Changing Categories and Future Transactions

Socj

I have manually imported my bank transactions to Quicken. Since it was the first time a lot of categories were classified incorrectly. For example, my car insurance was categorized under home insurance. I have manually changed the category to the correct one I.E. auto insurance.

My question is:

Since I have assigned the new category to my car insurance, will Quicken automatically change all future transaction from this payee to the correct category?

Obviously I don't have to have to re-classify half my transaction categories every month.

Thanks for the help!

Chris_QPW

I think an explanation of how Quicken process this is in order.
When you download a transaction basically all it has to try to determine the category is payee and the memo.

The first thing Quicken checks is your payee renaming rules.  The main reason for renaming rules is to normalize the payee's name.  In other words, change something like "Safeway #43423" to "Safeway".  These payee renaming rules look at both the payee and memo fields even it Quicken refers to only the payee field.  If the payee isn't found in the payee renaming rules the payee goes through unchanged.

After that is done it Quicken looks at the Memorized Payee List and looks up the resulting payee.  If it finds a match it will use the category it finds in that payee's entry.

If the payee isn't found in Memorized Payee List then if the "Automatic memorize payees" preference is on, it guesses at what the category should be.  Personally, I suggest only having this preference on when first starting to use Quicken and building up a Memorized Payee List and then turn it off and manually memorize new payees as they come in (changing the payee category and then selecting Ctrl+M will do that).  I will also suggest locking the payee entries on the Memorized Payee List.  If you don't lock them then when you change a transaction to a different payee/category combination Quicken will create another payee/category entry in the Memorized Payee List, which is good for manual entry, but means that now Quicken has multiple choices of what a given payee's category should be when downloading, and it might not pick the one you want.  An example of this might be that most of the time you want Safeway to be groceries, but you make a big purchase at Safeway for some other category and want to change the category on that one transaction.

Both the Renaming Rules and the Memorized Payee List are on the Tools menu.

There are two sections of preferences to look at (Edit -> Preference):


It is important for the first two that I have highlighted to be on for the memorized payees to be used.


Note "Automatically apply Quicken's suggested name to payee" will do some of that same kind of renaming/normalizing of the payee if doesn't match any of your renaming rules.

You should look at this comment also for a Quicken run download of the process of reviewing downloaded transactions.  If you have any questions just ask:
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20312090/#Comment_20312090

Note that automatic transaction entry mode for non-investment accounts is on by default for new users.
I do believe that it is off for new users for investment accounts.  And I suggest that you leave it off even though I have it on.  There are some bugs in this mode in investment accounts that can trip up people.

Chris_QPW

Socj said:

Hey Chris_QpW,

This was a fantastic answer! I will go through it and try to setup Quicken to your recommendations. One quick question though, do I need to add a renaming rule for the payee in order for the memorization to occur? Or is it just easier for the software if I rename payees.

A renaming rule isn't required for the memorized payee list lookup/fill in of the category.
But do note that the payee has to exactly match (with the exception of the case) the one in the memorized payee list for it to fill the category information.

Chris_QPW

Socj said:

One last question Chris, if I rename multiple payees to the same name. Then the memorization will change the category for all affected payees, even if the original payee name differs?

I take it that you mean this.
You have these downloaded payee names:  Payee 1, Payee 2, Payee 3
And you setup one of more renaming rules to rename all of these to Payee X and then you have a memorized payee for Payee X with a category of Auto:Fuel.

What will happen is as Quicken downloads transactions with the any of the payees Payee 1, Payee 2, Payee 3 they will have their payee changed to Payee X, and then the memorized payee Payee X will kick in and their category will be Auto:Fuel.

NotACPA

Take a look at your Memorized Transactions to determine if your car insurance transactions were erroneously categorized.

Socj

Hey NotACPA, how do I check my memorized transactions? This is my first time using Quicken, so thanks for your patience.

Chris_QPW

I think an explanation of how Quicken process this is in order.
When you download a transaction basically all it has to try to determine the category is payee and the memo.

The first thing Quicken checks is your payee renaming rules.  The main reason for renaming rules is to normalize the payee's name.  In other words, change something like "Safeway #43423" to "Safeway".  These payee renaming rules look at both the payee and memo fields even it Quicken refers to only the payee field.  If the payee isn't found in the payee renaming rules the payee goes through unchanged.

After that is done it Quicken looks at the Memorized Payee List and looks up the resulting payee.  If it finds a match it will use the category it finds in that payee's entry.

If the payee isn't found in Memorized Payee List then if the "Automatic memorize payees" preference is on, it guesses at what the category should be.  Personally, I suggest only having this preference on when first starting to use Quicken and building up a Memorized Payee List and then turn it off and manually memorize new payees as they come in (changing the payee category and then selecting Ctrl+M will do that).  I will also suggest locking the payee entries on the Memorized Payee List.  If you don't lock them then when you change a transaction to a different payee/category combination Quicken will create another payee/category entry in the Memorized Payee List, which is good for manual entry, but means that now Quicken has multiple choices of what a given payee's category should be when downloading, and it might not pick the one you want.  An example of this might be that most of the time you want Safeway to be groceries, but you make a big purchase at Safeway for some other category and want to change the category on that one transaction.

Both the Renaming Rules and the Memorized Payee List are on the Tools menu.

There are two sections of preferences to look at (Edit -> Preference):


It is important for the first two that I have highlighted to be on for the memorized payees to be used.


Note "Automatically apply Quicken's suggested name to payee" will do some of that same kind of renaming/normalizing of the payee if doesn't match any of your renaming rules.

You should look at this comment also for a Quicken run download of the process of reviewing downloaded transactions.  If you have any questions just ask:
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20312090/#Comment_20312090

Note that automatic transaction entry mode for non-investment accounts is on by default for new users.
I do believe that it is off for new users for investment accounts.  And I suggest that you leave it off even though I have it on.  There are some bugs in this mode in investment accounts that can trip up people.

Socj

Hey Chris_QpW,

This was a fantastic answer! I will go through it and try to setup Quicken to your recommendations. One quick question though, do I need to add a renaming rule for the payee in order for the memorization to occur? Or is it just easier for the software if I rename payees.

Chris_QPW

Socj said:

Hey Chris_QpW,

This was a fantastic answer! I will go through it and try to setup Quicken to your recommendations. One quick question though, do I need to add a renaming rule for the payee in order for the memorization to occur? Or is it just easier for the software if I rename payees.

A renaming rule isn't required for the memorized payee list lookup/fill in of the category.
But do note that the payee has to exactly match (with the exception of the case) the one in the memorized payee list for it to fill the category information.

Socj

One last question Chris, if I rename multiple payees to the same name. Then the memorization will change the category for all affected payees, even if the original payee name differs?

Socj

Also, how do I lock the payee entries on the memorized payee list?

Chris_QPW

There is a column for that, but it might not be on by default.  Select the Options button at the bottom of the window to select it.  You can also edit the memorized payee by right clicking on it and selecting edit, and the lock option is on that dialog too.

Chris_QPW

Socj said:

One last question Chris, if I rename multiple payees to the same name. Then the memorization will change the category for all affected payees, even if the original payee name differs?

I take it that you mean this.
You have these downloaded payee names:  Payee 1, Payee 2, Payee 3
And you setup one of more renaming rules to rename all of these to Payee X and then you have a memorized payee for Payee X with a category of Auto:Fuel.

What will happen is as Quicken downloads transactions with the any of the payees Payee 1, Payee 2, Payee 3 they will have their payee changed to Payee X, and then the memorized payee Payee X will kick in and their category will be Auto:Fuel.

Socj

> @Chris_QPW said:
> I take it that you mean this.
> You have these downloaded payee names:  Payee 1, Payee 2, Payee 3
> And you setup one of more renaming rules to rename all of these to Payee X and then you have a memorized payee for Payee X with a category of Auto:Fuel.
>
> What will happen is as Quicken downloads transactions with the any of the payees Payee 1, Payee 2, Payee 3 they will have their payee changed to Payee X, and then the memorized payee Payee X will kick in and their category will be Auto:Fuel.

Answered perfectly. Thank you