How do I disable saving splits for certain transactions?

jborzellino
jborzellino Member ✭✭
I've been wanting this to be fixed for a long time. When I go to the grocery store, I buy groceries and also often get cash back, but not always. When I do get cash back, I use a split transaction to keep track of how much was spent on groceries and how much was received in cash back. The current behavior in Quicken is that when I go to enter a new transaction at that grocery store, the previous values for groceries and cash back automatically fill the split transaction pane. I'd like this to never happen for my grocery store entries. I'd like the category "Groceries" to autofill, but not the cash back. If I have cash back, I will manually enter the split. Can this be done?

Best Answer

  • jacobs
    jacobs SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    Answer ✓
    Happily, yes!

    All you need to do is create and lock a QuickFill rule:
    • Go to Windows > Payees & Rules
    • Click the QuickFill Rules tab
    • Enter part of the Payee name in the Search box, to find the existing QuickFill Rule for this payee. Double click on the Payee name to edit it. Or, if one doesn't exist, click the + icon to create one.
    • Fill in the Category, but nothing else
    • Check the checkbox at the bottom to Lock this rule to prevent changes to it when editing a transaction. You can also check the other box to make this the default rule for this Payee
    • Click Save


    That's it! The next time -- and every time -- you enter the grocery store's name as the Payee, you'll get this QuickFill transaction with the category and nothing else. And if you add a split the next time, it will always go back to the locked rule the time after that. 
    Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 1993

Answers

  • jacobs
    jacobs SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    Answer ✓
    Happily, yes!

    All you need to do is create and lock a QuickFill rule:
    • Go to Windows > Payees & Rules
    • Click the QuickFill Rules tab
    • Enter part of the Payee name in the Search box, to find the existing QuickFill Rule for this payee. Double click on the Payee name to edit it. Or, if one doesn't exist, click the + icon to create one.
    • Fill in the Category, but nothing else
    • Check the checkbox at the bottom to Lock this rule to prevent changes to it when editing a transaction. You can also check the other box to make this the default rule for this Payee
    • Click Save


    That's it! The next time -- and every time -- you enter the grocery store's name as the Payee, you'll get this QuickFill transaction with the category and nothing else. And if you add a split the next time, it will always go back to the locked rule the time after that. 
    Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 1993
  • jborzellino
    jborzellino Member ✭✭
    Perfect! Thank you.
  • RickO
    RickO SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    I'd take @jacobs excellent answer one step further. I'd keep two QuickFill rules, one without the split and one with, both locked and with the non-split as the default. Then when you need to use the split, you will see both options in the drop down when you start entering the payee name in a new transaction. One tap of the down arrow will get you to the split version, avoiding the need to create the split entry manually.

    One more thing: you may want to uncheck the box "Automatically create rule when I edit transaction" in Preferences > Register. This will keep quickfills from being created by default. They will only be created when you ask them to be.

    Quicken Mac Subscription; Quicken Mac user since the early 90s
  • jborzellino
    jborzellino Member ✭✭
    Great tip! I'll give it a try. This issue has been bugging me for years. I should have been asking in this forum a long time ago!
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