Category ? - how to enter CC transactions for Business vs Personal [edit]

Lopez101

Hello

I am using Quicken to download my credit card transactions- I use my credit cards for both business and personal use-

I want to quickly category each transaction as it downloads as either Business or personal - then I am hoping I can go into each of these two and add another or sub category for each transaction -

Once done, I would like to select a date range for say the Business and print out all the transactions under Business with the totals for each Business sub category and a grand total of all of the transactions- Is this possible to do ?

Thank you

volvogirl

Yes.  For an income or expense category to show up under Business you have to assign it a Schedule C tax line number. Go into Edit Category and assign it one.  If you need to see a schedule C, here's the blank form….

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040sc.pdf

You can either assign the tax line number to an existing category or you might want to set up a new category for it to keep the existing one under personal if you have the same expense for both personal and business.

To check the tax line assignment open the Category list by either clicking on the Category Icon or go to Tools-Category List or Ctrl+Shift+C.  Then select the category and right click on it to Edit it.  Click on the Tax Reporting Tab and check the box for Tax related and pick a Schedule C: tax line item.

Here is how I have mine set up.   I don't know what categories you would need but my husband is a Land Surveyor.  Here's how I set mine up (I also put the Schedule C line number in as part of the name)...

Survey Income

Survey Expenses

 ……..11 Labor

 ……..18 Office Expense

 ……..20 Equip Rent

 ……..22 Supplies

 ……..24a Travel

 ……..27 Other - Printing

 ……..27 Other - Small Tools

I made the expenses sub-categories of the main Survey Expense category.

Also I use Tags for each job.  Then when I run a report I can sort it by job.  So an expense entry might look like this…

Survey Expenses:22 Supplies/Maple Street

NotACPA

In Q, a transaction is only identified as "business" if the category assigned to that transaction has a Business tax line associated with it.

The absence of a tax line associated with a category indicates that the transaction is Personal, as does various tax lines that aren't business (usually Sched C) related.

SO, If you spend some amount at a vendor and assign a tax-related category to the txn, it's business.

IF you spend the same amount at the same vendor and DON'T assign such a category, it's Personal.

Q has no other way of knowing what's personal and what's business.

You MIGHT consider using some cards for personal only and other's for business only, which might help.

Ps56k2

volvogirl said:  For an income or expense category to show up under Business you have to assign it a Schedule C tax line number.

I entered a test transaction with the default Category for "_business supplies" -

I can see it listed in Expenses in the normal Spending Report - ... is there any other Report that splits out "Business"

NotACPA

The category name is irrelevant for determining what's business vs what's personal.  Only TAX LINES assigned to the category or Tag do that.

Lopez101

Thanks I am still confused - when I add a group category I am assuming this is the top tier and then I have sub accounts under that category- I have not been able to do this successfully. I called Quicken Help for the first time and the agent wanted my full credit card information before they would give me questions- Normally when I call in for support the agent would email me or text me for a code that would verify who I am - I have never been asked for my credit card info and am very hesitant as I have been a victim of fraud. Can someone please comment on this ? Where can I call to have someone log on or walk me through this - I would greatly appreciate it , Thank you

Rocket J Squirrel

You contacted an imposter posing as Quicken support. Quicken support is free if your subscription is current. Go to https://www.quicken.com/support and scroll down to contact real Quicken support. Phones are closed for the weekend but chat should be up 5-5 Pacific time. Do not take any other path which looks like Quicken support.

You can certainly create categories and subcategories and even subsubcategories to suit your needs. You need the top level category to exist before you can create subcategories.

Ps56k2

Lopez101 said: Thanks I am still confused - when I add a group category I am assuming this is the top tier and then I have sub accounts under that category- I have not been able to do this successfully.

you create the top level Category - then create the sub-category, but you need to enter that as shown ....

as mentioned, to have a Category treated as a "business" item - it MUST be assigned a Tax Reporting Line Item

Lopez101

Thanks - I had a person that knows ins and outs hop on my pc and in 15 minutes he showed me what I needed - Thank you for all the help

NotACPA

For a Category with sub-cats ... has anyone tested the impact if the Category has a business tax line but the sub-cats have no tax line?

I'd think that the top-level category should rule ... but who knows?

Chris_QPW

NotACPA said:

For a Category with sub-cats ... has anyone tested the impact if the Category has a business tax line but the sub-cats have no tax line?

I'd think that the top-level category should rule ... but who knows?

Why should the top-level when both have a tax line associated with them?

NotACPA

Chris_QPW said:

NotACPA said:

For a Category with sub-cats ... has anyone tested the impact if the Category has a business tax line but the sub-cats have no tax line?

I'd think that the top-level category should rule ... but who knows?

Why should the top-level when both have a tax line associated with them?

Because a top-level cat that Business and a sub-cat that's personal makes very little sense to me.  If the top-level cat and the sub-cat don't have the same tax status then IMNSHO they should be together.

Chris_QPW

NotACPA said:

Chris_QPW said:

NotACPA said:

For a Category with sub-cats ... has anyone tested the impact if the Category has a business tax line but the sub-cats have no tax line?

I'd think that the top-level category should rule ... but who knows?

Why should the top-level when both have a tax line associated with them?

Because a top-level cat that Business and a sub-cat that's personal makes very little sense to me.  If the top-level cat and the sub-cat don't have the same tax status then IMNSHO they should be together.

Well, how about the top category not having any tax line?  I never put any transactions in a parent category that has sub-categories, so there isn't any need for it to have a tax line.

But more to point.  As it sits right now the user can do whatever they want.  If you start putting in a rule that if the parent category has a business tax line the sub-categories have to have one, how do you enforce that since it very possible that they might both have business tax lines, but they are different.

In other words, I don't see the need to complicate the process, especially making a more flexible system into a less flexible system for the sake of one person doing it wrong in 30 years of it working the other way.