I am able to enter a value into the Category field like "Utilities" and an account in the Transfer

jludwins

field but when I run a report that value in the Category field is the transfer account. What happened to the value that I put into the Category field?

splasher

jludwins said:

field but when I run a report that value in the Category field is the transfer account. What happened to the value that I put into the Category field?

Are you using Quicken for Mac because there is no transfer field in Quicken for Windows, just a category field which holds either a category or an account name (in []) if a transfer

jludwins

I am using Quicken for Mac

UKR

jludwins said:

I am using Quicken for Mac

IIRC, there was a brief period of time where one could set Category and Transfer fields independent of each other. I believe that was changed not too long thereafter. The Transfer field is a short form of entering a register name for a Transfer-To/From account, same as the Transfer - specific syntax that you use in the Category field.

If you are paying your Utilities bill, that is a categorized transaction, Category = Utilities, and not a transfer from one bank account to another.
OTOH, if you're paying your credit card bill, that usually is a transfer from your checking account to your credit card account register, and it is marked as Transfer [credit card account]. It is not categorized with splits for each of this month's credit card transactions.

jludwins

Thanks, but perhaps I've simply got the wrong structure. I keep books for siblings. One of them gets a utility bill and they get reimbursed by the other for their share thru a transfer, but it is actually for utility and I can only seem to track that via a memo field rather than the category field. I don't want to turn it into unconnected two transactions.

volvogirl

You need to add a Receivable account for the other person.  Then enter the bill as a split to Utilities and Receivable.   Then when you get the  reimbursement just categorize it to the Receivable account.  But hey, are you trying to keep all the accounts for everyone in the same data file?

The other person will need to have a Payable account set up in their data file.

jludwins

Yes, all accounts are in the same data file

UKR

jludwins said:

Thanks, but perhaps I've simply got the wrong structure. I keep books for siblings. One of them gets a utility bill and they get reimbursed by the other for their share thru a transfer, but it is actually for utility and I can only seem to track that via a memo field rather than the category field. I don't want to turn it into unconnected two transactions.

I don't think you can really do this in just one transaction.
This is how I would do this:
Let's say that Joe receives a utility bill of which brother Pete needs to pay 50%.

• You need two offline account registers: "Joe's Checking" and "Pete's Dues"
• You record the payment of the utility bill from account "Joe's Checking", categorized as a Split:
  - Split Category Utilities:Joe 50% of amount
  - Split transfer  [Pete's Dues], 50%

Repeat for all other bills split between Joe and Pete for this month.
When Pete pays his accumulated dues you record this as a deposit into Joe's Checking categorized as a transfer to Pete's Dues. This should reduce the balance in account Pete's Dues to 0.00