Global category change (Q Mac)

hbravo

Good Morning. I have a sub-category called "new purchase" under two different categorize. Is there a global way to resign all the transactions within one of these "new purchase" sub-categories to the other so I can delete one of them? I attempted to merge the two categories by selecting them both in the category list but the "merge" option stayed greyed out so I couldn't select it.
Thanks in advance!

RickO

Yes, you can merge them, but they have to be at the same level of the hierarchy and under the same top level category. So here's what you need to do:

1. Rename each of them so they have unique names
2. Drag and drop one of them from its parent category to the parent category of the other one (so they are then under the same parent category).
3. Merge them (the Merge button should no be grayed out now)
4. Rename the resulting single subcategory back to the original name.

jacobs

The trick with merging two sub-categories is that they must first be united under one main category. You can rename one of them, move it under the other man category, click both sub-categories, and then click the Merge button — but Quicken will actually help you do this in one step.

Here are two subcategories with the same name, under two differenrt main category names. Let's say you want to merge the subcategory under the second main category with the subcategry of the first main category. All you need to do is drag “Subcategory” under the second main category over the name of the first main category ("Test 1 Main"). When you do this, Quicken will tell you there is already an existing subcategory called “Subcategory” here, and ask if you want to merge them:

Click the “Merge Them” button, and Quicken will do what you were trying to accomplish. 😀

hbravo

Great information. I will try to address this today. Thank you!

hbravo

Thank you so much, it worked perfectly. In related category self-inflicted confusion, under the "Gas and Fuel" category I created a "gas" sub category. Is there an easy way to reassign the gas subcategory to the gas and fuel so I can eliminate gas subcategory? I recently migrated from PC to Mac and in my exploration of Quicken for Mac I've realized that I made things more complex than necessary when I first setup quicken in Windows and I am trying to tidy my categories up.

jacobs

There are a couple ways to approach this. One would be to find and change all the existing "Gas and Fuel:Gas" transactions and change them to “Gas and Fuel”.

But the easier approach here would be to merge "Gas and Fuel:Gas" with "Gas and Fuel". How can you do that, you're asking? You can't merge a category with one of it's sub-categories. The trick is to make the current sub-category into a main category, which can then be merged with another main category. So in the Categories window, click and drag the “Gas” subcategory just above the "Gas and Fuel" category; you'll see a blue line showing where the sub-category will be moved.

When you release your mouse, you should see "Gas and Fuel" and “Gas” as separate main categories. Now click both of them, click Merge, select “Gas and Fuel” as the one you want to merge into, and your subcategory will be gone and all the transacitons which used it will be updated to use “Gas and Fuel”.

hbravo

Your explanation was very clear and it worked perfectly! Thank you!!