Categories to track expenses for a second home

tnealon

Looking for advice on the best way to track expenses for a second personal home (not rental) in Quicken. I have the Quicken Home, business & rental property version of the software. Thought about adding it in another group but not sure that is necessary. It will pretty much have the same expenses as main home (prop tax, insurance, repairs and maint, utilities, etc.) Just want to be able to run costs on second home easily. I was just going to set up categories. Re-title the Home category as Main Home and then set up a second group with the same expenses as Second Home. That is unless someone has a better idea. Thanks in advance.

bmciance

I would just do as you suggest with the second group of categories.  That will give you the ability to separate the expenses easily. 

tnealon

Thanks. Appreciate it

Landgoddess

Your suggestion of duplicating categories under "Main house" & "2nd house" It's similar to how I set up my quicken file back in 1995, I had really no idea what I was doing. I can tell you, that several years later, my category list was quite long. It was helpful being laid out that way for reports, but for the most part I have done away with that & use tags instead.

I would suggest starting with tags. "MainHm", "2ndHm, same for your vehicles - Truck, Escape, Dodge, etc.. Everything uses the same categories. Then just run a business tag report or your regular reports & select or deselect tags as needed.

You can use the find and replace option to tag in bulk, just be very careful because it's quite easy to make a mess... Make sure you have a recent backup before you start. If you've been using quicken for a while and have an extensive file, you may want you only tag this 2nd property & know that everything untagged, is for your main home.

NotACPA

I'd suggest the use of TAGS for each home. Really much simpler

bmciance

NotACPA said:

I'd suggest the use of TAGS for each home. Really much simpler

It really depends on how you want to look at things.  If you use tags then you don't see the breakout in any reports by category. 

Landgoddess

> @bmciance said:
> It really depends on how you want to look at things.  If you use tags then you don't see the breakout in any reports by category. 

I can't speak for other versions, but in Q Hm&Bus you can run a Business report by tag & it lines up each tag in it's own column, alphabetically, right next to each other. If the other versions don't do this, you can run individualized tag reports in whatever combinations you choose. Run them & view in separate windows or print them to compare. Not as handy as the Bus Tags report, but much less messy than doubling or tripling up on categories.

tnealon

Thanks everyone - now I have kind of a related question. I also have 2 rental homes. Would you recommend setting up rental categories for each or just use the tags there as well?

Landgoddess

Both. Optimally you would have a separate file & bank accounts for just your rental properties. If you stick with just one file, create a separate set of categories for your rentals AND use tags. Be sure to set these categories as business tax line items. Yet another way to keep them separate. And with one main category (Rentals) & everything else subs, reports are quite easy as well.

Landgoddess

One tag per SFR or UNIT within an apartment building AND the building as a whole, for the exterior, common areas, etc.

You can tag each tenant as well, but for me that's kind if overkill unless you have a high turnover, in which case, your Quicken tags are the least if your concerns....

mshiggins

Welcome @Landgoddess, great handle!