Exclude Account from Net Worth?

DJS1949

Hi all - I have sold a home (and bought another) and the sale recorded a gain, i.e. sold it for more than it was bought for. I kept the asset account of the home and credited it with the sale proceeds, so of course that is a negative number in the Property category. This then screws up the Net Worth and Planning functions. I can't seem to find a way to get this account ignored by Quicken for these calculations. The various Display options for the account doesn't do it. Anyone have some idea how to get Quicken to ignore this account in these calculations? Is there some other accounting mechanism I can use to account for the sale gain? Thanks much.

DJS1949

BTW, just noticed that the little Net Worth window on the Dashboard page calculates the net worth properly! Its only the Report that seems to do the wrong thing. Which then rolls into the Planning window incorrectly. Strange.

bmciance

You shouldn't credit the asset account with all of the proceeds. You should only credit it with the amount of your cost basis at the time of the sale so that the account ends up with a zero balance. Any remianing amount is your gain. Your entry should be a split entry with the other amount as the gain on sale of the house. You might want to create an income category for this or else you can use the "_RlzdGain" built in hidden cateogry.

Tom Young

I assume you took the "net cash to you" number and put it in your checking Account and the other side of the entry went to your "old house" Account? That's not exactly correct because that net cash to you probably does include some element of other costs (e.g., allocation of property tax) that really should go somewhere else, but it's probably "close enough" for your purposes.

You have two ways of going now:

1. You could make an "Increase" entry in that old house Account in the same amount that it shows as a negative balance right now with the "Category" being the same Account in which you're making the entry with the name surrounded by square brackets [Old House Account Name]. That would zero out the Account and make your Net Worth correct. That will zeor out the Account and not effect any other Account or Category in the file.
2. The other way would be to make that same increase entry in the same dollar amount, with the offest being to a Category you create called something like "Gain on Sale of Old House." That too will zero out the Account and your Income and Expense report would show that gain on sale.

Either way will work from the standpoint of getting a properly stated Net Worth, but the second entry is "more correct" from an accounting standpoint.

DJS1949

Thanks folks. Sorry for the delay in responding as I was out of town. I will try your suggestions this weekend and report back.

DJS1949

> @bmciance said:
> You shouldn't credit the asset account with all of the proceeds. You should only credit it with the amount of your cost basis at the time of the sale so that the account ends up with a zero balance. Any remianing amount is your gain. Your entry should be a split entry with the other amount as the gain on sale of the house. You might want to create an income category for this or else you can use the "_RlzdGain" built in hidden cateogry.

This worked. Thanks very much