Tag Processing During New Customer Payment

Jon_sacks

I use tags extensively and I have never been able to figure out a way to apply a tag to a payment when processing a "New Customer Payment" in one step. Since the Category field is not displayed in this dialog you can not use the "/" to delineate the Category/[tag] established in the line item field in the invoice and the line item detail does not move to the payment (i.e. have multiple tags in a single invoice at the line item level).

This is problematic if you want to use tags for reporting on a "Cash Basis" as the tag is needed on the payment side for quicken to select/report it in reporting.

The only work around I have found is to first apply the payment in "New Customer Payment" then go to the A/R register and add the /[tag] to the category field in the register (i.e. [Checking]/[Tag]) so it moves to the Income Statement through the cash account (i.e. Checking) since Cash Basis Income/Expense transactions are only reported upon from the Cash Accounts.

I understand why this is an issue since there is a one to many relationship at the header level of the invoice and tags are applied at the line item level. It would appear the only thing that can be done to give true functionality to tags in payments is for the payment to carry the invoice detail line with the associated tag and move to the cash account as a split to the line item level.

I can live without having the split level detail for a payment in my cash account, but would at least like to apply the Tag at the header level so I don't have to go through multiple steps for every payment.

Does anyone have another suggestion? If not, this would be a great enhancement.

Version: Windows R39.23
Build: 27.1.39.23
OS: Windows 10

NotACPA

Which Q product are you running and what BUILD of that product?  Do HELP, About Quicken for this info.

Also, have you tried the often suggested of recording the payments to an intermediate/holding account, and then transferring them to your bank account?

Jon_sacks

Version and build are in my original post, I have no idea what you are suggesting by going to an intermediate account. I can do what I want with the work around I suggested, but was asking if anyone knew of a way to complete applying a tag in the "New Customer Payment" process. Please reread my post in it's entirety if you think you have a solution.

UKR

Other than associating a Customer Invoice with a Business Tag (in the New Invoice dialog form), I'm not aware of a need to adding tags to invoice line items. You shouldn't need to or have to assign other tags to payments either. There is the Project/Job field on the invoice that can be used to group multiple invoices and their payments together.

Can you give us an example of why you need additional tags?

Jon_sacks

The program already allows for category/tag at the item level in an invoice. But that again is not my question, it has to do with the payment processing of the invoice as the detail lines do not move as a split to the checking register.
Example:
A single customer is being billed widgets and doodads for several different jobs:
Joe Customer - Invoice 03825
Item --- Category/Tag --- Units - -- Price --- Extension
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Widget1 --- Sales Widgets/Main St. Project --- 2 --- 1.25 --- 2.50
Doodad1 --- Sales Doodads/Main St. Project --- 1 --- 2.00 --- 2.00
Widget1 --- Sales Widgets/1st St. Project --- 2 --- 1.25 --- 2.50
Doodad1 --- Sales Doodads/1st St. Project --- 1 --- 2.00 --- 2.00
Total 9.00

When the payment comes in on one check for $9.00 and you apply it in new customer payment, a new "PMT" record is created in [A/R] and a new record is DEP recorded in [Checking] with no associated tag. You need to go into the PMT record and add the /[Tag] to the [Category] field and then the tag is reflected in [Checking].

As you can see from this example there are multiple issues:

The Tag in the PMT record does not reflect the Tags value in the DEP record since there is only a 1 to 1 relationship at the header level. You would have to manually go into your DEP record, do a split and then calculate out manually the amounts to apply to each Category/Tag.

The correct way (IMHO) if you are do cash basis accounting is for Quicken to handle this by putting the split into the DEP record in the [Checking] account.

The same thing is true with sales tax, shipping charges, etc. that they are not reflected in the [Checking] account so you can't report on them on the income statement.

UKR

Use the Project/Job entry field on the invoice and create invoices separately, one for each project or job. There's no need for breaking out the details on the New Customer Payment transaction because you already categorized each item to a business expense category and assigned a Project/Job name when you created the invoice.

Jon_sacks

That does not solve the issue and creates more work then just manually going back to the register to enter the tag in the Category field. I guess you have answered my questions, there is no shortcut to what I'm trying to accomplish and yes Quicken is deficient in it's use of tags in invoicing/payments when it comes to split tag transactions and the ability to assign a tag to a payment so it can be reported through the income statement (i.e. Income statement by Tag).