Quicken Mac should help users update Categories in existing reports when adding new Categories

JayH

When I create a new category while working on a report, I have to remember to include the new category in the list of categories included in that report. If I forget, it isn't included.

My suggestion is that when a new category is created in the Register while a Report is also opened, then Quicken would open a question "Do you want to include this category in your open report? Yes or No". The question might even ask if you wanted it in a list of reports.

Quicken Anja

Hello @JayH,

I went ahead and changed your post 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.

Thank you!

jacobs

@JayH I also took the liberty of editing the title of this thread to try to make it more accurately describe the functionality being requested. (The goal is to attract the eyes of fellow Quicken users so they add their votes; only when the Idea has garnered enough votes does it get forwarded to the developers for consideration. I think there was an older Idea thread which included this, but it may have been archived for receiving too few votes.)

I think your request is a good one, although I suspect fully implementing it would be tricky. I think prompting a user whether the want to add a category which was added while the report is open might be do-able, but it only tackles a small part of the issue. Your last sentence above points to the larger issue: when a user creates a new category, can Quicken help them identify reports which may need to be updated?

Currently, when you create a new report such as a Category report, Quicken defaults to selecting "Include only transactions with selected categories" and it selectsall categories. That's fine, but it means that at any later date, when you add a category, it is not included in any existing reports. So you have to first be aware of that, and second, edit every existing saved report for which this category might be applicable. That is, when I add a new expense category, I don't need to update any Net Worth reports, which are based on accounts, but I do need to update income/expense reports which use Category as a selection criteria.

Here's my ideal of how this might be implemented… First, there should be a preference somewhere in Settings to "prompt for report updates after adding a new category?". This would allow users to opt out of the next process if they find it annoying. If that preference is set, then after adding a new category, Quicken would open a new window:

• Display: "Do you want Quicken to add this new category to any/all of your existing saved custom reports?"
• Display a list of all applicable saved reports by title
• Display a checkbox next to each one, and Select All and Select None buttons

The user could Select All and click okay to have this new category added to all existing reports, or select only some of the reports if it would be inappropriate to add the new category to others. This would be much, much easier than the current process which requires a user to open and edit every existing report to add each new category.

JayH

Thanks for your model implementation. I hope it happens.