Can I classify a credit as a negative expense (instead of income)?

Moskose

My insurer issued a small credit after we made some changes in our coverage. Quicken categorized it correctly as Home Insurance but it shows up as income. Is there a way to have this transaction show up as an expense rather than income?

Frankx

Hi again @Moskose,

Thanks for the additional information.  After trying to replicate what you are seeing, by entering a number of test transactions from various type accounts, I just cannot replicate it.  The only suggestion that I have is for you to carefully review the category that the downloaded transaction was posted to - i.e. by your credit card download.  That category should be "Home:Home Insurance" and it must be an "Expense" type account.  If you don't see anything like that in the Expense section - you should also review the various categories in the "Personal Income" section of the Category List. Somehow, I think you have a category "Home Insurance" in the "Income" section of your Category List. 

Let me know if you have any followups.

Frankx

Frankx

Hi @Moskose,

Home insurance that you pay is an expense (and the entry in accounting terminology it is a "debit").  A reduction of an expense which, in this case is a refund due to a change in coverage,  should reduce or offset part of that payment (and in accounting terminology it is a "credit").  So, if as you say Quicken  "...categorized it correctly as Home Insurance") it sounds like Quicken has properly classified it as a reduction of your "insurance expense" category, not as income.

Does that make sense, or what am I missing?

Frankx

Moskose

Thanks for the quick reply Frank! I need to explain better. In Quicken, I can run Quicken reports such as Category Summary Year to Date and this report is divided into Income and Expense sections. In my report, most of the categories and details are in the Expenses section and the Income section only had two categories, Investments and Personal Income. After downloading my latest credit card data, a 3rd category showed up in the Income section - Home Insurance. I clicked to see why home insurance was in the Income section and it shows the credit from the insurance company. I have had credits from other companies that are properly listed as positive values but in the Expenses section. Why did this insurance refund end up in the income section and is there a way to fix it so it is understood as an expense with a positive value? Thx!

John_M

It sounds like a new category was created somehow. Go to the Window menu and click on Categories. Look for categories with Type "Income." You might find it there.

As Frank says, you should use the same category for this as you do for home insurance, but it should just have a positive value, rather than negative.

If this doesn't help, you could post a screen shot of this transaction as well as one of your regular home insurance.

Frankx

Hi again @Moskose,

Thanks for the additional information.  After trying to replicate what you are seeing, by entering a number of test transactions from various type accounts, I just cannot replicate it.  The only suggestion that I have is for you to carefully review the category that the downloaded transaction was posted to - i.e. by your credit card download.  That category should be "Home:Home Insurance" and it must be an "Expense" type account.  If you don't see anything like that in the Expense section - you should also review the various categories in the "Personal Income" section of the Category List. Somehow, I think you have a category "Home Insurance" in the "Income" section of your Category List. 

Let me know if you have any followups.

Frankx

Moskose

As suspected, Home Insurance was in two places at once, one (sub-category) in the correct spot (under Home) and one free-standing category under Income. I never added a Home Insurance category but one could have been added inadvertently as a typo while entering a transaction. I will pay closer attention as I notice that Quicken will gladly add new categories so you need to be careful what you "ask" for...

jacobs

@Moskose  Also be aware that the "old" Reports in Quicken Mac -- the six reports found under Reports > Quicken Reports > Other Reports use the old reports engine, which would show expense categories with negative values under income (and income categories with negative values under expenses -- those reports ignore the category type and just counted positive values as income and negatives values as expenses. By contrast, all other reports which use the new reports engine honor the category type and show expenses as expenses, even if they have positive values  (credits/returns) and therefore show as negative expenses.

Moskose

Thanks for the heads-up on that! I am fairly new so I had not heard about this issue. I checked the current report for my data to the beginning of 2020 and it appears to be working correctly and sorting/reporting based on Income or Expense, then by category. Thanks!