How do I add a BUSI"NESS to a CATEGORY?

maryskelton

I keep getting the message : "the value in the business field will not be saved. A transaction can only have a busines when it is also using a business category."

I just upgraded to the Business option and am still learning — it's a slow curve - I'm 76! Thanks for any help -

Jon

Quicken Mac uses separate categories for business transactions and personal transactions; each category is assigned as either Business or Personal when it's created. So if you want to create a business & start tracking transactions in business accounts, you need to have a set of Business categories for them. This applies to both income and expense categories.

If you have some categories you've been using exclusively for business transactions in the past you can edit those categories and change them from Personal to Business, or you can create new business categories. When you create a new Quicken file it will automatically create a set of Business Income and Business Expense categories but there doesn't seem to be a good way to add those to an existing file, especially if you didn't already have some. There is an option in the Categories window to Add Default Categories but that adds both Business and Personal Categories; if you've customized your personal categories already it can be a lot of work to go through and delete the default Personal categories that get added back.

If you need some help figuring out what Business categories to add, the best thing might be to create a new Quicken file and then look at what is available in the Business Expense and Business Income categories, and then recreate those categories in your own file.