Categorizing Transactions

leunam12

Hello and thanks again to those who responded to my first question. I have managed to connect my bank account and now i see a lot of transactions that I have to categorize, I can do that for most of them, however there are transactions that are transfers from other accounts. For example, I have 2 accounts at a local credit union and I regularly transfer money from one to the other; most of those transfers were categorized automatically either as "Net Income" or "Other Income". Let's say that I have on account A one of those transactions that is actually a transfer from Account B, not income, if I change the category to "transfer from account B" the program asks me if it is the same transaction as (transfer from B to A on account B); if I answer YES then it seems that it merges the two accounts together because my balance on account A changes drastically, and I see a lot of transactions from the other account that were not there before. If I answer NO then the balance on account A increases and the balance on the account B decreases according to the amount in the transaction.

What I would like to do is change the transaction to TRANSFER from A to B without affecting the balances, since it was a transfer done in the past, I would like to know how to do it since I can't figure it out, and it seems like there is no UNDO function in the program and every time I mess up I have to start from zero. Thanks

Sherlock

leunam12 said:

Thank you, that is very helpful.
So how do I use the holding account?
If I have a transaction from A to B that I have to categorize as a transfer, do I transfer from account A to holding account and from holding account to B?

The transfer entered in A is to the holding account.
The transfer entered in B is from the holding account.

So, if you're able to select all of the transactions that should be made into transfers, right-click, select Edit transaction(s), Category in the Replace pull-down menu, Transfer and the holding account in the With pull-down menu, Replace All, and Done, you should be done 

Always save a backup (press Ctrl + B) before making significant changes to a Quicken file.

Another question that I have, and I don' t know if I should ask here or open a new thread, is this: Last Saturday I have to re-install Windows on my computer, before I did that I created a backup file according to the instructions on the website, but when I tried to restore it in the new installation there were no accounts, it opened as a blank file and I had to set up all my accounts again. I followed the instructions from the website for the backup and the restore process. What did I do wrong? Thanks

It sounds like you may not have restored the backup file you created.  If you saved the backup file to a USB drive, I suggest you copy the file to a folder on a local drive, and attempt to restore the file. 

Sherlock

To undo any change in a Quicken file, restore a backup saved before you made the change.  

However, before attempting to restore a Quicken file backup (or open an earlier copy of the Quicken File), I suggest deleting the Quicken Cloud dataset (aka cloud account) associated with the Quicken file.  Note: You need to open another Quicken file to delete the appropriate cloud account.  You may want to review: https://www.quicken.com/support/how-edit-or-delete-your-cloud-datasets-quicken-windows

This other Quicken file needs to have a distinct file identifier so that we may delete the cloud account associated with the original Quicken file.  For example, you may create a new Quicken file (select File > New Quicken File...) without any accounts, enable sync in preferences so you may view and delete the cloud account associated with the original Quicken file. 

This is necessary because when we open or restore an another version of the Quicken file with the same file identifier, Quicken is not resetting the cloud account appropriately at this time.  I hope they will let us know when they have addressed this issue, but for now before opening another Quicken file that has the same file identifier embedded, delete the cloud account.  

Note: Only File > New Quicken File... generates a distinct file identifier.  All other forms of creating Quicken file, copy the embedded identifier from another file.

Regarding the transfers between accounts, the correct way is to change a transaction in one account to be a transfer the other account, go to the matching transfer, and delete the appropriate non-transfer transaction.  This may be tricky because the transaction dates do not always match up.  A trick you may want to consider using is to transfer to and from a holding account.  A holding accountis simply a Cash account used to manage transfers between accounts.  It's not an account that exists at any financial institution.  When the transfers are complete and correct the holding account balance is zero.   A downside of using a holding account for transfers is that you cannot see the final destination of the transfer from the real accounts (unless you add your own indicator).

leunam12

Thank you, that is very helpful.
So how do I use the holding account?
If I have a transaction from A to B that I have to categorize as a transfer, do I transfer from account A to holding account and from holding account to B?

Another question that I have, and I don' t know if I should ask here or open a new thread, is this: Last Saturday I have to re-install Windows on my computer, before I did that I created a backup file according to the instructions on the website, but when I tried to restore it in the new installation there were no accounts, it opened as a blank file and I had to set up all my accounts again. I followed the instructions from the website for the backup and the restore process. What did I do wrong? Thanks

Sherlock

leunam12 said:

Thank you, that is very helpful.
So how do I use the holding account?
If I have a transaction from A to B that I have to categorize as a transfer, do I transfer from account A to holding account and from holding account to B?

The transfer entered in A is to the holding account.
The transfer entered in B is from the holding account.

So, if you're able to select all of the transactions that should be made into transfers, right-click, select Edit transaction(s), Category in the Replace pull-down menu, Transfer and the holding account in the With pull-down menu, Replace All, and Done, you should be done 

Always save a backup (press Ctrl + B) before making significant changes to a Quicken file.

Another question that I have, and I don' t know if I should ask here or open a new thread, is this: Last Saturday I have to re-install Windows on my computer, before I did that I created a backup file according to the instructions on the website, but when I tried to restore it in the new installation there were no accounts, it opened as a blank file and I had to set up all my accounts again. I followed the instructions from the website for the backup and the restore process. What did I do wrong? Thanks

It sounds like you may not have restored the backup file you created.  If you saved the backup file to a USB drive, I suggest you copy the file to a folder on a local drive, and attempt to restore the file. 

leunam12

Great, thank you!