Quicken Report Categories Selection: Is there a fix? Why Is This?

JoelC

I am working on fine tuning my reports.

I have a number of "older accounts" are that are configured as Separate and Hidden as i) they are enough longer used ii) they have zero balances and iii) this makes it much easier to configure reports, etc.

The problem that I encountered is that these Separate and Hidden accounts appear as Categories within the Report Configuration / Category tab. This makes configuring the reports far more difficult than need be.

This is presumably there to allow reporting on transfers into / out of the Separate and Hidden accounts for past periods.

QUESTIONS:

i) Is there a way that I am missing to exclude teh Separate and Hidden accounts from the Report Configuration / Category tab?

ii) Would it be possible to add / include a "Show separate accounts" option / tick box in the Report Configuration / Category tab identical to that shown in the Report Configuration / Accounts tab (see below image)

PS. It would be great to get this addressed as I have been suing Quicken for almost 30 years and have a lot of Separate and Hidden accounts!

Thank you.

Tom Young

You may want to change this post to an "Idea" that could voted on by users. (Click the three dots in the top right corner of your post to make this change.)

In the meantime, you could open the version of the Spending report(s) you're working on (Reports > Spending > specific report), go through and eliminate all the Accounts that you don't want to be stumbling over in the Categories list, then Save the report with a title of something like "(specific report) NO Separate/Hidden Accounts." At least that way if you're working on a new Spending report you could open the saved report without having to deal with these Accounts.

JoelC

@Tom Young the change to idea not done. I tried clicking on the three dots but it gave me the "edit" option not the "change to idea" option.

The idea of a template is good! I have essentially done that by having a list of accounts to exclude so that I am NOT dependent on the "type" of report.

Thank you!

Joel

q_lurker

If I am understanding you correctly, a common suggestion is to rename those separate / hidden accounts with something like zzz- at the beginning such that they sort to the bottom of the list rather than be scattered within.

Chris_QPW

A regular user can't change a thread to an idea, that is usually handled by a moderator.

As for the request itself, this problem stems from the overloaded use of the category field for transfers and then no properly treating the transfer as a category.

This isn't the only place this comes up.

You actually showed the account tab, which should in fact be working fine, it is for me.

The category tab is a completely different story.

Notice it says "hidden categories" not accounts. The "Bank" instead of either income or expense is the indicator that this is in fact talking about transfers.

So, for this I shouldn't be looking at the "account settings" I should be looking at the category setting, and what do I see there?

I see that that the "hide" is disabled for transfers.

It is this treat transfers as categories in some places, and sort of like accounts in others, and then again, they aren't the same as either in other places that cause all the problems.

This is the same problem in the register category pulldown menu.

This is something that has been complained about for decades.

And I might add that they made this even worse by making it work the wrong way and inconsistently.

In the register, if you are in an old data file and you have an account set to be hidden from the lists, it will still show this account as a transfer selection. If you are in a new data file, it will not show the account. On the other hand, toggling "Show (hidden categories)" will do nothing in both accounts.

They should have never tied this to "hidden" for accounts, and should have instead allowed for hiding the transfers as if they were categories. If you are going to put this overloaded transfer selection in the category field, then it should behave like a category.

JoelC

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20404766#Comment_20404766

@q_lurker, appreciate the suggestion and note that the idea would work!

Thank you!

JoelC

@Chris_QPW , as always, I think you for your insight and noted:

As for the request itself, this problem stems from the overloaded use of the category field for transfers and then no properly treating the transfer as a category.

Agree! You are correct!

You actually showed the account tab, which should in fact be working fine, it is for me.

Agree. I showed the account tab because I was suggesting adding the functionality / option to "Show hidden accounts" to the categories tab, this was on purpose.

Notice it says "hidden categories" not accounts. The "Bank" instead of either income or expense is the indicator that this is in fact talking about transfers.

Agreed! This is the exact point I was making!

I see that that the "hide" is disabled for transfers.

Agree but it is even worse than what you show! Separate accounts i) do not appear in the Category List window ii) there is no way to get Separate accounts to appear in the Category List which means iii) even were it possible to hide accounts as categories, it would be impossible to do so as Separate accounts do not appear in the Category List!

It is this treat transfers as categories in some places, and sort of like accounts in others, and then again, they aren't the same as either in other places that cause all the problems.

Agree, the inconsistent treatment is a problem, especially for reporting because transfer amounts are not allocated to the correct category. Hence the need / reliance on Tags to do so. Not ideal!!

In the register, if you are in an old data file and you have an account set to be hidden from the lists, it will still show this account as a transfer selection. If you are in a new data file, it will not show the account. On the other hand, toggling "Show (hidden categories)" will do nothing in both accounts.

This is exactly what I am experiencing. I guess I have an old data file!

What is the cut off date for old / new data files?

They should have never tied this to "hidden" for accounts, and should have instead allowed for hiding the transfers as if they were categories. If you are going to put this overloaded transfer selection in the category field, then it should behave like a category.

Here here!

*****

Thank you!

Chris_QPW

What is the cut off date for old / new data files?

I have no idea. But I noticed this behavior a few years ago when someone reported that their hidden accounts/transfers were not shown on the category list of the register field. I'm not even sure if the behavior changes over time.

Once people saw this and even before they have been pushing these "hidden" settings to be control the transfers too, but I have always argued that is the wrong thing to do. The right thing to do is get rid of the "new data" functionality and allow selecting "hide" on the category list for transfers, and than should control this in all lists that have transfers.

JoelC

Once people saw this and even before they have been pushing these "hidden" settings to be control the transfers too, but I have always argued that is the wrong thing to do. The right thing to do is get rid of the "new data" functionality and allow selecting "hide" on the category list for transfers, and than should control this in all lists that have transfers.

I could not agree more!

The current situation - at least for me - is extremely difficult and confusing to work with! There is no need for the added complexity!

Quicken Anja

Hello @JoelC,

Your post was changed to an Idea so other users who have the same or a similar request can vote on your idea by clicking the up arrow (see below).

Ideas are also reviewed by our Development and Product teams in order to improve Quicken and implement new features requested by customers.

Please, be sure to add your own vote as well.

mshiggins

I think it would be easier for users to understand the way the current system works and facilitate discussions about how to address this issue, if a common terminology was agreed upon. I suggest using terminology that is explicitly (or perhaps sometimes implicitly) the same terminology that Quicken uses.

I would start by noting the clear distinction between accounts and categories.

A new account is created using the Add Account process. The name assigned to each new account appears in the Account List.
A new category is usually created using the New Category button in the Category List, where each category appears.

When each new account is created, Quicken automatically creates a new "category", which is the name of the newly created account surrounded by square brackets. This is one of several categories created by Quicken (such as the Investment categories whose names have an underscore as their first character).

I believe that the new category automatically created by Quicken when a new account is added to the file, can best (most informatively) be called a "transfer category". See the list in the column to the left of category names in the Category List - where a basic Quicken file starts with "Income" categories and "Expense" categories, and gains "Transfers" ("transfer categories") as soon as the first account is added to the Quicken file. 

A "transfer category" is definitely a category, much like every other category. A "transfer category" appears in the Category List, in the Category dropdown in register transactions, and in the Category tab of report/graph/widget Customization dialogs ... just like other categories. If "transfer categories" are included in any report, they will display in the "Category" column, and if that report can subtotal by category, the "transfer categories" will be subtotaled just like any other category.

While a "transfer category" has a special property (the ability to cause the "transfer" of funds from one Quicken account to another when recorded in a Quicken transaction), it is nevertheless still a category.

If I create an account named "My Checking Account", a "transfer category" named "[My Checking Account]" will be automatically created by Quicken. While the account name text ("My Checking Account") appears in the category name text, the two names are clearly different. "My Checking Account" <> "[My Checking Account]".

Not only are the two names different, but one is the name of an Account, the other is the name of a Category. I know of no legitimate reason why "hiding" an account should always hide its associated "transfer category".

While I understand that some users want the hiding of an account to cause the hiding of its associated "transfer category", I don't understand the assumption that hiding an account MUST hide its "transfer category". Some users (I am one) have at least one hidden account, to and from which funds are regularly transferred. I would not want the "transfer categories" for my hidden account(s) to be forced to be hidden when their namesake accounts are hidden.

Which leads me to the conclusion that the hiding of "transfer categories" should be an option, not a requirement.

But as I (and others) have noticed, that leaves users with a dilemma: the logical, the ideal, place to hide "transfer categories" would be in the Category List, where all other categories can be hidden; but the Category List specifically prevents that, as all "transfer categories" are grayed out in the List.

[My theory for why those "transfer categories" are grayed out in the Category List is that I think those categories are not physically stored in the Category List: I suspect they are simply displayed there each time the Category List is displayed. My guess is that this approach eliminates the need for Quicken to do maintenance on the Category List for every Account List change that would affect a "transfer category". "Transfer categories" in the Category List will always be "correct", if they are pulled directly from the Account List each time they are displayed.]

The question posed here has been raised many times over many years, yet there has been no change to Quicken. I assume that means Quicken is well aware of user's desires on this subject, but has specifically chosen not to grant the wishes expressed so far. It's hard to believe that there is no good reason for Quicken not addressing this issue.  

No matter what the reason is that "transfer categories" cannot be hidden in the Category List, it seems to me continued requests to offer the option to hide "transfer categories" in the Category available may be futile - so I would suggest. some other approach may be necessary. I certainly understand that Quicken has likely thought about alternate approaches too, so they my thoughts may fare no better than what's been proposed here.

For users who always want "transfer categories" hidden when their namesake account is hidden, perhaps a Quicken Preference could be set to that effect
- that Preference would be global (to the file), so it would not satisfy all users.

For those who never (or only sometimes) want "transfer categories" hidden when their namesake account is hidden, a new option on the Edit Account Details, Display Options tab might be able to handle that. If the option can't be put in the Category List, this might be the next best approach.

[I also support removing the separate treatment of "transfer categories" for hidden accounts in newer Quicken files; because that approach makes the assumption that the "transfer category" for a hidden account should automatically be hidden too.]

-JP

JoelC

@mshiggins excellent post and here here! I am in complete agreement with everything that you wrote! I will also add that it would be helpful / nice to treat old files in these are fashion as new files!

Chris_QPW

You of all the outstanding problems that have gone on for decades, this is the one that stands out to me as being the one that should have gotten top priority to being fixed.

BTW side note, especially for @JoelC since you are using Quicken Mac too. Quicken Mac got really screwed up in this area too.

When they started the rewrite of Quicken Mac back in 2008 and released it in 2010, they didn't include linked transfers. So, the convention was just to put "Transfer" in the category. This BTW shows some of the "link" with the fact that Intuit bought Mint around that time. It didn't have linked transfers either, and I'm pretty sure they modeled a lot of Quicken Mac after it, I'm pretty sure it got the same "aggregator system".

Then when they went to write "New Quicken Mac" (trying to get it to a point where more people would pay for it. Quicken Mac Essentials didn't even have support for investment accounts), they finally put in the linked transfers, but they were stuck since people were already using Quicken Mac Essentials in this way where the Transfers were just another category. So, they created a new field that is actually for creating the linked transfers. But there isn't any block to prevent a person from using both fields. So, in Quicken Mac you can "categorized" a linked transfer!

I know that this has already bit them in the budget, I certainly wouldn't want to have to deal with this for the reason of "double counting" a given transaction.

Chris_QPW

Actually, thinking about the Quicken Mac linked transfer problem, they might have fixed it by if the user uses a linked transfer, it blocks use of the regular category field. I sort of remember some people complain about that when it was changed. Since I don't use Quicken Mac, I only sort of follow such threads at a more cursory standpoint.

JoelC

@Chris_QPW

BTW side note, especially for @JoelC since you are using Quicken Mac too. Quicken Mac got really screwed up in this area too.

Agreed and trust me, I am well aware of this.

Given the functionality of Quicken for Windows vs Quicken fro Mac I am focusing on Quicken for Windows as it will be some time before Quicken for Mac has the functionality that I need. That said, and as you have pointed out, it is disappointing that this issue has been ported to Quicken for Mac!

Chris_QPW

That is one of things I don't think the average person gets. Sometimes when a mistake is made in an implementation, you (as a programmer) have to live with it and workaround it as best you can. The more time that passes the more of these kinds of things popup.

JoelC

@Chris_QPW and the bigger the problem becomes as further functionality is built out that is impacted by it! These are the type of problems that just continue to grow until they reach a point where there is no fix!

Chris_QPW

I wish more people would vote on this one. It is a core problem that really should have been fixed long ago.

JoelC

@Chris_QPW I agree. I will add that this a problem that only those who dig in will discover, experience and understand. I am guessing that 95%+ of the users are not even aware that accounts double as categories due to the transfer feature.