Quicken on Mac isn't showing any Business categories

MissFitz

Quicken Classic Deluxe, Version 7.4.2 (Build 704.51578.100), macOS 12.7.2

Hi and Happy New Year!

I renewed Quicken Classic Deluxe mid-November on my Windows computer. Transferring a full converted backup to my Mac and syncing with the cloud was extremely problematic.

On January 1st, I downloaded the Quicken app for Mac from the "Access Your Apps" portion on the website for a "fresh start." I connected all of my financial institutions and it was truly painless!

My issue is there aren't any Business categories available to assign transactions whatsoever.

I posed my question to the ChatGPT on the support site and this is a portion of the reply:

I'm sorry for any confusion, but Quicken Deluxe does not support business features directly. If you're looking to manage your small business finances, you might want to consider Quicken Home & Business (but it's only available for Windows users). If you are using a Mac, you could potentially use personal expense categories to track your business expenses within Quicken Deluxe, but it would not be as comprehensive as the Home & Business version.

I did used to have the Quicken Home and Business for Windows, but downgraded to Deluxe in 2021. However, all of the Business categories were still available.

Do I need to use a different app for my Mac than the one that's in my account? Or do I have to manually add categories? Ideally I'd like for it to be set up to make my TurboTax experience a lot faster as well, including Schedule C, etc.

Any ideas or recommendations to make the Business categories available would be most appreciated!

Thank you,

Kelly

jacobs

I'm not sure I'm understanding your comment that "there aren't any Business categories available". Doesn't your file have a set of business expense and business income categories. Here's what I see in a new file for business expenses:

Now, this isn't as robust a list as you likely had in your Quicken Windows data file considering you once had the Home & Business (now called Business & Personal) version, but can't it serve as a start?

I'll also note that Quicken has just in the past month introduced the first iteration of a Business & Personal version of Quicken Mac, intended for people who want to keep both business and personal data. (I guess ChatGPT doesn't keep up with the latest news!) For those who choose to upgrade to this subscription level, Quicken includes a more robust default set of business income and expense categories. Here's the default expenses list:

But if you choose to stick with Quicken Deluxe because it's all you need to meet your needs, then you would need to either transfer your old Quicken Windows file — the categories should then come across — or add the ones you need to the default set included in a new data file using Quicken Deluxe.

I'm not sure what problems you encountered migrating your Quicken Windows data file to Quicken Mac. (You mentioned cloud syncing, and I definitely would not recommend that!) But if you don't want to go back down that road, then yes, you'll need to add the business income and expense categories you want to use. I'm sure you don't need all the categories Quicken shows above, so just add the ones you need. It will take a little time, but it's a one-time thing and then you'll be permanently set with the categories you need.

Chris_QPW

@jacobs just to clarify/refresh my memory on how Quicken Mac is handling business categories.

I think before you or @Jon mentioned that for it to be a business category it had to be put under the Business Expense/Business Income category. Is that right?

In Quicken Windows it is the tax line assignment that controls this, and as such if the above is true besides converting the Windows data file to get the categories, they might have to be moved under these parent categories.

I also wonder about what kind of support Quicken Mac has for interacting with TurboTax. I don't believe it has a direct communication with it to export/import, rather you would have to use an exported tax report, right? And that again might be limited in support of business categories even for the new business edition.

Jon

You can create new business categories. The only requirement I see is that for subcategories to be business the parent categories also have to be business.

As for TurboTax, when you create a category (either Business or Personal) you can associate it with a particular line on a tax form & that controls how it gets exported for tax purposes. There's an Export Tax Report command that creates a TXF file which I assume can be imported into TurboTax (I have never done that).

jacobs

@Chris_QPW In Quicken Mac, categories which are designated as tax-related are assigned to tax forms and lines. It’s optional if you want to use the default business categories, which are set up as subcategories of Business Expenses and Business Income. But you can also change any existing or new category from Personal to Business — it does not need to be a subcategory of one Business Expenses or Business Income — and then you need to assign it to a tax line if it isn’t already so assigned.

Quicken Mac also makes it easy to migrate and/or merge categories if one is, for instance, upgrading from Quicken Mac Deluxe to Quicken Mac Business and Personal, or migrating a data file from Quicken Windows to Quicken Mac.

But in this case, the user is just using Deluxe and wants to track business income and expenses. As I posted, there is a default group of such categories which can be used, combined with adding new ones and/or assigning tax lines to any existing categories which will be used exclusively for business income or expenses.

Finally, Quicken Mac exports a .tfx file for importing into TurboTax.

Chris_QPW

Thank you both for clearing that up for me.