Quicken Default Categories

Pilotbum

I'm one of those Quicken users that has been using Quicken since the early 90's and I'm pretty set with my category list. However, it seems like whenever there is a Quicken update it adds categories to my list that in some cases are annoying duplicates of an existing category. For example:

When I started using Quicken one of the suggested categories was Tax:Federal. I've been using that for a long time. Now with every update it adds Tax:Fed.

There are several of these that Quicken keeps thinking I cannot live without and I have delete with every update. It would be helpful if that were an option to leave out of updates...

splasher

Rather than deleting the categories, why not hide them.  That way Q won't add them since they already exist.  I can't guarantee that Q won't unhide them, but if it works and they stay hidden, you get the end result that you want.

UKR

... or "bend to the will of Quicken" and recategorize all Tax:Federal transactions to Tax:Fed.

I believe the programmers made some changes under the covers where they allow certain transactions made to certain Tax:... categories to be associated with the prior tax year even if they were made early this year.

Rocket J Squirrel

Do you have Paycheck entries? Quicken wants Tax and its subcategories Fed, Medicare, Other, etc. when you have a Paycheck. Creating a paycheck will create those default categories if they didn't already exist.

So if you never want to see these again, you could try deleting your Paycheck reminder and reconstructing it as a plain Split transaction reminder.

Chris_QPW

I was curious about the statement that Quicken suggested Tax:Federal since mine has always been Tax:Fed.  I converted that was last used in 1992 (Using Quicken 2004), and here is its category list:


EDIT
I decided to open it directly in Quicken 6 and see what I would get.


EDIT:  It wasn't open "directly", there was a conversion from 1992 to 1886 format, but I don't think this changes anything.  It has always been Tax:Fed.

mnml0

Mine is Taxes:Federal, but I started on the Mac version. By the time I gave up and converted to the Windows version (about the time the Mac version got "modernized"), there were too many transactions to bother changing. So, that might be an explanation for non-default categories. There were others that also had different nomenclature, but I no longer remember what they were.

Chris_QPW

mnml0 said:

Mine is Taxes:Federal, but I started on the Mac version. By the time I gave up and converted to the Windows version (about the time the Mac version got "modernized"), there were too many transactions to bother changing. So, that might be an explanation for non-default categories. There were others that also had different nomenclature, but I no longer remember what they were.

Changing all transactions that are of a given category is trivial.
Bring up the category list, Tools -> Category List, and right click on a given category, and select Edit.
Type in the new name and select Save.

mnml0

Recategorizing is trivial, but over the years I have grown more paranoid re. data getting munged. Once bitten and all that...

Mierau

How do I set up default categories for vendor supplied transaction updates. They used to work but now are all blank.