How can I update many transaction (split) categories

Stejay

I have a year's worth of data across a dozen bank/credit card accounts. I am trying to get them organized. I need to be able categorize many transactions (e.g. from the same payee). Usually these are split categories. Is it best to export data to, make a change outside Quicken then reimport it or is there a better way within Quicken?

Quicken Jasmine

Hi @Stejay, 

Thank you for coming to the community with this question. I have found another discussion thread that I believe might be of use to you. Please follow this link to check out what other users have discussed in this thread to see if it suits what you are looking for. If not, please do not hesitate to reach out again. 

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7886725/how-do-i-edit-multiple-transactions-with-split-categories

I hope this finds you well. 

Thank you, 
Quicken Jasmine

q_lurker

I don't know of any way to export split-category transactions, edit them, and then import them back in.  As far as I know, that is a no-go.

Can you give us a sense of what types of editing you need done?  Adding to the split, changing category fields, adding tags, changing amounts?  Are many of the changes "the same" - like all the existing transactions have the same 5 split lines and should have the same 6 split lines?

"A years worth"?  Could be 4, could be 400?  What are we talking about?  

Stejay

A years worth refers to all transactions. I am may find 10-20 transactions that all need to be updated as a batch. In this specific case I need to take the entered value and split it into 2 to account for tax. The total amounts are the same and the splits are the same. Ideally, but I doubt there isn’t any way to do this but it sure would be great: to apply a formula that calculates the tax portion and puts that in a separate category. Easy to do in Excel, but likely too much to ask for a piece of software specifically design to manage money (he says sarcastically)

q_lurker

So you want to edit nearly every transaction of the past year.
You want what had been a transaction split as 
Clothes:His  $25.00
Clothes:Hers $50.00

to become 
Clothes:His  $23.00
Clothes:Hers $46.00
Sales Tax $ 6.00

You are correct in doubting that this can be done in any fashion other than a manual edit if each transaction with you doing the math (or looking at the receipt).

Now you know to plan ahead for next year.

You might be able to generate a report for all categories you'd expect to be paying sales tax on (groceries, household, etc., maybe exclude pharmacy as applicable), and then just apply a best guess at the applicable average sales tax rate on that total.  Utilities and gasoline might be at different rates.  (Don't take that as tax advice.  I'm not qualified to offer it.) 

Stejay

Thanks but no, I dont want to edit nearly every trxn. I simply want to split out tax paid which is 13% on pretty much everything. There are monthly identical Texan’s that I want to do this against. The reason for doing this is because any tax paid as part of costs for my small business reduces the amount of tax I must then pay for my sales.

volvogirl

For your business costs you don't need to split it out.   Just expense the full amount (including the tax) under the category like Supplies or Misc, etc.   You don't need to make more work out of it.   I wouldn't worry about it.   

q_lurker

Stejay said:

Thanks but no, I dont want to edit nearly every trxn. I simply want to split out tax paid which is 13% on pretty much everything. There are monthly identical Texan’s that I want to do this against. The reason for doing this is because any tax paid as part of costs for my small business reduces the amount of tax I must then pay for my sales.

The answer is still the same.  There is no way to automate the process reducing prior entries to 87% of their initial value and adding a tax line with the balance.

If these are nearly identical transactions (Texans = txns, darned spell checker), you may be better off deleting the originals and re-entering a memorized version with the tax line included, then editing the needed differences.  A copied transaction could also be helpful (Rt-click to copy a transaction).