Categories and Memorized Payees/Transactions - sort of (Q Mac)

Brian (San Diego)
Brian (San Diego) Quicken Mac Subscription Member

This isn't truly an error, but when transactions come in with their own individual identifier numbers, Quicken for Mac isn't smart enough to figure out the transaction's category, and I'm not smart enough to figure out how to fix it πŸ˜‚.

Think buying an airline ticket and the transaction comes in with the ticket number. Like "United Airlines XXXXXXX3104" or "YourHOA Assn Dues XXXX7095". While the front end is always the same, Quicken tries to exactly match the entry, and since the last 4 digits are always different (1 in 10,000 chances of getting the same, anyway), Quicken brain-farts and doesn't even categorize the transaction.

I would think that Quicken would be able to figure this one out on its own. Until then, is there a work-around? Can we program Quicken to, say, "if the Payee starts with 'United Airlines' then categorize as 'Travel'"?

Best Answer

  • Jon
    Jon Quicken Mac Subscription SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    edited May 10 Answer βœ“

    You can but it's in two parts. First set up a Renaming rule that sets the Payee to United Airlines if the payee contains the words "United Airlines". Then create a Quickfill rule that categorizes the United Airlines payee to "Travel". The Renaming rule happens first, then that will trigger the Quickfill rule.

    This does mean that all your United Airlines transactions will wind up having the exact same payee. If you wanted to keep the ticket number as part of the payee then I don't know how to make that work.

Answers

  • Jon
    Jon Quicken Mac Subscription SuperUser, Mac Beta Beta
    edited May 10 Answer βœ“

    You can but it's in two parts. First set up a Renaming rule that sets the Payee to United Airlines if the payee contains the words "United Airlines". Then create a Quickfill rule that categorizes the United Airlines payee to "Travel". The Renaming rule happens first, then that will trigger the Quickfill rule.

    This does mean that all your United Airlines transactions will wind up having the exact same payee. If you wanted to keep the ticket number as part of the payee then I don't know how to make that work.

  • Brian (San Diego)
    Brian (San Diego) Quicken Mac Subscription Member

    Thank you for the near immediate response Jon! Much appreciated. I will implement your solution, and hopefully Quicken can work on a more appropriate solution- like utilizing the electronic smarts that are available these days to automatically recognize these situations or allow the user to program their own smarts into their personal Quicken accounts/software (perhaps with the "if/then" capability I mentioned in my o/p).

  • Brian (San Diego)
    Brian (San Diego) Quicken Mac Subscription Member

    Super! Thanks Rick. I’ll play around with those. This community space has been great.

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