How do I see the transactions for my auto loan payment?

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I set up a loan with a matched asset account. I downloaded my transactions, which are paid by two people from different accounts - only one I manage. I want to see the transaction history. Why is it hidden?

This came up because I have no idea how to categorize my payments. If I categorize with the loan account, the balance due on loan is wrong. I should be able to assign the matching transaction in the Loan register as a Checking account transfer.

Q H&B

Tom Young

"I want to see the transaction history. Why is it hidden?"

You can't see a loan's register if you've set up the loan as a "downloading" loan.  The theory here is that the financial institution "pushes" the correct information to you so giving you access to the register means you'd only mess things up.  (I'm guessing that most loan information is downloaded using the somewhat unreliable EWC process so that theory, not uncommonly, is wrong.)

You need to set up the loan as a "manual" loan in order to have access to the loan's register.  In that case your regular monthly payments - payments that are split between interest expense and loan principal (transfer) - are what affects the loan's balance, so the onus is on you to reconcile that loan Account each month.

If you want to continue with the downloading loan then you need to understand what's going on here in order to make correct entries in your checking Account.  Quicken observes the "double entry" accounting standard where debits = credits, but there's a trick involved with downloading loans.  The "push" from the lender into the loan Account is entered (behind the scenes) as:

Debit (decrease) Loan Account       $XXX
Credit (increase) Net Worth              $XXX

(I don't know if Quicken actually has a Net Worth Account or simply calculates it on the fly, but I know the accounting effect.  You "magically" lowered your loan balance without using any cash, so your Net Worth increases.)

Accordingly, you have to perform the same trick when you enter your payment:

Debit (increase) Interest Expense        $YYY
Debit (decrease) Net Worth                  $XXX
Credit (decrease) Checking Account $ZZZ

That reverses the "magical" decrease in your net worth from the loan entry.

Mechanically how you make this entry in your checking Account is to the post the principal portion of the payment to the same Account in which you're making the entry, i.e., if you checking Accounts name is "Bank of America" then you enter the principal using a "Category" of [Bank of America].