category entries not showing up in reports

Question

I just added a category to a bunch of entries that were automatically downloaded from Fidelity for two 529 accounts. My sons I entered Education:college:son to all the bill payments that we made through Fidelity directly to the college. Did the same for my daughter except it was Education:college:daughter. When I do a spending report for each of them with the category chosen these 529 entries do not show up. Under the Accounts tab All Accounts is chosen. When I chose Selected accounts both accounts are checked.

What else can I look for. And one thing I noticed. When I look at the 529 entries the category is blank unless I click the entry and then it shows up. I did widen the Description column width so there is no overlap between the the two tabs and it still does not show up until I click the entry.

q_lurker · Answer

What transaction types are you using?  I see for MiscExp, the category is displayed in the one-line transaction list.  For XOut, Deposit, and Withdraw transactions, the category is NOT displayed in the one-line transaction list.  I didn't look for other variations.  Basically, for some transactions the category shows, for others, it doesn't.  Probably not related to your issue.

There may be some variation in what you see based on how you have fully used the categories.  Broadly speaking, when sub-categories are used (in your case down to Daughter and Son) Quicken's reporting  seems to work best if no transactions are assigned to the superior categories.  So in your case, do you have transactions assigned to Education or Education:College?

Frankx · Answer

Hi @chenige,

I tried to replicate what you've done above as a test and the reporting is correct (i.e. - I am not seeing the problem that you are).

Do you see this problem when you run a "Spending by Category" for ALL activity, or just when you try to run a for one of them (i.e. a report ONLY for your son or Only for your daughter)?

The issue of the "category is blank unless I click the entry" is troubling and could be part of the problem.  You may want to backup your data file and then validate it, so see if that fixes the issue.  Here's a link to the steps you'll need to take LINK.  Go directly to section entitled "Fourth, Copy your file and Validate".

Let me know how that goes.

Frankx