I do not understand how Quicken handles Credit Card Transactions

Question

I have my credit card set up as, Credit Card.  I download the transactions directly from my credit card company.  They post as negative amounts, I assume is correct, however when I pay the account balance as a Transfer from my Checking Account, it posts as a positive, and appears to ADD to the credit card balance, instead of reducing it in the amount of the payment.  What am I doing wrong.  It doesn't make sense.  I am somewhat new with Quicken.

jeeper · Answer

this is how things should look with a Credit Card - like mentioned above -

and NOT using the Amount field which becomes confusing -

all entered numbers are actually Positive -

Charge - is the amount you "charged"

Payment - is the amount you "paid off" the Balance

Amount - is the plus/minus amount against the account - better to use Charge & Payment fields -

Balance - ongoing Balance

it's just the column they are in that dictates how the math is calculated and the resulting Balance -

CaptnM · Answer

Thank you so much for your response.  I will try these ideas.

volvogirl · Answer

Just in case you are entering your credit card bills  the wrong way…..

The proper way is to set up a credit card ACCOUNT and enter the charges into it when the purchase is made and assigning it to a category. Then when you pay the credit card bill you TRANSFER the payment from your checking account to the credit card account (not a category).   Then if or when you download the payment from the bank you match it to the one you already entered.

When you enter the payment in your checking account you put the credit card account name in for the category using square brackets around the name to indicate it is a transfer...like this… [credit card] or newer Mac versions have a separate Transfer column.