Bills marked as paid manually show up as income transactions. How to fix this?

Question

seems like it should be a fairly easy fix so maybe I am missing something. I have several monthly payments that I make in varying amounts so I have the bill transactions set up manually. When I enter the amount of the payment and click “Mark as paid” and go to the transaction view, the bill payment always shows up as an income and I have to change it manually. Is there a way to fix this, and if so, how? Any help is appreciated

jacobs · Answer

@Ran1565  Yes, I was talking about Quicken Mac above. I’m glad @UKR got you square away, but for future knowledge, let me walk through what I was describing above again. And this way will allow you have have zero dollar scheduled transactions which will behave the way you want.

Go to the account register, not the Bills & Income page. Do you have the register set to show future scheduled transactions? That is, so you see the gray scheduled transactions in the future? If not, click the little clock icon on the upper right under the Search box, and from the drop down menu select to display scheduled transactions in the Next 30 Days or Next One Due.

Now you should see your scheduled transactions in gray in the future. Pick one of your $0 scheduled transactions and double-click it for editing. A blue mini-menu will come up under the transaction. Click “Edit All Instances”.

This will bring you to the Transaction Details screen for the scheduled transaction. Make sure the Type is set to  Bill, not Income.

When you know the amount of your upcoming bill, go to the register again — not Bills & Income —  and enter the amount. This changes just the next instance, not all instances. Scheduled transactions allow you to edit the amount of the next transaction without affecting the future scheduled transactions, which is what you want in this case. Going back to Bills & Income, you'll see your upcoming bill with the proper amount under Bills, not Income.

Ran1565 · Answer

Thank you so much! Just tried this and it worked. As long as I set an estimated bill amount, when I edit and mark as paid, it goes where it is supposed to. Cheers!

UKR · Answer

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20418520#Comment_20418520

Quicken may assume a $0.00 transaction as being income. Then, when you enter an unsigned amount, it's therefore assumed to be positive, i.e. income.

Try entering a negative amount when recording the transaction.

Also change any scheduled reminders from 0.00 to use a non-zero estimated bill amount, to keep this transaction from wandering off into the Income zone.