What transaction category should be used for home sale proceeds?

Will Fiveash

My wife recently sold a house she owned and I'm trying to figure out what category I should use for that transaction that's in my Quicken register.

jacobs

If there's no tax issue you need to deal with, you can just record it using the category called Adjustment. This is a special category which lets you "manufacture money" in your account without affecting income or expenses on reports. Alternatively, you could create a category (or a sub-category of Personal Income) like "Home Sale Proceeds" for this transaction, if you expressly do want it to show up in your income reports for this year. (I generally try to avoid creating a new category for a single transaction knowing I'll never use that category again.)

Quicken Jared

Will Fiveash said:

My wife recently sold a house she owned and I'm trying to figure out what category I should use for that transaction that's in my Quicken register.

Hello @Will Fiveash,

I am happy you brought up the subject of categories for discussion here on the Quicken Community.

While the exact category that will suit your needs is ultimately up to your discretion, I did want to remind you that you can create a category - should you have trouble finding a preexisting one that seems appropriate - by going clicking on the box under the column marked Category in the register and then clicking on the button labelled New Category in the pop-up that appears. You may then enter the details that you desire in the window that follows.

I hope that is helpful. 

Thank you,

Quicken Jared

Jim_Harman

If you provide more information, we can help.

Do you care about tracking the tax implications of the sale in Quicken?
Do you have an Asset account set up in Quicken for the house?
Was there a mortgage loan in Quicken that was paid off with the proceeds?

Will Fiveash

> @Jim_Harman said:
> If you provide more information, we can help.
>
> Do you care about tracking the tax implications of the sale in Quicken?
> Do you have an Asset account set up in Quicken for the house?
> Was there a mortgage loan in Quicken that was paid off with the proceeds?

The situation is that the house that was sold belonged to my wife before we were married so I was not tracking her mortgage nor did I have an Asset account set up for it. When she sold it this year, she had the net proceeds (after her mortgage was payed off) wired into our joint checking account which I am tracking in Quicken. Doing some Internet searching I found some articles that lead me to believe we will not owe any capital gains tax on this which has led me to ask this question about how to categorize this transaction. Intuitively I think of it as non-taxable income we've received but I'm not certain about this.

jacobs

If there's no tax issue you need to deal with, you can just record it using the category called Adjustment. This is a special category which lets you "manufacture money" in your account without affecting income or expenses on reports. Alternatively, you could create a category (or a sub-category of Personal Income) like "Home Sale Proceeds" for this transaction, if you expressly do want it to show up in your income reports for this year. (I generally try to avoid creating a new category for a single transaction knowing I'll never use that category again.)