Returns/credits not showing up in cash flow reports

Boborino

I've only used Q4M for a few months but I continually see an issue where I return a purchase to a vendor and enter it as a credit on a account and categorize it as a positive+ expense category. However, when I look at a Cash Flow report it does not reflect the credit, only the original expense.

Is this a known bug?

Jon

OK, I see the problem. If you have a transaction set up as a transfer and you delete the destination account, the remaining transaction in the source account still shows the deleted account in the Transfer column. Even if you change the category to something other than a transfer, the Transfer column is still not empty. I think that's what causes the transaction to not appear in the Cash Flow report. If you edit the transaction to remove the obsolete account from the Transfer column, then it does appear. 

I seem to recall that there has been previous discussion about the ability to categorize transfers and that they ultimately intend to remove the ability to do that but it hasn't happened yet. This seems to fall in to that same area.

In the meantime, it should be easy to add the Transfer column to your register & sort the register by that column. That would group up all the transaction that are still showing transfers to the deleted account. You could then select them all & do a single edit to delete the contents of the Transfer column; you could change the category at the same time (assuming you want all of them to have the same new category).

jacobs

I'm not seeing this behavior. I just generated a Cash Flow report; in one of my expense categories, I entered cash in of $100, and the expense value in the report instantly decreased by $100. Then I tried creating a dummy expense category, entered a $100 cash in, and this, too shows up on the report (as a positive number in expenses.

In your report, click on Edit and click the Categories tab; make sure the category you're using is checked for inclusion in this report. 

Boborino

No this is a bug. If you delete an account that had an inflow (transfer) from another account, that transaction (on the later account) forever reflects a transfer for reports, regardless of whatever category or name you assign it later. The only way around this is to delete and then recreate the transaction.

I recently decided to stop tracking manually several accounts (with transfers in) and am able to duplicate the bug. Perhaps I should have closed the accounts rather than deleted them. Regardless, Q4M does not update the remaining transactions to reflect an expense (in) rather than a transfer (not seen).

Jon

That doesn't sound like a bug to me. If I tell Quicken that something is a transfer, then it's a transfer; I'm not sure I'd want Quicken changing it to something else later. And how would Quicken know what expense category to put it in? (Edit: I missed the part where you said you had manually changed it. If a Quicken report doesn't show that transaction in the category you assigned that does sound like a bug.)

This just doesn't sound to me like something Quicken can do for you. But if you disagree, you should write it up in the Product Ideas forum.

Jon

OK, I see the problem. If you have a transaction set up as a transfer and you delete the destination account, the remaining transaction in the source account still shows the deleted account in the Transfer column. Even if you change the category to something other than a transfer, the Transfer column is still not empty. I think that's what causes the transaction to not appear in the Cash Flow report. If you edit the transaction to remove the obsolete account from the Transfer column, then it does appear. 

I seem to recall that there has been previous discussion about the ability to categorize transfers and that they ultimately intend to remove the ability to do that but it hasn't happened yet. This seems to fall in to that same area.

In the meantime, it should be easy to add the Transfer column to your register & sort the register by that column. That would group up all the transaction that are still showing transfers to the deleted account. You could then select them all & do a single edit to delete the contents of the Transfer column; you could change the category at the same time (assuming you want all of them to have the same new category).

Boborino

Ah, I didn't see the Transfer column option. Yes, that does explain and fix the occurrence. Thank you!