Default Transaction Categories are circa 1995

ryan429754

Entertainment —> newspapers, DVDs??? available by default?

No streaming services?

C,mon Quicken, update your stuff.

splasher

If you want something more specific, there is nothing keeping you from adding it yourself. Not everyone might consider "streaming services" as entertainment, but just consider it part of cable utility. I've got "Stream TV" which the cable company replaced as their cable TV set top box so "stream tv" doesn't mean the same to everyone.

Chris_QPW

Even if they added it you most likely wouldn't see it. The list is the default list. It's not a continuously updated list and I for one certainly wouldn't want them mucking with my list after I've modified it. So the new list would only be for New users anyway or a new data file. Speaking of which there's a preference for when creating a new data file whether to use old settings or new settings

jacobs

The issue with the default list and using your own categories is that the Quicken server-based auto-categorization will only use categories defined by Quicken — and across Quicken Windows and Quicken Mac, and likely Simplify as well. Yes, users can create their own categories and delete default categories, but they don't always understand that doing so is outside the hard-wired auto-categorization Quicken applies. As long as users create their own memorized Payees/local categorization rules, and in certain cases, assign them to tax lines for tax reporting, it's fine when users go their own way.

Entertainment —> newspapers, DVDs???

I'm guessing those are Quicken Windows sub-categories? For what it's worth, in Quicken Mac they are:

Entertainment:Movies & DVDs
While people aren't buying many DVDs these days, people do still go to and rent/buy movies, so this seems okay to me.

Entertainment:Newspapers & Magazines
I'm one of the few who still gets a newspaper delivered, but even if we were just subscribing digitally, I'd be okay with a "Newspapers" category; a digital subscription to the new York times could use a category named in a number of ways, but "newspaper" doesn't both me. And plenty of people still buy magazines

And a few other examples…

Entertainment:Music
This one seems to cover everything from purchasing vinyl LPs to buying songs on iTunes to subscribing to Apple Music or Spotify

Bills & Utilities: Television
This seems to be a good place for streaming TV services like Hulu, Apple TV+, Paramount+, etc.

But again, these defaults only matter for users who are counting on Quicken's back-end servers to auto-categorize their expenses. Since most of the things we're talking about here are recurring expenses, it's pretty easy to create a local rule matching a Payee to your self-created category of choice. The category list in my live Quicken Mac data file doesn't have most of these, because it carries over from using Quicken for 30 years, and the default categories back then as well as the ones I created, edited and deleted over time.

Rocket J Squirrel

Thanks for the reminder, @ryan429754! I have a few old categories I think I can delete.

mshiggins

I would keep the Buggy Whips category.