Category reporting and credit card entries

deemason

New version of quicken for Mac does not create separate report for categories under credit card payments. Old version used to do that for income tax reporting.

jacobs

Could you please provide more information so we can try to help you?

First, when you refer to "old version", are you referring to the prior Quicken Mac version (version 6.2.x) or something older?

Second, I'm not sure what you mean by "categories under credit card payments". the typical way to use Quicken for credit cards is to records each credit card transaction in a credit card account, using the full range of expense categories; the payment of the credit card bill is a simple transfer transaction from checking to the credit card account. If you use Quicken in that way, then it should be easy to get a report of your credit card expenses by category, and/or your credit card payments. So if you could explain what you're looking to accomplish, we can hopefully point you in the right direction. 

deemason

Thanks much for your response. As far as the old version, it would be an older one than the 6.2, I think, but am not sure. Second, I have never created different accounts for my credit cards.....didn't know that was possible. I put the payments into my one bank account, and then use the split to enter the different categories. In the prior version of Quicken, there was no problem in separating out the expenses by category; I've only had this problem with the latest version. Is there some place that I can learn more about how to create the separate accounts, if that is the way that I should handle this issue?

volvogirl

The proper way is to set up a credit card ACCOUNT and enter the charges into it when the purchase is made and assigning it to a category. Then when you pay the bill you TRANSFER the payment from your checking account to the credit card account. Then when you download the payment from the bank you match it to the one you already entered.  Then your credit card account should match what you actually owe at any time.

When you enter the payment in your checking account you put the credit card account name in for the category using square brackets around the name to indicate it is a transfer...like this… [credit card] or newer versions have a Transfer column.

jacobs

You should be able to create an expense report by category doing it the way you have been. On the Reports screen, if you select a report from the Transaction or Summary section, you'll get a report for the time period you select; you can restrict the report to select accounts o categories if you wish in the Edit panel.

Going back to how to treat credit cards overall, there are a number of advantages to having a separate account for each credit card and recording each transaction. You get rid of the unwieldy transaction with many splits.  y recording each transaction individually, you can record the date of each transaction, rather than grouping dozens of different transactions together. Similarly, each transaction has a unique Payee, so you can look up past history for any Payee. You can have a split for any single transaction (e.g. if you purchase from Amazon and part of the expense is clothing and part is food).

How to do this? It's pretty simple. At the top of the left sidebar, click the + icon to create a new account. Select the type as credit card. If you are not going to download transactions from your credit card company, click the link and the bottom for "My Bank is Not in the List", followed by Add Manual Account. When the new credit card account appears in the left sidebar, you can Control-click on it to rename it for the appropriate card. Then just record transactions int he account like you would bank transactions, one for each purchase on the credit card.

deemason

Jacob, this is super helpful and I will give it a try. One question: if my credit cards are already in my Quicken bank account, how will setting up a new account for each of them affect the way I already have it?

jacobs

What do you mean you credit cards are already in your bank account? Do you mean you have a transaction you're building with new split lines as you make transactions throughout the month?

You'll need to pick a date where you switch to using separate credit card accounts. I'd suggest you do so after the end of a billing cycle for each credit card; you could pick last billing cycle and enter everything since then, or do it after the end of the current billing cycle.

For example, if you have an XYZ Visa card where the billing cycle ends on the 15th of each month. You could create the XYZ Visa account in Quicken and then enter all the transactions which have occurred since August 15, or you could use your old system for the current month and start this on September 15 going forward. If you start as of August 15, then after you enter those transactions, you'll simply delete the transaction in your bank account if you've started entering split lines for this month. (Some people have a future-dated transaction which will eventually be paid in which they enter the split lines as they go along; some people wait until the end of the billing period to know the monthly balance and then enter all the split lines at once. In either case, you'll stop having such a transaction in your checking account going forward once you are entering individual transactions in your credit card account.) 

Once you have all your credit card transactions entered for a month, you can reconcile them as you do your bank account: enter the ending balance on the credit car statement, the closing date, and then mark cleared every transaction on the credit card statement; if you've entered everything correctly, you should end up with zero discrepancy in Quicken between your Quicken transactions an your credit card statement.

The final piece is paying the credit card bill. On whatever day you pay the credit card, you'll enter a transaction in your bank account to the Payee 'XYZ Visa' for the amount you paid. This transaction has no experience category (because all the expenses have already been itemized in the credit card account); it is a Transfer to XYZ Visa. You can enter a Transfer in the Category field using the syntax "Transfer:[XYZ Visa]" or you can make the Transfer column visible and select XYZ Visa in the Transfer column. Such a "linked transfer" will appear as a payment in the credit card account, reducing the credit card balance by the amount you paid. 

deemason

Jacob, Thank you for all your help. I will give this method a try. I'll let you know how it goes. Very grateful to you for taking the time to help me out.

phyllis

I understand the part about categorizing the credit card transactions. But in my credit card register, where I download all transactions, the payee shows as the credit card account but the category shows as a transfer to my checking account. Is that correct?

volvogirl

Yes that's ok if it's for the payment from your checking account.   Then be careful you don't have a duplicate coming from the checking account.   

phyllis

Please explain what you mean by "a duplicate coming from the checking account."

jacobs

If you download transactions from your credit card company, and it contains a payment which is a transfer from your checking account, and you download transactions from your bank, and it contains a transaction which is a transfer to your credit card account, you could end up with duplicates of your payment unless the transactions are properly matched, or one is deleted. 

volvogirl

Thanks, Jacobs.  You explained it better than I.  

phyllis

Thanks. I think that's what's happening. So how do I match the transactions or delete one, and which one?

jacobs

You can match transactions if one was manually entered and one was downloaded, just by dragging one on top of the other. But if both were downloaded, I don't believe you can drag-match them. In that case, simply delete one. It doesn't matter which one. 

If these transactions have a category which is "Transfer", without specifying an account, then that's a special category Quicken uses to say the money came from or went somewhere without knowing where. If you have the opposite transaction in the other account, then you have money going out of one account into another account -- but Quicken doesn't know these transactions are related. And that's fine. But if you want, you can change one of the transactions to have a category of "Transfer:[Account Name]"; this is called a "linked transfer", because it creates the equal and opposite transaction in the other account. (Then you need to delete the unlinked plain "Transfer" transaction in the other account to avoid duplication.)

DaveHat

re: credit card entries for "payee"- I pay a CC from my checking account then when auto updated, as expected, the CC acct shows up in brackets as the "Category", while the "Payee" shows up as "Ba Electronic Payment". I have been changing these "payees" back to the CC acct same as was paid (but w/o the brackets for an "Account")..

A Quicken reminder pop up tells me that I am "recording payment back into the same acct" although when I make this change the payment appears proper in both accts.

Does that matter if I post it one way or the other as long as I am consistent? I have asked a friend about this, if it matters whether this "payee" is "Ba Electronic Payment", or the same as CC acct category, and have been told that it does not, just be consistent.

An example would be: for category [Visa 123...], then payee as Visa 123....

Does this matter?
What would be suggested here?

volvogirl

I think I followed that. In the Checking Account you can name the payee description anything,  So it's ok to change it to anything.  As long as the category is still to the credit card Account in square brackets. 

 But it is wrong that it says recording payment back to the same account.   That is not right and means something is wrong.  Where do you see that?  Which account?

Start in the Checking Account.  The payment should be to the credit card account like [Visa 123].  Then it will make a transfer transaction in the credit card account.   If you download the credit card transactions you will need to delete the downloaded payment transaction so you don't have a duplicate transaction in the credit card account.