Transfer split category amounts into another account

break80

When I transfer money from one account to another, the receiving account category is always the transferring account name.  When that transfer is also split into categories, I have a problem that is depicted in the below simple transferring example:  

Let's say I deposit $1000 into my bank account and it is split as $700 in category1 and $300 in category2.  But now I need to transfer $500 of that money into another bank account as $200 from category1 and $300 from category2.  How can I enter the transfer and retain both which account category that supplied the $500 AND the $300/$200 split categories?  

splasher

If you did manage to do what you describe, if you subsequently ran a report for the two categorys, it would show $700 & $200 for category1 and $300 & $300 for category2 for a total of $1500 when you only have $1000.  You would be double counting the $ inappropriately.

break80

I have not given the report any thought, and you are probably correct.  Only way I think might work is to set up additional Quicken accounts and transfer into and out of them.  But that approach is messy since those accounts would only be used for this one set of transactions.  I am coming to the conclusion that since Quicken is not a double entry accounting system I can't really use Quicken for this.

Would appreciate if anyone has any ideas how I can do this in Quicken that I have missed.

Thanks

volvogirl

Is the Deposit and Transfer dates far apart?  I've been trying to figure it out for you but only came up with changing the original 1,000 deposit to split 500 to Cat 1 and transfer 500 to the other bank. 

Is this going to be an ongoing situation?  Can you give details of it?  And why you want to track the +700 and -200 in cat1 and not just the net 500.

splasher

break80 said:

I have not given the report any thought, and you are probably correct.  Only way I think might work is to set up additional Quicken accounts and transfer into and out of them.  But that approach is messy since those accounts would only be used for this one set of transactions.  I am coming to the conclusion that since Quicken is not a double entry accounting system I can't really use Quicken for this.

Would appreciate if anyone has any ideas how I can do this in Quicken that I have missed.

Thanks

Explain why you want to do this and maybe someone will have a different approach.

q_lurker

I suspect a misunderstanding here. Your first $1000 deposit. You say 

it is split as $700 in category1 and $300 in category2

When you categorize a deposit, you are saying where that money came from. You are not ‘depositing’ the money into Categories 1 and 2. The paycheck parallel would be saying the deposit was $700 from regular earnings and $300 from overtime. 

Second and third points - categories don’t have a balance and categories cross-over accounts. You don’t have so much of each category in each account. The category for groceries doesn’t especially care if the transaction was recorded in account 1 or account 2. 

If you are trying to use some type of envelope budgeting approach, I suggest a search on that subject. Quicken users have accomplished that with some difficulty, it seems to me. 

You might see if you can get Tags to work for you. I believe they can be paired with transfers I.e. [Txfr-act]/Tag.