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Tracking credit card charges

lmp6164

I've been putting all my credit card charges in my checking account on quicken and putting who in the payee spot and what it was in the category and the charge amount in the memo for tracking purposes. Then when the credit card bill comes, I pay it and zero out what the individual charges were. When I pay the credit card bill the amount gets zeroed out, but I still have the memo to track if I need to. I figured this was easy to know at any moment what my cash avl was in my checking account. I didn't want to see $2000 in checking but actually when I pay the credit card it drops to $200. So by entering each individual charge it keeps the checking account balance in real dollars I have. But… now that I'm trying to do a monthly budget all the charges don't add into the reports because they are all zero amounts. I have to look at every charges memo to see what gets charged every month. I've read about people using an account labeled credit card but how does that match up so at year end I can see what really we spent through the year. I'm sorry this is confusing. I just want to know at year end how much I spent on each category and item that I usually charge on my credit card and pay with my checking account. Thank you

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NotACPA

You're needlessly complicating your life, and your use of Q.

Create a Credit Card account and post the charges there. THEN, when you pay the bill, record that as a TRANSFER from checking to your card account.

UKR

IMHO … Way to complicated.
Track each credit card charge in its own Credit Card account register. Optionally, if you activate each of these registers for downloading you can easily match downloaded information with information you already entered into your credit card register. Makes comparing your handiwork to the credit card statement easier.
Categorize each credit card charge to the appropriate expense category, e.g., Gasoline, Food, Clothing, etc. and you'll see how much you're spending for each categori

Set up and use a monthly scheduled reminder to pay your credit card statement from your checking account. If defined as Estimated amount / Current credit card balance, you'll see how much you have to pay when to pay off your credit card bill every month. Several views in Quicken, e.g., Bills & Income tab / Projected Balances view will show you if you're in danger of overdrawing your checking account.
If possible, your checking account balance should never approach zero. Keep at least 2 or 3 months' net pay as a buffer in the checking account so that unexpected expenses don't throw a monkey wrench into your planning.

All comments

NotACPA

You're needlessly complicating your life, and your use of Q.

Create a Credit Card account and post the charges there. THEN, when you pay the bill, record that as a TRANSFER from checking to your card account.

UKR

volvogirl

Here's a list of some reasons why you should enter the charges individually in a Credit Card Account…..
You don't have to wait to make the payment and split it out
You won't run out of split lines (In older versions there's only 30 lines)
You can use both the payee and memo fields for more description
You don't have to figure out the difference if you pay a different amount
Then your Credit Card Account will exactly match your statement
Charges get entered with the right date (better at year end for taxes)
You can enter all charges to date, not just what's on the bill - then you can see what you still owe
You won't forget what a charge was for if you enter it right away from the receipt

Richard Schreyer

If you are trying to keep your cash balance in sync with credit card charges that have yet to be paid you can post in the credit card register a future-dated transaction that you keep in sync with your credit card balance. The transfer then reflects the correct cash balance as of the date you pay the credit card.

lmp6164

Thank you everyone. I will definitely try doing this, this weekend. Thanks again.

Boatnmaniac

@lmp6164 - Another suggestion if you set up Reminders for your credit card (and other bills, income and transfers): In your checking account register click on the clock icon above and to the right of the register. Then select the number of days of Reminder transactions to show in the register.

Also, click on the Gear icon above and to the right of the register, click on Register Columns and then check the box for Status. The Status column will be added on the left side of the register and the column header for that will show a blue dot.

Those Reminders within that time frame you select will then be populated in the register and will be accounted for in the Balance column. And in the status column (on the left side) you will see what the status of the Reminder transactions and other manually entered transactions are which can help you get a quick glance of actions you might need to take.

You can also set this up with every Spending account (checking, savings, credit card, etc.)

And your Reminders can be set up to remind you X-number of before the due date so you can take appropriate proactive action regarding them. These will also show up in the Reminders tab below the account register….as well as in the register (assuming you do set up your register view as mentioned above).

After setting up your Reminders and Account Register(s) in this manner, here is an example of what it will look like in a credit card account but it will be similar in a checking account.:

I have all of my Spending accounts set up like this because I find it very helpful in planning and budgeting.