Credit Card posting

vince6501

Why when I enter a credit split transaction on register it shows as charge on CC account?

vince6501

I understand what you are saying and will try to do it that way however i don't understand why it doesn't work both ways. Only debits and credits, right? I am not at home in texas right now but am in sicily and all my documents are at home. I will let you know as soon as i can try it again here in sicily.
Vincent

vince6501

I re-entered the last 3 months of the CC bills and it all came out perfect. Thank you guys for straightening me out of the use of the CC account. It seems so much easier when I do it right. Now I will change the way I do all of my credit cards. Thanks again.

vince6501

I will give the history of this problem to clarify. Initially I had a $500 refund to my CC. For that month's check register, I entered all the charges plus a negative split amount for the total charges because the $500 was more than the charges. This posted OK to the CC account and the check register. The following month, I did the same thing because the $500 credit was not used up yet. This also posted correctly. The next month I entered that remaining amount of the credit on the register as a negative split just as before, however this entry posted in reverse to the CC account, i.e. as charge instead of a payment to the CC account. Check register was fine deducting the correct balance due for the CC payment. The CC account was doubled. ??? what gives??

Tom Young

"Initially I had a $500 refund to my CC. "

I've read ahead and see that you are entering your credit card charges in your checking Account, and that's simply the wrong way to go about this.  Any charges you incur on your credit card should be entered in the credit card Account directly.  Doing it this way achieves two things: it properly classifies each charge in the appropriate Category (expense) and it increases the amount you owe to the credit card issuer in the credit card Account.  Done this way, if done correctly, means that typically when you receive your credit card bill the amount due as of the statement date will agree to the balance in your Quicken Account.

Then, when you pay the bill out of your checking Account, recording it as a transfer to the credit card Account, that payment will reduce the liability appropriately.

I'm having a bit of trouble following exactly what you did here but I can tell you how you should have gone about this.  So first, the initial accounting for the charges should have been in the credit card Account itself.  Then, when the credit card company gave you the $500 refund, that too, should have been entered in the credit card Account.  You'd enter the refund in the "payment" column and categorize that refund appropriately as a negative amount.  The negative amounts associated with the Category or Categories you used would effectively reverse prior spending (credit card charges) you originally entered.

This combination of posting charges on the credit card in the credit card Account and then also entering the refund should have brought the balance in the Account into agreement with the credit card statement.  This obviously put the balance in the credit card into a negative condition, signalling that at that point the credit card company actually owned you.

Then, the following month - where you say the credit was not used up - you'd simply enter your charges as normal.  Each entry would reduce the negative balance in the Account, making the amount the credit card company "owed you" less and less.  Again, the balance in the Account should agree to the credit card statement.

Finally in the third month, where it sounds like your charges exceeded the remaining amount from the initial $500 refund, you'd simply continue entering charges as you used the credit card, eventually putting the balance into a "positive" position, i.e., the amount that you owed the credit card company.

Again, I'm not sure I'm completely understanding what you've done here, but having the credit card Account show a "positive" ("you owe") balance does seem correct.

Entering your transactions directly into the credit card Account is the simpler and more straight-forward way of doing your credit card accounting.

Ps56k2

vince6501 said:

Why when I enter a credit split transaction on register it shows as charge on CC account?

just to echo @Tom Young  - any Quicken transactions entered should reflect EXACTLY what happens in the real world.

The $500 credit, returns, whatever - should only be entered as a single transaction in the CC account.
Whatever appears on the CC statement line items is exactly how your Quicken Register should look. 

And at the billing - you enter ONE transaction as a payment [TRANSFER] from the checking account to the CC account.
It never flows the other way... any credit within the CC - is of course a Credit Balance within the CC account.

vince6501

I understand what you are saying and will try to do it that way however i don't understand why it doesn't work both ways. Only debits and credits, right? I am not at home in texas right now but am in sicily and all my documents are at home. I will let you know as soon as i can try it again here in sicily.
Vincent

vince6501

I re-entered the last 3 months of the CC bills and it all came out perfect. Thank you guys for straightening me out of the use of the CC account. It seems so much easier when I do it right. Now I will change the way I do all of my credit cards. Thanks again.