What's the best way to categorize transfers/credit card payments?
Ok, so I've read all the posts and there doesn't seem to be any recommendations so far in regards to how to categorize transfers for accounts with automatic downloads and where we do NOT want to manually create transfer transactions before we sync. (I repeat... I have no desire to manually enter my transfer transactions, at all, especially for EVERY single transfer transaction I do in a month... that would make my life harder).
I tried to follow the instructions in this help page but I don't have a Transfer category. Do I just manually create it? Or is this article out of date?
I'm having the same issues as everyone else.
- My credit card downloads the received payment transaction and my checking account downloads the sent payment transaction.
- Quicken doesn't auto tie them together.
- Quicken auto categorizes most of my payments in my checking account with a category of [My Checking XX8888], which I agree with others, is a bug. They are not transferring to themselves so Quicken is categorizing them incorrectly.
- I get the dreaded "You are recording a transfer back into the same account" if I:
- Edit the Payee name of a transaction Quicken auto categorized within the same account
- Change the Category to point to another account
Here's the thing, Quicken is buggy with matching transactions in order to connect them. Ok. Then I'll turn that off and I'm happy to use a generic Transfer category or Credit Card Payment category. I don't really see the benefit of the transactions being linked anyway since the Payee name gives me that info. I just need to know how to set that up. The article speaks of these categories as if they already exist. They do not.
Note/Disclaimer: My transactions ALL have plenty of information in the Payee name in order to map them to one another. I can see the info when I create a renaming rule. So really, this should be working better. Just for those who like to use this as an excuse as to why it's not working well. :)
Answers
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Another bug?
- My checking account has Zelle transactions
- A weekly one is for my house cleaner
- Quicken auto applied my checking account as the transfer category upon import
- I changed the category to Home:Home Services and again, I get the dreaded "You are recording a transfer back into the same account".
How exactly does this make sense? I'm changing it to the correct Expense category. It is no longer assigned to the same account (which Quicken did in the first place).
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Note that if I do a find and replace to change the category, the dreaded popup doesn't occur.
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To just address one of your questions, the article you cited is for the Quicken MAC program, not the Windows version. The two process transfers in different manners.
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Do you realize that the help web page you are looking at is for Quicken Mac?
Quicken Mac has an "unfortunate" history when it comes to transfers, and as such shouldn't be used as a guide for Quicken Windows.
When Intuit rewrote Quicken Mac and created Quicken Mac Essentials, they didn't implement linked transfers. Instead, they just had categories. When they got around to implementing them in the "New Quicken Mac" they had to compromise and allow both the old way and a way to enter a linked transfer. And that is what they have today.
we do NOT want to manually create transfer transactions before we sync. (I repeat... I have no desire to manually enter my transfer transactions, at all, especially for EVERY single transfer transaction I do in a month... that would make my life harder).
Then you need to realize that the result might not be optimal in Quicken Windows.
If you are relying on Quicken Windows "automatic transfer detection" then you are relying on a guess based on the amount/approximate date. If your transaction amounts aren't unique then most likely you will get wrong guesses. At a minimum you should have the confirmation for automatic transfer detection on so that you can screen these guesses.
It is also important to understand when such a guess is being made. It can't be made until the second transaction is downloaded. In the case of a credit card payment this can be days in between the two transactions. This also implies that the first transaction might go uncategorized for those days.
There is an "in between" that "might" work but depends on the uniqueness of the downloaded payees AND consistent flows of downloading (which accounts get the transactions first).
Say I have a payment in my credit card account with a payee of "Automatic Thank":
Then I can memorize that payee with the category of [My Checking Account]. When this transaction is downloaded then then I will get a linked transfer transaction in my Checking account. When the transaction downloads into the checking account it will match, and I'm done. But here is the rub. First off, Quicken's renaming rules/memorized payees are global. So, if you have two different accounts that download the payment with "Automatic Thank" you better be paying the payment from the same Checking account. The other problem is "timing". Say you make transfer between two of your accounts at the same financial institution. It entirely possible that both sides of the transfer will be downloaded at the same time. And since the payee will be the same in both accounts, but the memorized payee category is say [My Checking Account] then the first downloaded transaction better not hit the "My Checking Account" first or you will have just put in a balance adjustment instead of a linked transfer.
There is also another way to do it and that is to abandon linked transfers all together (which is what you suggested at the end of your post). In double book accounting it is perfectly correct to have "regular categories" in both accounts and just know that the Deposit and Withdraw offset each other. The problem of course is that Quicken is geared to use linked transfers and as such you will have to deal with the fact that you can't jump between them and that in reports they will show up in Income and Expense instead of the Transfer section.
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I'm not looking for a workaround. I want to know if Quicken will let me create a Transfer category or not. [Removed - Violation of Community Guidelines]
I don't want to do double book accounting. i don't want to do linked transfers or automatic detection (which doesn't work anyway). I don't want to manually enter dozens of transfer transactions JUST so I can sync my accounts without them breaking. I just want to categorize my transactions as transfers/credit card payments so it's not an expense nor income. That's it. Why is that such a difficult thing for anyone to answer? Will Quicken let me do that simple thing or not?
I should NOT have to spend the entirety of the little spare time I have in my life to hand hold this app to get my data to be correct. I've been an IT professional for over 25 years, with a background in web & UX design and application & database dev and design, plus product & project management. And I can expertly say this app should either be sunset or just rebuilt from the ground up.
Oh and FYI, 99.99999% of applications do NOT have MAJOR DIFFERENCES in basic functionality between their MAC and PC versions. So no, it never crossed my mind that the article wouldn't apply. Especially since a moderator posted the link to it from within the Windows section of the community.
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Does Quicken allow you to categorize a transaction as a transfer without using Linked Transfers or not?
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Personallu, when someone lists all possible ways to do something and the way I want to do it isn't listed I come to the conclusion that it can't be done the way I wanted to do it.
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