New to quicken and would like to know how to handle Paying Bills with Credit Cards

BobMalis

I'm curious how to "account" / track a transaction appropriately in quicken for the following scenario:
I pay my Netflix bill automatically via a credit card (to get the points)
I then pay the credit card balance (numerous activity items) from my checking
How do i account for these transactions in quicken to track the credit card balance, checking balance, bill payment, and ultimately back to my budget?

Rocket J Squirrel

Create an account in Quicken to represent your credit card. Charges to your card go into that account where they can be properly categorized.

When you get your monthly credit card bill, Reconcile the credit card account. As the final step of that Reconcile, Quicken will ask how you want to pay the bill: printed check, hand check, or electronically if you have that enabled. That payment will show as a transfer from checking to credit card, reducing your credit card balance.

Rocket J Squirrel

Create an account in Quicken to represent your credit card. Charges to your card go into that account where they can be properly categorized.

When you get your monthly credit card bill, Reconcile the credit card account. As the final step of that Reconcile, Quicken will ask how you want to pay the bill: printed check, hand check, or electronically if you have that enabled. That payment will show as a transfer from checking to credit card, reducing your credit card balance.

volvogirl

The proper way is to set up a credit card ACCOUNT and enter the charges into it when the purchase is made and assigning it to a category. The transactions need to be entered with the date you charged it, not the date you pay the credit card bill.

Then when you pay the bill you TRANSFER the payment from your checking account to the credit card account. Then when you download the payment from the bank you match it to the one you already entered.  Then your credit card account should match what you actually owe at any time.

When you enter the payment in your checking account you put the credit card account name in for the category using square brackets around the name to indicate it is a transfer...like this… [credit card] or newer versions have a Transfer column.