Uncategorized investment trades - is this normal?

BK

When I run the default Investment Income Report, there is an Uncategorized category row under the EXPENSES section.  When I double-click on the figure, details tally up all of my bought & sold trades in the investment accounts (taxable and deferred) - see screenshots.  Is this a typical behavior to be Uncategorized?  I researched it here and may have missed the answer. TIA

Tom Young

That's normal.  It's simply a listing of transactions that don't have "Category" as Quicken defines that term.  It doesn't have to be $0 of course.  If you happen to make a "Deposit" without specifying a Category, that amount will show up as a non-zero number on the report.

Tom Young

That's normal.  It's simply a listing of transactions that don't have "Category" as Quicken defines that term.  It doesn't have to be $0 of course.  If you happen to make a "Deposit" without specifying a Category, that amount will show up as a non-zero number on the report.

BK

Thank you @Tom Young ,

That was my assumption but seeing "Uncategorized" is a bit unsettling, and since I cannot modify the category for these bought, sold and split trades.  (FYI, mine are not zero, I am just not showing them in my screenshot)

Just brainstorming: perhaps Quicken could define a new category called "_Trades" or whatever makes sense within the Investment section of the Category List in the future for such specific purpose that gets automatically assigned.  Similar to other investment transactions such as _RlzdGain, _IntExp etc.  I am probably not the first person thinking of this and perhaps complex, so I wonder what the challenge is for this to become a viable enhancement request, if it hasn't already.  Thanks.

NotACPA

It has often seemed to me that Bought & Sold transactions are, in effect, merely transfers within the same account (you spent money and bought the security).

Why they don't get recorded as "self-referencing transactions" has never been apparent to me.

IF that happened,  they would  no longer be  "Uncategorized",  but rather have that Account name,  in Square brackets, as the category  ... the same as  any other transfer.

Tom Young

I think the only reason that you'd have a dollar amount listed on the report is that some transaction that should have a Category actually is Uncategorized and needs to be run down and fixed.  (If I'm remembering correctly - and I may not be - "back in the day" you'd see RtrnCap dollars listed out on that report, even if all your other transactions that used Categories were, in fact, Categorized.  That got fixed at some point, so "$0" for this line item should be the norm.)

This is an income and expense report so only transactions that create income or expense should be included on the report.  A sale transaction will contribute its gain or loss to the report, but other transactions - Buys, Sells, (to the extent of basis), Adds and Remove actions, Transfers of cash in or out,  etc. - don't create income.  In fact, all your trades are included in the report, it's just that they "zero out." 

So when I click through to "Uncategorized" on Investment Income report I can determine (after exporting that information to Excel) that my Buys amounted to $915,719.84, my Sells amounted to $474,172.10, but the "Cash" and the "Amount Invested" for all this zeros out, and that's what flows up to the Investment Income report.  Seeing either of these numbers, or the sum of the numbers on an income report would be meaningless and confusing as hell

Tom Young

@NotACPA

"Why they don't get recorded as "self-referencing transactions" has never been apparent to me."

Mechanically, programmatically, they are self-referencing transactions, probably two self-referencing transactions.  For a Buy cash disappears and a security appears in the same Account.  I guess you could show it in the transaction list that way.

BK

I can see @NotACPA's suggestion to make it look like a transfer - better than Uncategorized.  And yes @Tom Young, it does eventually zero out in the report.
So my problem with them being "Uncategorized" is when I see that, it prompts me to sift through it to make sure they are okay or something is wrong - which is a waste of time - had they been categorized meaningful.  Seems like everyone has accepted it as is!  Thank you both.

Tom Young

@BK

I thought you were referring to the amount shown on the Investment Income report proper.  That amount really should be $0.

BK

@Tom Young, it's not $0 !
I may have identified a glitch in one of my 'creative' approaches which may explain why it is not zero.  But it is thanks to you guys in this discussion that I discovered it and I need to think about it and perhaps try to not be so creative!