How to track CC entries and monthly payment (edit)

gneneman

I pay my credit cards through the Chase website out of my bank accounts, what categories should I be using? I have my CC accounts and checking accounts & credit cards accounts all linked.

Tom Young

Here's what is generally accepted as "best practices." 

As you make charges on your various credit cards you use Categories that make sense to you, Categories that you want to periodically look at in Spending reports to see how much you've spend in each Category.  Quicken comes with a built-in set of Categories that you might use, or you can create your own Categories as you see fit.  Nobody can really tell you what Categories to use because we don't know what information you want to capture and then see in reports.  Expenses that you pay directly out of your checking Account or income deposited into the checking Account would also use appropriate Categories.

You're not "locked in" once you start using any particular Category, Quicken allows you to rename them, move transactions created under one Category to another Category, and so on.  Start with Categories that make sense to you and then change things as you see fit after you've had some experience.  Categories allow for sub-Categories and sub-sub-Categories, and more, so you can capture a lot of detail, if you wish.  "Categories" within Quicken-speak are what real accountants typically call "income and expense" accounts.  So by using a Category in a transaction means you want to see that transaction included in a Spending report.

Movement of money between Accounts - out of checking to pay a credit card bill, or moving money from Savings to Checking and visa versa are termed "Transfers" in Quicken-speak.  Transfers don't show up in Spending reports, they are reflected as changes in Account balances.  So a payment to Chase for one of your credit cards wouldn't use a "Category", it would use the name of the credit card which you're paying down, with the name surrounded by square brackets: [Name of Credit Card Account].

Ps56k2

Most folks track their spending via the CC and associate a Quicken Category with each CC spending transaction.
When it comes time to pay the CC bill - you merely "transfer" funds from your checking account into the CC account.
There is no "category" for this transaction... as it is just a transfer of money from one pocket to another.
You can enter this transfer by putting the name of the "other account" into the Category in this syntax ... [other acct].

Frankx

Hi @gneneman

If you are recording the actual purchase transactions made by the credit cards in Quicken already, then the payments you make to pay-off the credit card balance(s), should simply be "transfers" from whatever bank account you are making the payment from. 

If, on the other hand, you don't record (or download) the actual purchases made using the credit card account in Quicken, then you should be splitting the monthly payments made on the credit card balance(s) [each month] to the relevant "spending categories" for all transactions that appear on that month's credit card statement.

Frankx  

Tom Young

Here's what is generally accepted as "best practices." 

As you make charges on your various credit cards you use Categories that make sense to you, Categories that you want to periodically look at in Spending reports to see how much you've spend in each Category.  Quicken comes with a built-in set of Categories that you might use, or you can create your own Categories as you see fit.  Nobody can really tell you what Categories to use because we don't know what information you want to capture and then see in reports.  Expenses that you pay directly out of your checking Account or income deposited into the checking Account would also use appropriate Categories.

You're not "locked in" once you start using any particular Category, Quicken allows you to rename them, move transactions created under one Category to another Category, and so on.  Start with Categories that make sense to you and then change things as you see fit after you've had some experience.  Categories allow for sub-Categories and sub-sub-Categories, and more, so you can capture a lot of detail, if you wish.  "Categories" within Quicken-speak are what real accountants typically call "income and expense" accounts.  So by using a Category in a transaction means you want to see that transaction included in a Spending report.

Movement of money between Accounts - out of checking to pay a credit card bill, or moving money from Savings to Checking and visa versa are termed "Transfers" in Quicken-speak.  Transfers don't show up in Spending reports, they are reflected as changes in Account balances.  So a payment to Chase for one of your credit cards wouldn't use a "Category", it would use the name of the credit card which you're paying down, with the name surrounded by square brackets: [Name of Credit Card Account].

gneneman

Thank you