Entering Credit card payments on two registers at once?

danryanpi

On my Quicken, I have separate accounts for checking, savings and credit cards. Up to now, When I make my credit card payments, on my Quicken program I manually enter the payment in my checking account register, then I go to my credit card register and manually enter the payment, so that my checking account and my credit card accounts all reflect up to date balances. I'm wondering if there is a way to go to one register or the other and enter the payment, yet have the other register updated at the same time, without having to physically bring up each account register separately?

splasher

Yes there is, it is referred to in Quicken as a transfer. When you create the transaction in the checking account, you use a category that is the name of the credit card account in square brackets, i.e. [Visa]. This will generate a transaction in the Visa account with a category of [Checking].

Since they are considered a transfer, they are neither income or expense. This allows you to enter in the credit card account all of the transactions that you generated with appropriate categories like Fuel, Groceries, Medicine.

danryanpi

Thanks! So, if I understand you correctly, under catigory, I would say something like: Credit Card Payment [visa]?

volvogirl

yes. when you pay the bill you TRANSFER the payment from your checking account to the credit card account. Then when you download the payment from the bank you match it to the one you already entered.  Then your credit card account should match what you actually owe at any time.

When you enter the payment in your checking account you put the credit card account name in for the category using square brackets around the name to indicate it is a transfer...like this… [credit card] or newer versions have a Transfer column.

danryanpi

Okay, I just tried it the way I understood it to work. I marked it as an EFT, which I alway label online entries. Under Category, I entered Bill:Credit Card Payment (my custom category) and added [visa] (actually, I input name of credit card). I discovered that under Category, you can only enter one; either [visa], or Bills:Credit Card Payment. You can't enter both.

volvogirl

Yes only enter the name of your credit card account in the square brackets (or use the Transfer column). You don't need to also categorize it to an expense category. The expenses are the individual charged in the credit card account.

splasher

Correct, it is either a normal category or a transfer type category. You did notice that the mating transaction was created in the credit card account with the category pointing back to [checking].

Transfers are just moving $ from one pocket to a nothing and don't change how much money you have overall.

danryanpi

Yes, I did. So, I can enter the transaction as and EFT, then just go to the transfer column and insert the appropriate credit card into the category line, then, If I'm transferring from checking to the credit card, it will subtract the amount I'm paying from my checking account balance, and show up on my credit card account as a payment, subtracting what I paid from my checking account, from the balance I owed on the credit card. Got it! Thanks, so much!