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Automatically categorize past & future transactions

Gurtej Bains

Hi,

How can I automatically categorize all the past transactions and then make Quicken learn those rules to auto categorize all future transactions?

If the description of the transaction is AT&T then it is the internet bill but if the description is AT&T wireless + amount is $50 then it is the personal cellphone bill but if the description is AT&T wireless + amount is $75 then it is business cell phone bill.

I am a programmer, and this is a simple if-then statement job. Can't figure out how to get this done in Quicken.

Thanks

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Chris_QPW

These are two separate operations. (past and future transactions).

To change the past transactions you use Find and Replace (Ctrl+H) or you have the following options on and change a transaction in the register and it will suggest changing the other transactions in the register with the same payee name.

This might be a simple if-then to you, but Quicken users aren't programmers, and as such that isn't how it is done. Instead there are various options that handle this.

Starting out one might want some of the automatic options where Quicken guesses, and later when you have your memorized payee list built up turn them off.

General flow is renaming rule for the payee, which is used mostly to normalize the payee name to get rid of varying information (Change Safeway #2343 to just Safeway) and that will in turn match a memorized payee, and from that entry it will get the category it should use for that payee.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6031128/uploads/editor/s1/8xmbmg5mw7he.png

As for the future transactions there are several options that decide if and when such operations are to be done.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6031128/uploads/editor/u6/xriq68800wha.png

The Memorized Payee list itself:

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6031128/uploads/editor/cn/o22wofkqydxb.png

With Automatically memorized new payees, as you change the category in a transaction in the register it will put in an entry in the Memorized Payee list. Note that it is generally a bad practice to have multiple entries (different categories) for any payee that you want to automatically match to a downloaded payee. Also locking the payee in the memorized payee list is good so that it doesn't add new entries when all you are doing is changing the category for a given transactions for a one off situation.

I personally leave this off and just type Ctrl+M to memorize a new payee when they come in (right click/context menu has the same on it).

EDIT also check out the renaming rules on the Tools menu.

Sherlock

If you haven't already, you may want to review: https://help.quicken.com/display/WIN/About+the+way+Quicken+suggests+categories+and+payees

To categorize all the past transactions, you may use a filter to select all the AT&T transactions and replace the category with the desired internet bill category. Then, filter the AT&T wireless transactions, sort by amount, and select all the $50 transactions and replace the category with the desired personal cellphone bill category, then select all the $75 transactions and replace the category with the desired business cellphone bill category.

To select a range of transactions in a register, left-click the first transaction and Shift + left-click the last transaction.

To replace the category in the select transactions, right-click on one of the selected transactions and select Edit transaction(s).

For the future transactions, you may use bill reminders to enter the transactions in advance of their import and Quicken should automatically match the imported transactions by Date + Amount + Payee.

UKR

Gurtej Bains said:

Hi,

How can I automatically categorize all the past transactions and then make Quicken learn those rules to auto categorize all future transactions?

If the description of the transaction is AT&T then it is the internet bill but if the description is AT&T wireless + amount is $50 then it is the personal cellphone bill but if the description is AT&T wireless + amount is $75 then it is business cell phone bill.

I am a programmer, and this is a simple if-then statement job. Can't figure out how to get this done in Quicken.

Thanks

For future new transactions I recommend setting up and using Scheduled Reminders, one each for your 3 phone bills, with distinct payee names and desired categories:

AT&T Internet Service, Category: Internet bill, $xx.xx
AT&T Wireless {Personal}, Category: Telephone, personal, $50.00
AT&T Wireless {Bus.}, Category: Bus. Telephone, $75.00

Record each of these reminders a couple of days before their due date. When the transaction download comes in from the bank, Quicken will be able to match the downloaded information to the already existing register transactions with the correct categories, etc.

cfrphoto

I do not agree with automatically memorizing new payees. I would prefer requiring permission when entering transactions manually or when a new transaction class is encountered, ask for permission to add it. Memorizing PayPal payers is not helpful. They belong in the Memo field. Deleting unwanted payees in Quicken is a painfully slow process, especially when they keep coming back. Too many memorized payees may cause Quicken to delay input when attempting to match after each character typed. Sometimes Quicken took more than a minute to catch up.

I converted an eBay Managed Payments transaction download into a journal file and converted it to QFX. But there are no categories and no tags. Is the fix to delete the transactions in the eBay MP clearing account and import a QIF file, or is it possible to grab the transaction type and put it somewhere?

Quicken was invented in an era when paper dominated financial transactions. It is time to provide the means to categorize or create transfers based on search criteria on any field or matching criteria during import.

Chris_QPW

@cfrphoto If you don't want Quicken to automatically memorize payees you should turn that option off, I have many years ago. I manually memorize payees when I get a new one. In my opinion is it fine when someone is starting out, after most of your payees are memorized they shouldn't changed much, and certainly you wouldn't want to memorize payee for like e-Bay where the payee is constantly changing.

As for memorize payees being slow to look up, that would most likely be because one has built up way too many.

As for OFX files and categories/tags, this is the OFX standard and no there isn't any syntax for it. I think the reason is pretty simple, this was designed for the financial institutions to pass the transactions to the personal finances software and if the financial institution even has a way to categorize transactions they tend to be pretty poor and not very flexible. In comparison, Quicken does a much better job at assigning categories.

The QIF format does allow for passing in the category/tag, and is simpler, but there are some restrictions on it use in Quicken Subscription, the main one being that the import will not match transactions that are already existing in the register. See this for more information:

How Quicken Processes Imported Transactions - QuicknPerlWiz

As for the statement about matching on any field for the sake of categorizing, there is in fact only two fields in an any given transaction that matter, the payee and the memo, and Quicken provides for doing just that with the renaming rules. The renaming rules will match either the payee or the memo, and then by lining that payee up with a memorized payee you get your categorization.

Note that if one chooses to go the QIF route then you are basically going to have to come up with your own way of categorizing, which may be another field in e-Bay data or something.