Why does not an Auto Loan appear in a Report

Imlost

I used the standard drop down setup for an auto loan in Quicken, and it appears to be working properly when I perform an online update. I decided to try creating the transactions by category report today and there are all sorts of line items shown including credit cards and a home loan; however; my auto loan does not appear in the report. Does anyone have any idea as to why this is not happening? I also find it interesting that the second mortgage is listed under the Credit Card header.

jacobs

When you pay your auto loan, you think it's an expense. But accounting-wise, it's actually not an expense: you're transferring funds from an asset (your checking account) to a liability (your loan account), and fund transfers are not expenses. (By paying down your loan, you're increasing your Net Worth, but not paying an expense.) But of course, it absolutely feels like an expense to you, from a cash flow standpoint. So this is why Quicken allows you to selectively include Transfer transactions in your reports. 

The next trick is that if you include ALL transfers in a report, you still won't see what you want, because the report will include the money out of checking and the money into the loan, and they offset each other. So you need to set your report to include only one side of the funds transfer.

So in your transactions report, go to Edit and click on the Accounts tab. Here, you want to un-check your loan account. Now click on the Advanced tab and click on the option to "Only include transfers with accounts outside of report." Since you have excluded the loan account from the report, then it is an "account outside" the report, and transfers to/from that account will show up in your report. Now, when you press OK, you'll see a Transfer section in the report, and you'll see "To [loan account]" reported there. You might prefer to see it up with your other expenses with a category like "Auto Loan", but you have to be satisfied with it showing up as Transfer > To [loan account].

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand your last line about your second mortgage showing up under the Credit Card header. Is this in your report, or are you referring to where the account appears in the left sidebar? Where the account appears may depend on what type of account it is. If it's basically a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC), Quicken will treat that like a credit card because it's more like a credit card than a loan. But the functionality is the same. If this is truly a mortgage loan, then we'll need more information about how the account was created in Quicken, whether it's set to download from he lender, etc.

jacobs

When you pay your auto loan, you think it's an expense. But accounting-wise, it's actually not an expense: you're transferring funds from an asset (your checking account) to a liability (your loan account), and fund transfers are not expenses. (By paying down your loan, you're increasing your Net Worth, but not paying an expense.) But of course, it absolutely feels like an expense to you, from a cash flow standpoint. So this is why Quicken allows you to selectively include Transfer transactions in your reports. 

The next trick is that if you include ALL transfers in a report, you still won't see what you want, because the report will include the money out of checking and the money into the loan, and they offset each other. So you need to set your report to include only one side of the funds transfer.

So in your transactions report, go to Edit and click on the Accounts tab. Here, you want to un-check your loan account. Now click on the Advanced tab and click on the option to "Only include transfers with accounts outside of report." Since you have excluded the loan account from the report, then it is an "account outside" the report, and transfers to/from that account will show up in your report. Now, when you press OK, you'll see a Transfer section in the report, and you'll see "To [loan account]" reported there. You might prefer to see it up with your other expenses with a category like "Auto Loan", but you have to be satisfied with it showing up as Transfer > To [loan account].

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand your last line about your second mortgage showing up under the Credit Card header. Is this in your report, or are you referring to where the account appears in the left sidebar? Where the account appears may depend on what type of account it is. If it's basically a Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC), Quicken will treat that like a credit card because it's more like a credit card than a loan. But the functionality is the same. If this is truly a mortgage loan, then we'll need more information about how the account was created in Quicken, whether it's set to download from he lender, etc.

Imlost

Thank you for your reply that is very kind of you.

I will have to print it out in order to understand and follow it. Evidently I do not grasp the complexities of a Quicken report or I can not find a simple"where did it all go" Quicken report. I am an old retiree and just wanted to watch my spending.

The Comment regarding the Second Mortgage was sort of a "while I am here" kind of thing. And yes, you hit it right on the head, "where the account appears in the left sidebar". When I created it via all that download account from the lender thing, it showed up under the Credit Cards as a Fannie Mae Fixed. I do not think that I was ever asked for any details like the above Auto Loan. It just seems odd.