Quicken Deluxe --> want split cols for -> unit price x qty + sales tax - discount

joecomm

I recently reupped from QD 2017 to 2021. Having been a Quicken user since 1996, I am fairly well versed in the functionality of the product. I had seen the periodic email marketing letter from the CEO touting all the new fixes and enhancements added since the product was transferred from Intuit.

However, I don't notice much in the way of new functionality. Quicken still looks the same and appears to act the same. It does seem to run a bit faster and online downloads seem smoother.

Two enhancements I have hoped to see in Quicken for many years are:

1. Ability to keep the register order the same as I entered, NOT automatically move "Receive" entries above "Spend" entries. Doing this destroys the chronology of entry.

2. It blows my mind that after all the years Quicken has been on the market, no one in Quicken marketing or development has thought to add unit prices to the split window!

If I buy multiple units of one item, I would like to be able to have a column in the split window called "Unit price" and another column called "Item count". These would be multiplied to get the actual cost of the quantity I purchased.

There should also be a column for sales tax on a unit basis since some items are taxed and others are not.

Last, a Discount column (where discounts apply to individual items) and a Discount subtotal item (for if the discount applied to the whole order) would be most helpful..

Rocket J Squirrel

joecomm said:

Two enhancements I have hoped to see in Quicken for many years are:

1. Ability to keep the register order the same as I entered, NOT automatically move "Receive" entries above "Spend" entries. Doing this destroys the chronology of entry.

I guess you've missed it for many years. Sort by strict order entered and by order entered within a date have been around for a very, very long time. I want to say "decades" but my memory isn't that long.

Rocket J Squirrel

joecomm said:

Two enhancements I have hoped to see in Quicken for many years are:

1. Ability to keep the register order the same as I entered, NOT automatically move "Receive" entries above "Spend" entries. Doing this destroys the chronology of entry.

I guess you've missed it for many years. Sort by strict order entered and by order entered within a date have been around for a very, very long time. I want to say "decades" but my memory isn't that long.

UKR

joecomm said:

...

2. It blows my mind that after all the years Quicken has been on the market, no one in Quicken marketing or development has thought to add unit prices to the split window!

If I buy multiple units of one item, I would like to be able to have a column in the split window called "Unit price" and another column called "Item count". These would be multiplied to get the actual cost of the quantity I purchased.

There should also be a column for sales tax on a unit basis since some items are taxed and others are not.

Last, a Discount column (where discounts apply to individual items) and a Discount subtotal item (for if the discount applied to the whole order) would be most helpful..

The Deluxe version of Quicken is not designed as a Business Accounting Software package. It is Personal Financial Software.
Even the Home, Business & Rental Property Management edition level of Quicken does not support detailed inventory tracking.
For functionality like that you'd have to look for Business Accounting Software packages with more features.

NotACPA

Try switching to Quickbooks.  I believe that it will meet the needs that you've described.

NOTE, however, that QB doesn't support Investment accounts.

joecomm

> @Rocket J Squirrel said:
> I guess you've missed it for many years. Sort by strict order entered and by order entered within a date have been around for a very, very long time. I want to say "decades" but my memory isn't that long.

Yes, I did. And others have also. I posed this annoyance question elsewhere in a couple of other forums on posts that related to Quicken and the other people agreed that they wanted this functionality also.

Do you know when it wa added to Quicken?

joecomm

> @UKR said:
> The Deluxe version of Quicken is not designed as a Business Accounting Software package. It is Personal Financial Software.
> Even the Home, Business & Rental Property Management edition level of Quicken does not support detailed inventory tracking.
> For functionality like that you'd have to look for Business Accounting Software packages with more features.

I'm not looking for "Business Accounting Software". The functionality I describe is useful for many non-business people who want to keep better track of their purchases in the split view. It is just logical.

NotACPA

joecomm said:

> @Rocket J Squirrel said:
Do you know when it was added to Quicken?

It's been there as far back as I can remember, and I've used Q since the mid-1980's

Rocket J Squirrel

joecomm said:

2. It blows my mind that after all the years Quicken has been on the market, no one in Quicken marketing or development has thought to add unit prices to the split window!

If I buy multiple units of one item, I would like to be able to have a column in the split window called "Unit price" and another column called "Item count". These would be multiplied to get the actual cost of the quantity I purchased.

There should also be a column for sales tax on a unit basis since some items are taxed and others are not.

Last, a Discount column (where discounts apply to individual items) and a Discount subtotal item (for if the discount applied to the whole order) would be most helpful..

This is a level of complexity beyond what most Quicken users need. Otherwise we would have seen requests for such features in the past. I do keep track of sales tax paid in split transactions, just in case it ever becomes deductible again. It's just one split line and that meets my needs fine. The only amount that could matter at income tax time is the sum total of all sales tax paid. Which items are taxed and which are not seems irrelevant. What is taxed and at what rate varies by locale and is a level of detail I, and probably most users, don't need.

NotACPA

I also track Sales Tax Paid.  On one's IRS Schedule A, you can deduct EITHER state sales tax OR state income tax.  My state doesn't have an income tax ... so I deduct Sales Tax.

Rocket J Squirrel

NotACPA said:

On one's IRS Schedule A, you can deduct EITHER state sales tax OR state income tax.

Used to be possible before the Trump $10k SALT cap. My property tax alone swamps that so I can't deduct sales tax or state income tax currently.

joecomm

> @Rocket J Squirrel said:
> This is a level of complexity beyond what most Quicken users need.

Says you. I disagree. "Most" people don't use Quicken or any similar program and have no idea whet they spend money on short or long-term. So what most people supposedly need in YOUR eyes isn't a good metric.

One quick example: To keep track of price increases over time, I need to see what the price of individual items are minus sales taxes. I have an interest in doing this.

joecomm

> @NotACPA said:
> It's been there as far back as I can remember, and I've used Q since the mid-1980's

Well perhaps someone from the Q team will bless us with an absolute answer.

NotACPA

joecomm said:

> @NotACPA said:
> It's been there as far back as I can remember, and I've used Q since the mid-1980's

Well perhaps someone from the Q team will bless us with an absolute answer.

It's certainly not IMPOSSIBLE ... but I wouldn't place any bets upon getting an "absolute answer".  Most of the SuperUsers have longer "institutional memories" than the Moderators.

Tom Young

@joecomm

You can post this as an idea and see if it gets any traction, but I wouldn't hold my breath about it getting implemented.  I'd bet money and give you odds that Quicken would make a business decision that there's not enough interest among users to justify the cost of implementation.

If you want to keep track of certain using costs it seems like that could be entered into the Memo field as a matter of routine.  I've been doing that for a while with gasoline.

jacobs

joecomm said:

To keep track of price increases over time, I need to see what the price of individual items are minus sales taxes. I have an interest in doing this.

I do this for some things I buy by recording the unit price in the Memo field: "12 bags of mulch @ $2.50". When I search for the Payee or the item in the Memo field, I can quickly see the history. It's not in a tabular format where it could be exported and manipulated further, but for personal finance needs, I find this meets my needs.

In any case, if you want to submit this as a possible enhancement request, the developers won't read this thread, most likely. So go to to the "Product Ideas - Quicken for Windows" section of this forum, create a New Idea to explain what the feature would be/do/look like and why it would be helpful (like the example you gave above). If enough other Quicken users vote for the idea, it then gets passed to the development teams for consideration.

Ps56k2

[EDIT] - after the initial posting - I had updated the topic title to better reflect the actual Q&A - and attract replies

jacobs

Ps56k2 said:

after the initial posting - I had updated the topic title to better reflect the actual Q&A - and attract replies

Yes, but it's not in an Ideas section, and can't be voted on. Discussion here is fine, but if the goal is to try to get the idea in front of the developers, that would be the way to proceed.

Chris_QPW

The biggest problem with the suggestion of including a tax and/or unit column is that there is no way it would stop at that.  The very next demand would be to point out that it would be pretty useless without full support in other things like reports, searching, maybe budgets...

joecomm

> @Chris_QPW said:
> The biggest problem with the suggestion of including a tax and/or unit column is that there is no way it would stop at that.  The very next demand would be to point out that it would be pretty useless without full support in other things like reports, searching, maybe budgets...

On that logic, Q should have stopped development after the 1st release! [roflol]

joecomm

> @Tom Young said:
> @joecomm
> You can post this as an idea and see if it gets any traction, but I wouldn't hold my breath about it getting implemented.  I'd bet money and give you odds that Quicken would make a business decision that there's not enough interest among users to justify the cost of implementation.If you want to keep track of certain using costs it seems like that could be entered into the Memo field as a matter of routine.  I've been doing that for a while with gasoline.

I WILL add it as a suggestion.

There are competitors to Q. If they don't continue to improve and add new functionality, then people will tend to move to other solutions and/or will not resubscribe. I waited 4 years to subscribe from 2017 to 2021 and was only enticed by a 50% discount offer. If the features remain the same as are now, then it I'd likely wait another 4 years before possibly resubscribing, if I haven't found a better solution in between.

Chris_QPW

joecomm said:

> @Chris_QPW said:
> The biggest problem with the suggestion of including a tax and/or unit column is that there is no way it would stop at that.  The very next demand would be to point out that it would be pretty useless without full support in other things like reports, searching, maybe budgets...

On that logic, Q should have stopped development after the 1st release! [roflol]

I sort stated that incorrectly.  What I was implying is that many of time there are posts like "This is such a simple change they should have done it years ago".  When in fact there isn't much support for the idea, and the problem turns out to be much more complex than what is described by the initial request.

As for this:

joecomm said:

There are competitors to Q. If they don't continue to improve and add new functionality, then people will tend to move to other solutions and/or will not resubscribe. I waited 4 years to subscribe from 2017 to 2021 and was only enticed by a 50% discount offer. If the features remain the same as are now, then it I'd likely wait another 4 years before possibly resubscribing, if I haven't found a better solution in between.

I would say this does bother Quicken Inc quite a bit, but doesn't always have the effect that the Quicken customers would like (not implying that your idea falls into this category).

As in people make requests like "I would like to see my up coming bills (bill presentment)".
And as it turns out there is a service provider out there that will provide it, but there is in fact no standard on how that service provider can get the bills.  The result is a function in Quicken that "sort of works" and as such causes the support people tons of work and the customers tons of frustration.

And then there is no counting on what features the Quicken Inc team will pick.  There is a constant "war" between the customers that want Quicken to get with it and "modernize", and that other Quicken users that want it to just stay the same (of course with the exception of the changes they want).

But let's face it statements like there are "competitors" is a hollow statement.   It comes under statements like "Why is it that I was find what I lost in the last place I look?".  If there were competitors with the same features, and a better product, for a better price, one would be a fool not to jump on it.  But there isn't, and there won't be.

Why?  Because the user space for this "product line" is dying.  As such there is the possible up coming personal finance software, but none of it is "Desktop".

Quicken Inc is a small company, but if you look at the other companies that provide personal finance software on the Desktop, you will find even smaller companies, none of which have even close to the feature set that Quicken Windows has.  One might implement the feature you want and then you can decide to go there, but there isn't going to be any kind of mass exit for this feature.  BTW I haven't looked in quite a long time at the competitors, but as far as I know there isn't a one that has the feature you are requesting.

And I will note, that these days the only people that get discounts directly from Quicken Inc (not the retailers) are the "new users (really new subscribers)".  As far as I can tell it seems like Quicken Inc thinks that once they get people on the subscription, seldom do they loose them, especially given the stick of a big ad on the main window if the subscription expires.  And purely based on what I see in these forums, they are right.

joecomm

> @Chris_QPW said:
> I sort stated that incorrectly.  What I was implying is that many of time there are posts like "This is such a simple change they should have done it years ago".  When in fact there isn't much support for the idea, and the problem turns out to be much more complex than what is described by the initial request....

Well, that was long winded... You certainly have a lot to say, given that in the last 15 months since you joined up here you have made more than 5000 comments!

Regardless, I will maintain my disagreement based on having a BS in Computer Science and my 35 years of computer industry experience in development, marketing and direct customer facing sales roles. Intuit was apparently following your advice, which apparently caused them to continue to lose customers, eventually resulting in them selling the Quicken line to the current owners.

"As far as I can tell it seems like Quicken Inc thinks that once they get people on the subscription, seldom do they loose them"

btw: It's "lose", not "loose".

Rocket J Squirrel

[deleted]

Chris_QPW

That wasn't my "advice", I was stating what I see from both Quicken Inc, and "industry/personal finances Desktop".  The old and current marketing "attitude" seems little changed from Inuit/Quicken Inc in my opinion.  They seem to be big fans of "the stick".  And this certainly isn't a "growing industry".

If Quicken was my product I would certainly do things differently, but on the other hand I can feel for them in the sense that they are pulled from many different directions, work with really old code, and are trying to provide services when there aren't many standards on how to get it done.  I currently do contract work where the product line which stretches back into the 80's, so I also have a pretty good feel for having to support really old code.

As far as "competing" with credentials, I have 40+ years of software development experience, and the reason I have so many comments is because I have been an active contributor to Quicken forums since 2007.  I have certainly seen my share of request like yours.  Not to mention the hollow "threats".

And yeah, I make typos all the time, if you are a "grammar expert" that can't stand read them, then I would certainly advise not reading my posts.