Handling Uncategorized Transactions (Transfers in Q Mac)

revbob53

I have several financial accounts in Quicken. When I transfer money from one account to another I leave it as "uncategorized" because it is an internal transfer for all intents and purposes and doesn't need a budget category. Yet these show up on the HOME Dashboard as HUGE slices of the piechart, making it essentially useless for tracking other expenses. How should I handle internal transfers? Is there way to prevent them from showing up on dashboard charts? Thanks.

UKR

I think there's a discussion here somewhere that discusses the new Dashboard panels and why transfers cannot be excluded at this time. Here's to hoping that the Quicken programmers listen and make a change soon.

As to recording transfers: I recommend you record transfer transactions in Quicken with a Category = the name of the transfer-to account, surrounded by [square brackets], e.g., [XYZ VISA 1234]
This creates a linked pair of transactions, one each in both account registers and you won't have to create and maintain two separate transactions.

Jon

You could use the Adjustment category, that won't show up as an expense.

Jon

There's a special Transfer category for that. For example, if you have a Checking account and you want to transfer money to your Savings account, when you enter that transfer in your Checking account register give it the category "Transfer:[Savings]" to indicate which account the money is being transferred to. When you look at that transfer in the Savings account register, it will have the category "Transfer:[Checking]" to indicate where the money came from.

This will keep those transfers from showing up as uncategorized transactions, and also prevent them from showing up as expenses or income in reports.

UKR

I think there's a discussion here somewhere that discusses the new Dashboard panels and why transfers cannot be excluded at this time. Here's to hoping that the Quicken programmers listen and make a change soon.

As to recording transfers: I recommend you record transfer transactions in Quicken with a Category = the name of the transfer-to account, surrounded by [square brackets], e.g., [XYZ VISA 1234]
This creates a linked pair of transactions, one each in both account registers and you won't have to create and maintain two separate transactions.

revbob53

Thanks.

jacobs

@UKR I'd note that in the 7.0 release, the release notes state that the "Income & Expense card now excludes all transfers." And in the previous 6.12 release, the note state that the "Top Spending Payees card on the Dashboard now excludes transfers." Transfers haven't shown up in the Spending by Category card since it was added in verion 6.10.

@revbob53 As long as you do a linked transfer to another account in your Quicken (e.g. Category="Transfer:[account name]") or an unlinked generic transfer (e.g. Category="Transfer"), you won't see the transfers in your Spending by Category pie chart; if you leave the transactions as uncategorized, then they will show up, since Quicken doesn't know that the transaction is a transfer rather than spending.

revbob53

unfortunately, despite having the 7.0.0 release, I am still seeing uncategorized transactions in my dashboard "spending by category" card. It makes this card useless to me because that category is so large.

jacobs

@revbob53 Yes, you will always see uncategorized transactions in your Spending by Category card. Quicken doesn't know what these transacitons are, so since they are money going out, it counts then as spending. I don't see that as a bug, and I doubt the behavior will be changed in the future.

Instead, you need to change your methodology of leaving the transactions uncategorized. You asked originally how you should handle internal transfers to prevent them from showing up on dashboard charts. Jon and I have posted above exactly how you can do that. Have you tried what we advised? As explained above, you can use the generic "Transfer" category, which tells Quicken these are transfers to somewhere you're not tracking in Quicken, or a linked transfer to the desitnation account in your Quicken file. Either way, once the transactions are identified as transfers, Quicken will exclude them from the Spending by Category card as well as any category reports of expenses (unless you set the report to show such transfers).

revbob53

Yes, I have taken your suggestions regarding the use of Transfer: One area where I use uncategorized is for depreciating major assets like my truck and RV. Each month I add an expense to decrease the value of the asset to match reported resale values. I do so that my net worth report will be more accurate. I do the same with my house, although using Zillow those values can be increases or decreases. The depreciation expense are not real expenses in that money doesn't leave my control so I don't want them showing up in spending reports and dashboard cards. In reports, i can selecte categories and see what I want. I was hoping I could do the same with the spending dashboard card. Is there another way to handle depreciation?

Jon

You could use the Adjustment category, that won't show up as an expense.

revbob53

That's a great suggestion! Thanks.

jacobs

Adjustment or Transfer categories will behave the same way with respect to not showing up as expenses. Using Adjustment is good for adjusting the value of an asset or liability. I suggested using Transfer for movement of funds because (a) it more accurately describes what you're doing and (b) in reports, should you ever want to see transfer transactions, you can do so in the Advanced settings; you can't do that if you use the Adjustment category.