Category Summary Report not showing all categories

rosenh

I think it's a glitch: When I run a report, sometimes it shows all my categories, sometimes it doesn't. If I run the report for all years, all the categories are there, in each year, including last year. If I run the report with just last year, a bunch categories (yes, they have transactions in them) are missing. I just updated to the lastest Quicken, 6.2.2

jacobs

@rosenh  Okay, let's keep digging... Unfortunately, it's pretty hard to troubleshoot remotely without seeing any of the data. 

Can you find an example of a category which shows up in the report which spans multiple years, with a non-zero value in the 2020 column, yet doesn't show up at all in the same report for just 2020?

Do you have any sub-categories with the same name under different main categories, which could be causing confusion? (For example, Auto-Business:Fuel and Auto-Personal:Fuel.)

Is there any data you can identify which is innocuous and not something you'd want to keep private where you'd be able to share screenshots? What would be helpful to see is (a) one or several transactions, with dates, categories and amounts in a time period such as 2020, (b) the section of the 2020 transaction and summary reports for the category(ies) showing those categories(ies) missing from the report, and (c) the report set-up.

I understand it may not be feasible to get all the screen shots necessary in order to post on a forum like this. Would you be willing to allow a Quicken support representative look at your Quicken screen? If so, you might be best calling Quicken Support during their phone support hours, and allowing the representative to do a screen-share of your Quicken, so you can show them what you're seeing and they can see if there's something in the set-up causing those results. 

I'm not aware of any issue I've seen reported by any other users with the modern reports omitting data, so even though it seems to you to be a Quicken problem, I'm thinking there's something in your set-up of categories or the reports which is causing the unexpected results you're seeing. 

rosenh

I'm using the Deluxe, expires in October.
Here are screenshots showing categories missing.

rosenh

I also tried running it as a Transaction report. The first report I made was fine. Then I wanted to duplicated it, and change the parameters to show all of last year instead of Q1 (so I wouldn't have to go through that horrifyingly painstaking click-on-every-little-category-box again...)

And all my income categories disappeared again.

jacobs

It would be pretty normal for a report that spans multiple years to have more lines/categories than the same report run over just one year. I just ran a Summary by Year report for 10 years and 1 year, and the one-year report has fewer categories. The report only includes line with non-zero values. Let's say the 1-year report contains 30 expense categories. The 10-year report contains 40 expense categories, because some categories have a zero value in the one year but a non-zero value in at least one of the 10 years. 

I can't tell from what you observed in the screenshots if this is what's going on, but I suspect it is. For instance, you have an income category called "credit"; it's visible in the multi-year report, but missing in the single-year report. In the multi-year report, it shows the value for 2020 is zero, so in the 2020 report the line isn't present. That all seems normal to me. 

rosenh said:

Then I wanted to duplicated it, and change the parameters to show all of last year instead of Q1 (so I wouldn't have to go through that horrifyingly painstaking click-on-every-little-category-box again...)

Why were you clicking all the category boxes? You can click on Select All if you want all or most categories, and Clear All if you want just one or a few categories. 

I agree I don't understand how changing from a quarter to a year could cause all your income categories to disappear. After you duplicate the report built to show a quarter, are the same categories still checks in the report set-up? Are you saying that there are income categories with transactions during last year which are not showing up in a Transaction report for the year? 

rosenh

Thanks for getting back to me. No, it’s not showing certain categories even if they have values. I tried running reports all kinds of ways and it just wouldn’t work. Sorry it’s hard to show what’s happening because I wanted to block out the data.

Clicking the categories is because I’m creating business statements, but I set up my quicken with a ton of categories. I start with all off, but there’s a lot to click on.

jacobs

@rosenh  Okay, let's keep digging... Unfortunately, it's pretty hard to troubleshoot remotely without seeing any of the data. 

Can you find an example of a category which shows up in the report which spans multiple years, with a non-zero value in the 2020 column, yet doesn't show up at all in the same report for just 2020?

Do you have any sub-categories with the same name under different main categories, which could be causing confusion? (For example, Auto-Business:Fuel and Auto-Personal:Fuel.)

Is there any data you can identify which is innocuous and not something you'd want to keep private where you'd be able to share screenshots? What would be helpful to see is (a) one or several transactions, with dates, categories and amounts in a time period such as 2020, (b) the section of the 2020 transaction and summary reports for the category(ies) showing those categories(ies) missing from the report, and (c) the report set-up.

I understand it may not be feasible to get all the screen shots necessary in order to post on a forum like this. Would you be willing to allow a Quicken support representative look at your Quicken screen? If so, you might be best calling Quicken Support during their phone support hours, and allowing the representative to do a screen-share of your Quicken, so you can show them what you're seeing and they can see if there's something in the set-up causing those results. 

I'm not aware of any issue I've seen reported by any other users with the modern reports omitting data, so even though it seems to you to be a Quicken problem, I'm thinking there's something in your set-up of categories or the reports which is causing the unexpected results you're seeing. 

rosenh

Okay, I will admit my totally embarrassing mistake: I have not put my 2020 income transactions into their categories yet, because I haven't finished those taxes yet... that's why nothing is showing up. FACEPALM

I'm not sure I would have figured it out without your help though, I was convinced the program was not working. So a big thank you!

jacobs

Glad you figured it out.  I was pretty sure it was something to do with your categories or transactions, but I couldn't say definitively without seeing the data -- so I'm glad you were able to identify the problem.

On a side note, since you noted your income transactions for last year weren't categorized yet, and you need to do this manually, I'd encourage you to look into any recurring transactions (such as deposits from the same source) for which you can create a QuickFill rule which will automatically categorize things the way you define with no or limited manual intervention. It sounds like it could save you a lot of time.