Transfer between account - transaction disappear

pierre881

When I have transfer between my accounts A and B, transaction will disappear from account A when I assign a category to the transaction in account B. Would like to know how to fix this since it is creating issues at reconciliation. tx

splasher

A transaction can either be a transfer (category in square brackets, ie. [Checking] ) or have a category but not both.

Creating a transfer in account A will generate a transaction in account B.  If you replace the category in either transaction, the mating transaction will be deleted since it is no longer a transfer.

Why do you think you need to change the category field entry?

pierre881

Assume that account B is used to manage a jointly owned vacation property. The transfer from account A is funding. For account A, it is an expense tracked in a budget category. If the transaction is not tagged to the category in account A, the budget / actuals are not accurate

Tom Young

Within one Quicken file you can't have one leg of a transaction labeled as a Transfer and the other leg of the transaction labeled as a Category, as @splasher has explained.

"Assume that account B is used to manage a jointly owned vacation property."

I think you might want to add some more detail here so we can properly advise you.  One way of interpreting that sentence is that by "jointly owned" you're not talking about jointly owned with your spouse, you're talking about a "partner" in the sense of "an (informal) partner and I own a vacation house."

If that's the case then "account B" should really be in a separate Quicken file, if you're trying to account for the "partnership's" activities.  Each Quicken file represents a separate "entity" for which you're doing the accounting.

OR, if you're simply using account B to somehow add clarity your own transactions, either set up the transfer as a form of "expense" for budgeting and reports, (the transfer would then show up as an "expense" in the Expenses section as "TO account B"), or having made the transfer to account B and having spent that money using some Category, capture that expense in your budget and reports.

splasher

I'm with Tom on the vacation property being in its own Quicken data file.  It really doesn't belong mixed in with your personal financial records other than your payments to it which you could categorize as desired.