Changing transfer into income

drjaym

Hi, I'm new to Quicken and can't figure something out.

I have business and personal accounts. I usually pay myself (like employees) through direct deposit. My business accounts aren't part of my Quicken. I had a simple reimbursement so I just transferred the money from a business account into my personal account.

This shows up as transfer. It looks like:
Acct: Family Num: TXFER Category: Bills & Utilities: Credit Card Payment.

How do I change that into income, instead of a transfer?

Thanks

Tom Young

You say that your business accounts aren't part of your Quicken.  I assume that means that any business checking accounts, credit card accounts and any other accounts associated with your business are in a separate and distinct file from your personal Quicken file.  If that's the case then I can't understand how taking money out of a business account, (how did you account for that in your Quicken business file?) and depositing it in a personal checking account, (or, perhaps, having the business pay your personal credit card directly), could show up as any sort of "transfer." 

In Quicken the word "transfer" is associated with moving dollars from one Account to another Account in the same file.

If you moved money from a business checking account to a personal checking account then you'd record that as some sort of "income" in your personal file, then use that money to pay your credit card.*

If the business checking account paid your personal credit card directly, then you'd simply make offsetting entries in your personal checking account, i.e., a "phantom" deposit of the cash, categorized appropriately, and then a "phantom" payment of the credit card.  That would leave your checking Account balance unchanged and that second transaction would, properly, be called a "transfer."

(As an aside, about the only time it's appropriate to have your business in a file that's separate from your personal file is if the business is organized as a corporation and pays you a salary that's reported on a W-2.  If the business is a sole proprietorship or a single member LLC then the correct approach is to have that activity inside your personal file.  The business income is your income even if you never take a dollar out of the business checking account.)

Too, I don't understand the "Acct: Family Num: TXFER Category: Bills & Utilities: Credit Card Payment" notation.  What does that mean?  Where are you seeing this?  A "normal" transfer within a file - say paying $200 against your credit card would show up as:

Checking Account
Payee: "Name of credit card company"
Payment:  $200
Category "[Name of credit card Account"

and

Credit Card Account
Payee: "Name of credit card company"
Payment: $200
Category "[Name of checking Account]

*given what you've said here, this wouldn't be income, it's actually a reimbursement that should be offset against a Receivable Account that tracks the details.