Business Tab | Profit / Loss View | Uncategorized Amount Determination

JoelC

@mshiggins

Just to make sure we're on the same page: I believe the "default" business concept is intended to tell Quicken that ALL "business transactions" that have no Tag, are to be treated as if they had the Tag of the single chosen "default business".

Agreed, this is how I understand it.

But a simpler approach would be to leave all the original (and future) Business 1 transactions with NO tag, while assigning the new Business 2 tag to all the Business 2 transactions. And in order to let Quicken in on that logic, the user can tell Quicken that Business 1 is the "default business" (that all non-tagged "business transactions" belong to Business 1).

Agree.

Having said all that, I no longer think that changing the "default business" will change your results. To quote myself in an earlier post in this discussion: "I also tested with, and without, having a "default business": it did not seem to matter."

Agree and one of the reasons for this is that All Investment Accounts are allocated to the default business meaning the problem will persist, the problem will just be moved from Company 1 → Company 2.

[While I doubt it's feasible; based on my tests, if you could find a way to replace your "Bought" transaction with a "BoughtX" transaction, you MIGHT be able to eliminate the current problem.]

Although I wait for Quicken to fix the dashboard (which they said they would do in +/- 6 months) the immediate solution is i) ignore the dashboard ii) create a personal custom report and iii) pin the custom report to the tool bar. The custom report gives the creator / user to remove this problem by deselecting the account and/or deselecting the category.

mshiggins

I said:
"I also tested with, and without, having a 'default business': it did not seem to matter."

To which you replied:
"Agree and one of the reasons for this is that All Investment Accounts are allocated to the default business meaning the problem will persist, the problem will just be moved from Company 1 → Company 2."

That's not what my tests indicated.  Even though I removed the "default" option from both businesses - leaving NO business as the default, the Bought transactions (from the original "default" business) were still incorrectly included in the Profit/Loss display.

To me that says that Quicken is not using the "default" business to determine which, if any, investment transactions are included in the Business > Profit/Loss display (and possibly other displays). 

Just to be certain, I did another test.

I created a New Quicken file with 2 investment accounts designated as "Business accounts". But I did not create ANY "businesses" (via Business > Manage Business Information).

I entered a Bought transaction in each of the "business" investment accounts and looked at Business > Profit/Loss. Both the two Bought transactions (1 from each business investment account) appeared in Business > Profit/Loss.

I also entered a BoughtX transaction in each of the "business" investment accounts and checked Business > Profit/Loss again. Neither of the two BoughtX transactions appeared in Profit/Loss.

Next I created a "Business" for each of the two existing implied businesses and designated one of them the "default" business. This changed nothing: Bought transactions from both businesses still appeared in Profit/Loss.

Hopefully, when Quicken fixes the underlying problem, this issue (the incorrect treatment of business Bought transactions) will become moot.

Except that I believe the general problem with trying to designate investment accounts as business accounts will remain. 

I haven't given it a lot of thought, but my first impression is that the only possibilities are: all investment transactions must be able to be Tagged, or investment accounts themselves must be able to be assigned to a specific business (so all its transactions can be correctly treated as belonging to the that business).

-JP

JoelC

@mshiggins

That's not what my tests indicated.  Even though I removed the "default" option from both businesses - leaving NO business as the default, the Bought transactions (from the original "default" business) were still incorrectly included in the Profit/Loss display.

To me that says that Quicken is not using the "default" business to determine which, if any, investment transactions are included in the Business > Profit/Loss display (and possibly other displays). 

Appreciated and thank you (for both the above clarification and the additional testing that you did), I missed that subtlety.

Hopefully, when Quicken fixes the underlying problem, this issue (the incorrect treatment of business Bought transactions) will become moot.

I share your hope.

Except that I believe the general problem with trying to designate investment accounts as business accounts will remain. 

The above comment caught my attention. What are the "general problems" that you are referring to?

I haven't given it a lot of thought, but my first impression is that the only possibilities are: all investment transactions must be able to be Tagged, or investment accounts themselves must be able to be assigned to a specific business (so all its transactions can be correctly treated as belonging to the that business).

I have given this some thought. I suggested to Quicken that the Tag field be added to the investment accounts. I have not thought about investment accounts themselves must be able to be assigned to a specific business (so all its transactions can be correctly treated as belonging to the that business), but will do so.

Thank you.