Investment Interest Expense

RAli

Upon downloading investment transactions, I noticed that transaction type: Margin Interest Expense is tied to category: Investment Interest Expense, yet when viewing the income/expense report, I see that the interest expense shows up on a category called "_IntExp" instead of the correct category "_Inv Int Exp". This never used to happen before, and it's been messing up like this for the last 2 months. I would like to view my regular interest expense apart from Investment Interest Expense flowing through from brokerage activity.

Quicken_Tyka

Hello @RAli

Thank you for taking the time to share the details of your experience and feedback with the Community, although I apologize that you have not yet received a response.

We'll need a bit more information to be able to assist.

Please take a moment to review the information available here and post back to let us know what version and release of Quicken you are using. 

What is the name of the brokerage that this account is associated with? 

Are you able to capture a screenshot of the issue? 

The more information you can provide regarding this issue will help the Community to better understand and assist.

Thank you,

-Quicken Tyka

RAli

Quicken version I am using is Year: 2020 Version: R30.14 Build: 27.1.30.14
The broker that I use is TD Ameritrade. I don't it is the connection that Quicken has with the Broker that is causing the issue. I believe it is a problem within Quicken program itself.

Let me illustrate to you again what is happening...
When I download transactions in Quicken from Ameritrade, all the activity downloads correctly, including margin interest expense.
When I click on the margin interest transaction in the check register to open it up, I see that the Transaction Type that Quicken assigns it is Margin Interest Expense, which seems fine to me, but here is the problem...
This transaction type is supposed to be linked to an expense account called "_Inv Int Exp", but when I look at my Income/Expense statement, the margin interest in coded to "Int Exp". "Int Exp" is the account I use to track all my other interest expenses, such as home mortgage interest, bank loan interest, credit card interest, etc.
I want my margin interest expense as it flows from broker activity to be coded to "_Inv Int Exp" automatically. Currently the only option I have is to go back into the Ameritrade transaction register, and manually edit the transaction by changing it from Transaction Type: Margin Interest Expense to Transaction Type: Withdraw, and then choose my expense category: _Inv Int Exp. Only then does everything get properly coded on my Income/Expense Statement.

Rocket J Squirrel

@RAli , are you saying that you have a built-in category named "_Inv Int Exp"? Or did you create it yourself? I have never seen that category in all my years of using Quicken Premier for Windows.

RAli

I believe I did create that category called _Inv Int Exp. But anyhow, how can I link the Transaction Type: Margin Interest Expense to this particular expense category. Quicken needs to provide that flexibility to users. I also notice, that certain built-in expense/income categories cannot be deleted on a permanent basis, and they keep coming back even though I "delete" them.

Rocket J Squirrel

RAli said:

Currently the only option I have is to go back into the Ameritrade transaction register, and manually edit the transaction by changing it from Transaction Type: Margin Interest Expense to Transaction Type: Withdraw, and then choose my expense category: _Inv Int Exp. Only then does everything get properly coded on my Income/Expense Statement.

This is indeed your only option (or a MiscExp transaction). Because this is not a built-in category, Quicken will not assign investment transactions to it automatically.

I am at a loss to explain your original post's claim that this was happening up until 2 months ago.

RAli said:

This transaction type is supposed to be linked to an expense account called "_Inv Int Exp", but when I look at my Income/Expense statement, the margin interest in coded to "Int Exp". "Int Exp" is the account I use to track all my other interest expenses, such as home mortgage interest, bank loan interest, credit card interest, etc.

I'm having trouble telling whether "Int Exp" is a typo for the built-in category _IntExp. And you're blurring the distinction between "account" and "category."

IMHO, you're doing this backwards. Don't fight Quicken. Quicken wants to put your margin interest expenses in category _IntExp and it will do this automatically. Let it. Instead, track your other interest expenses in "Interest Exp" or some such category. The latter is one of the default categories in a new Quicken file.

RAli

Ok I do see that I have three different interest expense categories. 1) Interest Expense (which is tracking interest on loans and credit cards, etc. 2) _Int Exp (which has no expenses coded to it this year), 3) _Inv Int Exp (which I've coded to manually)
Since 2020 is almost over, going into 2021 I can go ahead and disregard the category called "_Inv Int Exp" and just use the default that Quicken has: _Int Exp.

If I understand you correctly, is that what you are recommending?

RAli

Actually, Quicken doesn't let me delete either _Int Exp or _Inv Int Exp.
Now what? Why is it like that?

Rocket J Squirrel

RAli said:

Ok I do see that I have three different interest expense categories. 1) Interest Expense (which is tracking interest on loans and credit cards, etc. 2) _Int Exp (which has no expenses coded to it this year), 3) _Inv Int Exp (which I've coded to manually)
Since 2020 is almost over, going into 2021 I can go ahead and disregard the category called "_Inv Int Exp" and just use the default that Quicken has: _Int Exp.

If I understand you correctly, is that what you are recommending?

Yes.

RAli said:

Actually, Quicken doesn't let me delete either _Int Exp or _Inv Int Exp.
Now what? Why is it like that?

Quicken won't let you delete a built-in investment category like _IntExp. It wants you to leave its "_" categories alone. But you should be able to delete the category you created yourself, if you're really sure you want to do that.

Please back up your data file before making any major changes.

RAli

Here is a screenshot of my Categories.

RAli

Yes I frequently back up my data file. How come there are two investment interest expense categories built in?

Rocket J Squirrel

You can recategorize the 9 _Inv Int Exp transactions to be _IntExp and that will restore balance to a small part of the universe. If you want to be OCD really thorough about it, you could edit those 9 transactions back to being actual Margin Interest Expense transactions.

Deleting a category is done by right-clicking the category in the category list and selecting Delete.

RAli

I did try deleting the category just like you described it, and it doesn't let me. So I guess Quicken has two built in Investment Interest Expense categories, which doesn't make any sense. I wish Quicken would allow users the option to be able to delete or disable built-in categories.

Rocket J Squirrel

RAli said:

 How come there are two investment interest expense categories built in?

There aren't. Perhaps you confused yourself by creating a category starting with "_". Quicken is quite willing to allow you to confuse yourself.

RAli

If I created the category myself, then I should be able to delete it.

Rocket J Squirrel

RAli said:

If I created the category myself, then I should be able to delete it.

Yes, you should. Or you could simply Hide it.

If Q isn't letting you delete a category you created, try the Copy & Validate troubleshooting steps shown as "Fourth" on this page.