subcategories in reports

jmg3

I used to be able to pull very detailed reports, for instance my summary reports would be separated by category, but also within each category by tag. I found this very useful. For example I could figure out how much I spend each year on lodging (tag) within travel (category). I can not find a way to do this. Any suggestions? (I'm using Quicken for Mac)

jacobs

You can't specify second-level subtotal fields in Quicken Mac reports.

This may or may not help, depending on how extensively you use tags: if you create a Summary report by Category with columns set to Tags, you'll get a report with totals of each category and sub-totals for each tag. For your travel example,e this might be useful, because you probably have only a handful of tags you use for travel. (You can limit the report to exclude other tags on the Customize screen.) but if you want a report of all your categories, and you use lots of different tags for different types of expanses, such a report can be unwieldy because it will have a column for every tag.

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That said, I'd raise a question about your use of tags in this example. Tags are most effectively used when they track different dimensions of income or expanse than your categories. For instance, if you want to break down spending between you and your spouse, using tags with your names will allow you to have a breakdown across all your expense categories. Or if you own two properties you rent, and want to tack various expenses by Unit A and Unit B, tags can be useful. But if you have something which is really a subset of a category — such as Travel > Lodging — you would probably do better to make Lodging a sub-category of Travel, along with other types of travel expenses, like Airfare, Food, Auto, or whatever things you track. With sub-categories, they will be subtotaled in a Transaction or Summary report. Another way to think about it is whether a particular transaction type comes up under lots of categories. For instance, if you wanted to track your spending separate from your spouse, you'd have to create two sub-categories for many or most of your expense categories. So in that case, using two tags is better than creating dozens of sub-categories. But for Lodging, you might have this as a sub-category for just one Travel category (or perhaps two or three if you have a separate category for business travel versus personal vacation travel); Lodging wouldn't be used as a tag on transactions which are clothing purchases, restaurants, entertainment, groceries, etc. So in this case, a sub-category makes sense. 

jacobs

You can't specify second-level subtotal fields in Quicken Mac reports.

This may or may not help, depending on how extensively you use tags: if you create a Summary report by Category with columns set to Tags, you'll get a report with totals of each category and sub-totals for each tag. For your travel example,e this might be useful, because you probably have only a handful of tags you use for travel. (You can limit the report to exclude other tags on the Customize screen.) but if you want a report of all your categories, and you use lots of different tags for different types of expanses, such a report can be unwieldy because it will have a column for every tag.

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That said, I'd raise a question about your use of tags in this example. Tags are most effectively used when they track different dimensions of income or expanse than your categories. For instance, if you want to break down spending between you and your spouse, using tags with your names will allow you to have a breakdown across all your expense categories. Or if you own two properties you rent, and want to tack various expenses by Unit A and Unit B, tags can be useful. But if you have something which is really a subset of a category — such as Travel > Lodging — you would probably do better to make Lodging a sub-category of Travel, along with other types of travel expenses, like Airfare, Food, Auto, or whatever things you track. With sub-categories, they will be subtotaled in a Transaction or Summary report. Another way to think about it is whether a particular transaction type comes up under lots of categories. For instance, if you wanted to track your spending separate from your spouse, you'd have to create two sub-categories for many or most of your expense categories. So in that case, using two tags is better than creating dozens of sub-categories. But for Lodging, you might have this as a sub-category for just one Travel category (or perhaps two or three if you have a separate category for business travel versus personal vacation travel); Lodging wouldn't be used as a tag on transactions which are clothing purchases, restaurants, entertainment, groceries, etc. So in this case, a sub-category makes sense. 

jmg3

Thank you - this is extremely helpful! So, how do I create subcategories? By typing Travel:lodging in the category spot? I ask because I have noticed that auto fill sometimes does this for me - never knew why it was doing that. I appreciate your help!

jacobs

The first thing I'd do is go to Preferences > Register and click the option for Display Long Names. This way, you'll see Tavel:Lodging in the Category field rather than just Lodging. I prefer to leave it this way; if you want to turn it off after you're used to your new categories and sub-categories, you can switch it to Short Names in the future.

To create and manage categories and sub-categories, go to Window > Categories. Here, you can see all your existing categories, and which ones are sub-categories of main categories. To create a sub-category of a category such as Travel, click on Travel, click the + icon at the bottom of the window, and select "New subcategory" from the pop-up menu. Enter the new sub-category name and click Save. It's as easy as that.

As you work on transforming your category list, you may find you want to delete some existing categories, and make some categories into sub-categories, or sub-categories into main categories. You can do all of that in the Categories Window. To merge two categories, or two sub-categories of the same category, you use the Merge Categories button at the bottom of the Categories window. It will be grayed out until you have two (or more) categories selected (by Command-clicking them). Once the Merge Categories button is active, click it and it will pop up a confirmation dialog box in which you can see the categories about to be merged, how many uses each has, and very importantly, which one of the existing categories will be the one to "survive" as the name of the merged category.

Important note: you can only merge categories and subcategories at the same level. So you can merge two main categories, but you can't merge a main category and a sub-category of another category. In order to merge two such categories, you need to first make them at the same level; that is, either make the sub-category a main category — by dragging it out of its existing category — or make the main category a sub-category of the same main category which contains the other sub-category you want to merge with. Similarly, you can't merge two sub-categories of separate main categories; you first need to drag one of the sub-categories to be under the same main category as the sub-category you want to merge with.

Another note: If you're wondering, you can create sub-categories of sub-categories. Some people have legitimate reasons for needing this, but I believe for most people, one level of sub-categories is generally enough. I've seen some people who created nested categories 7 or 8 levels deep for what I'm sure they though were good reasons, but the tracking and reporting of such a set-up are likely to be a nightmare, and error-prone. My advice: stick to one level of sub-categories for all or most o your work; if there's one or two specific categories which require sub- and sub-sub-categories, go for it, but try to keep those instances to no more than a few exceptions.

One more note: You can't merge a category or subcategory which is one of Quicken's small number of required categories — such as any of the subcategories of the Investments category.

jmg3

Thanks so much - subcategories is exactly what I need!