I loaned money to someone. I forgave the balance but it is still being shown on my cash flow report. How do I zero out the loan repay without affecting my balance since the amount of the loan balance was simply forgiven, not paid?
Ah, so the loan was set up as a category, not as a lender loan account.
You could do the following:
This method will show the total for all dates of "loan to x" category, both the loan expense and the loan payments received, now is $0. So, nothing more is owed.
It will also show that on the date of this split category transaction you incurred a Gifts expense for the amount of the loan balance.
There is another way to do this but it would involved setting up a lender loan account and editing transactions already entered into your checking account. If that is what you want to do then I can walk you through that but if I were you I would do it as suggested above.
@joann77f - You will note a difference between @UKR 's suggestion and mine. His example assumes the checking account transaction is an expense transaction whereas I suggested a deposit transaction. Because of this:
Either method is correct and the result in your checking account register and the categories in spending and budget reports will be exactly the same.
Did you set up a lender loan account for the money you lent to that person? If so, enter a manual "Decrease" (payment received) transaction in the loan account register for the amount of the remaining loan balance and categorize it as a Gift expense. That should zero out the loan account and it will not affect your other account balances. It will also show up in income/expense and spending reports and in Budget as an expense as it should.
If not, how did you record the loan in Quicken to begin with?
I paid the person's invoice and entered the check in my regular check register with the category of "loan to x". Each month when I received the check I entered it as a deposit in that same register with category "loan to x" and it reduced the balance. Now that I have forgiven the balance I need to get it out of my cash flow report. po0i98u7y6555
In that case, let's expand on @Boatnmaniac 's suggestion and create a Split category transaction in your checking account register for net $0.00, as follows:
That should, as stated, result in the "Loan for x" category resetting to $0.00 and show a real expense in the Gifts expense category because you're out some real money.
Hope that helps.
Looks like our response posts crossed paths a bit….and that "great minds think alike", huh? 😉
