Confused about what happened after adjusting categories

LXPF91

I'm new to using Quicken, just started yesterday, but I had gotten most of my accounts connected last night. I was going through and adjusting the categories today so that the Budget and other tracking features would actually make sense. After doing that though, for the last 3 months of transactions, all of the balances were messed up. I'm pretty sure I didn't change anything else. Does changing the categories change where transactions go or come from? I thought categories were just like a label.

Thank you for any help,
Lucas

mshiggins

The category field can contain a category - which, as you suspected, is like a label.

The category field can also indicate a transfer between two accounts, like when you pay your credit card from your checking account. In this case, the category field will contain the transfer account enclosed in square brackets, for example [Checking].

Changing the category of a transaction from a transfer account to a category removes the other half of the transfer. This can definitely change account balances. 

LXPF91

After looking at the thread about One Step Updates messing with balances, I'm wondering if it wasn't just that all along. I really don't have a way to know though since I just started over hoping it was just something I did while updating categories.

Sherlock

If you haven't already, you may want to review: https://help.quicken.com/display/WIN/Reconciling+banking+accounts

LXPF91

Thanks Sherlock,

I'll definitely have to do that before I put too much time into customizing everything again. And maybe set Auto Backup to every time I open Quicken.

mshiggins

The category field can contain a category - which, as you suspected, is like a label.

The category field can also indicate a transfer between two accounts, like when you pay your credit card from your checking account. In this case, the category field will contain the transfer account enclosed in square brackets, for example [Checking].

Changing the category of a transaction from a transfer account to a category removes the other half of the transfer. This can definitely change account balances. 

LXPF91

Thanks mshiggins,

I thought that might be the case since it does do a verification before saving any transactions that have a bracketed category, and that is definitely what I was doing, Ha.

So, after Reconciling a credit card the Online balance and Ending Balance match in the transaction view, I had to adjust the beginning balance to match the actual statement, and I manually verified each line item, but the amount in the Account Bar is now off. Is there a way to see exactly what the Account Bar is calculating? Seems bugged to me.

Well, before I could hit Post Comment, the balances all match up now. I guess I'll just have to be more patient next time, although I feel like that makes no sense why the balance wouldn't just match up to the transaction view.

volvogirl

The account bar on the side can show different balances.  You can Right-click in the Account Bar, and then choose Show Current Balance in Account Bar or Show Ending Balance in Account Bar.

LXPF91

Thanks volvogirl, I did find that earlier, but I'm talking about the specific account balances for each account in the Account Bar, not the total at the bottom.

volvogirl

That choice will be for each account in the account bar.