Automatic recategorizing

Arthur G.

Quicken has a new feature with a lot of promise, but it's driving me utterly insane. The feature seems to allow for an automatic reassignment of all similar downloaded transactions (or maybe identical payee names, not sure) to a new category. The thing is, I can't mange to control it! When I want it to happen, I can't make it happen, and when I don't want it to happen, it happens anyway. I just recategorized a single Amazon transaction to a "Business Expenses" from my usual (my usual is simply, "Amazon" as a category), and it recategorized hundreds of them to the same thing! This is a major screwup for me, because I had carefully noted months ago which ones actually ARE business expense, and now I have no way of teasing them back out of the gigantic mess. Any thoughts?—not about teasing the transactions out of the mess, but about controlling the auto-recategorizing feature. Thanks in advance for the help.

John_in_NC

Howdy, Arthur:

You touch on a few things here: For starters, I would restore from a backup (or TimeMachine backup if you use that) to restore your categories to what they were prior. This might not be an option for you, but might be when you start making backups for the future.

Here is what I suspect you did to rename all the older transactions. When a new downloaded transaction appears and you attempt to rename, there is a checkbox with options:



I suspect you had that option checked, and the popup set to existing & future trans-hence the complete rename. That's a powerful tool, but can create disastrous results if used incorrectly At a minimum, I would set it to only apply to future transactions.

I also suggest you go into Window:Payee & Rules and familiarize yourself with those rules that are getting created. If you don't understand an option-ask. Don't just try it as it might have underlying consequences as well.

These tools are nice once you understand them. Feel free to ask anything further.