Create a Transfer Box (Between account) above the Category Box

mtakwax

Problem

I use only one account to do all my banking. It simplified this when I look for a specific transaction.

I have an issue with the way Quicken has tendency to screw up all the work I do in categorise my transaction.

Once all my transactions are categorizes in my Checking account including paying my M/C thought the online banking all my work of categorizing the payment of my M/C are being replace by [Canadian Tire Card].

Then I have to spend 30-45 min Copying, Inserting, pasting deleting and re-categorizes all the transfers between my Checking account and my M/C account.

Note: M/C = MasterCard Canadian Tire Card

Suggestion

Solution: Simply adding a Account “Transfer Box” box above the Category box would greatly enhance the program and fix this issue.

Thanks

mtakwax

The missing attachment…

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UKR

When you make a credit card purchase, where do you record this purchase?
It should be recorded ONLY in the credit card account register.
And once a month you create ONE transfer transactions to pay the account balance (or minimum balance or whatever amount you wish to pay) from your checking account to the credit card account.

This way, there's no need to create separate transfer transactions for each purchase you make.
Reports and views in Quicken are able to combine all your account registers to give you a complete view or your income and expenses, budget, etc. And you won't have to worry about downloaded transactions from the credit card account messing up your categorizations or transfer transactions.

mtakwax

When you make a credit card purchase, where do you record this purchase? It should be recorded ONLY in the credit card account register.

I record and categorized all my transaction in my Bank Checking account to which I do my budget.

It does not matter which account I record a purchase to (meaning inserting my own Categorize label) in doing so, you are deleting the link between each account resulting in the deleting the transaction in the linked account.

And once a month you create ONE transfer transactions to pay the account balance (or minimum balance or whatever amount you wish to pay) from your checking account to the credit card account.

I do not do a once a month’s big payment like you are suggesting. I deposit each individual transaction (Check and Balance) this is to ensure no authorize transaction has been done on my card.

Trying to replace the category on either account will delete the transaction on the other account to which the transaction are link too.

That is why I recommend a separate Transfer to/from Box.

volvogirl

I'm not following how you enter the transactions. Or how you are paying the bills? And you seem to be mixing up terms Accounts and Category.

The proper way is to set up a Credit Card ACCOUNT and enter the charges into it when the purchase is made and assigning it to a category. Then when you pay the credit card bill you TRANSFER the payment from your checking account to the credit card account (not a category). Then if or when you download the payment from the bank you match it to the one you already entered.

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 Mac versions have a separate Transfer column.

I used to do it the wrong way for years! Then I wised up and now enter them properly. I would split my credit card payment into all the categories on one transaction in my checking account. And since I always pay more than the bill I would need to figure the difference and put it to another category. But then I needed to have them entered on the date the charges actually happened, especially at year end for taxes. So I finally set up a credit card account. It makes it much easier to enter and balance!

Here's a list of some other reasons why you should do it this way…..
You don't have to wait to make the payment and split it out
You won't run out of split lines (In older versions there's only 30 lines)
You can use both the payee and memo fields for more description
You don't have to figure out the difference if you pay a different amount
Then your Credit Card Account will exactly match your statement
Charges get entered with the right date (better at year end for taxes)
You can enter all charges to date, not just what's on the bill - then you can see what you still owe
You won't forget what a charge was for if you enter it right away from the receipt

Jim_Harman

… or if you can download transactions from the credit card provider, you don't have to enter all the transactions manually or add them up to make a complex split when you pay the bill, you can just check and categorize the transactions as they download. Then as @volvogirl says, when the bill is due it is just one transfer to the credit card account to pay the bill.

Chris_QPW

Addressing this statement:

Once all my transactions are categorizes in my Checking account including paying my M/C thought the online banking all my work of categorizing the payment of my M/C are being replace by [Canadian Tire Card].

(Note I will leave it to the others of whether you should have your credit cards as a separate account or not. I think that is best, but I'm just going to address your problems. If all of the transactions went into Canadian Tire Card in the first place, and categorized then the payment would be just a transfer between the two accounts).

But addressing the original problem. It sounds like you have automatic transfer detection on, and probably without the confirm option on.

What this option does is "guess" if two transactions are in fact a transfer from one account to another. It is just based on if you have a deposit in one account that is equal to a withdraw in another (with different signs) around about the same date.

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7944743/information-available-for-automatic-transfer-detection

And if Quicken thinks it is a transfer it will remove the two transactions in the register and replace them with a linked transfer between the two account. This sounds like what is happening to you.

Addressing this:

Solution: Simply adding a Account “Transfer Box” box above the Category box would greatly enhance the program and fix this issue.

This is impossible. All transactions have to one of these, expense, income or transfer. They can't be both a transfer and one of the other. There is a reason that they used a special syntax in the category field instead of having a separate transfer field. This forces the transaction to be either a category or a transfer.