the name of the report you are running? This will help me create the same report and explore all of the options available to give you the best answer.

Thank you,
-Quicken Tyka

John_M

When you buy something using a credit card, you should enter that purchase in the credit card account. This does three things:

1. It is a record of the actual day you bought the item (not when you paid the credit card bill).
2. It shows the expense category.
3. It creates a balance in the credit card account.

When your monthly credit card period closes, you then pay it out of your bank account. This is a transfer of money from the bank account to the credit card account; it is not an expense.

If you set it up this way, you will see the individual purchases under the appropriate categories in cash flow reports. When you click on "Customize" in setting up the report, you should click on the Advanced tab and then choose "Include only transfers with accounts outside of report." Then you won't even see the transfers.

jacobs

I think @Pamela S. Tierney  is referring to the way transfers included in reports show up: they show up under Income and Expense in a separate Transfer section.

Pamela, you say you want "credit card payments or savings transfers to show up in the category they're assigned", but that's the issue -- transfers are not assigned to categories. Income and expenses have categories, but transfers are simply the flow of funds between two accounts, so they are neither income nor expense, and therefore aren't associated with any category. For instance, if you have a report set up to show transfers report and it includes a transfer to pay your credit card, where would you expect to see it with respect to your expense categories? It doesn't fit anywhere, because it's not related to any expense category. That's why it shows in a separate Transfer section.

Pamela S. Tierney

I was wondering if there was an easier way for me to tell me (without manually adding it up), how much I paid out in a given month to my credit card companies. Can an individual report be done that just shows me what transfers came in or out of my primary checking account?

RickO

Pamela S. Tierney said:

 an easier way for me to tell me (without manually adding it up), how much I paid out in a given month to my credit card companies. 

Sure, there are a couple of ways, depending on what category/s you use for the transfers:

A) If you use the category Transfer (or Transfer:Credit Card Payment) for all of the transfers, you can do it right in the register. In your checking register, just click the search box magnifying glass and select Category. Enter "Transfer" in the search box. Set the Date filter to whatever date range you want. You will now see only the transfer transactions. You can print this as a report using menu File > Print.

If you have used a bunch of different categories for these transfers, you can still do this with a report as follows:

1. In Reports, select Quicken Reports > Transaction > Transaction by Category
2. Click Customize
3. Select the date range you are interested in
4. In the Accounts pane, Selected Accounts click Clear All, then select only your checking account
5. In the Category, Tags and Payees panes, choose Include Transactions with Any...
6. In Advanced, Choose Income and Expense, and choose Include All Transfers
7. Click OK to close the Customize window
8. Click Table Options, then Collapse All
9. Click the little triangle next to Transfer
10. You will now be showing the Transfers, with all the Income and Expense detail collapsed.
11. If you save this as a custom report, it should re-open in the same state.

jacobs

@Pamela S. Tierney  Do you record your individual credit card transactions in an account for each credit card, and pay them from your checking account with a Transfer to the credit card account? (This is the suggested way to manage credit cards in Quicken, and we can point you to more details on how and why if this sounds alien to you.) 

I'll offer just a small refinement to the process @RickO outlined above, if you have any transfers in your checking account other than payments to your credit cards (for instance: loan payments, transfers to a savings account, paycheck withholding going to a pension/401k account, to personal/petty cash accounts, etc.). Rick's procedure will give you all transfers to/from your checking account. But if you have any of these other transfers, can you limit the report to shows the transfers to only your credit card accounts? Yes. In Customize > Accounts, click Select All to check every account, and then uncheck the Credit Card sub-heading to de-select all your credit card accounts. then click on the Advanced tab and select "Include only transfers with accounts outside of report." If you think about what this does, you've told Quicken to give you a report that includes transfers to/from all accounts not checked in the Accounts tab -- in this case, your credit card accounts. Now, your Transfer total in the report should reflect just your transfers to your credit card accounts.