"Miscellaneous Expense" transaction leads to a bug in Main View's Spending figure

BK

If you enter Miscellaneous Expense (MiscExp) transactions in investment accounts, those values do not show up in the classic dashboard's Main View. Therefore the sum of spending figures differ between the new Dashboard and the classic Dashboard's Main View.
The reason: blank Payee perhaps. However if you add a payee, the transaction changes from MiscExp to Withdraw.

• I created a $10 transaction with a category of "Fees & Charges" in a banking account (not shown).
• And a $100 "Miscellaneous Expense" transaction with the same category of "Fees & Charges" in a brokerage account (figure-1)
  Hence total of $110 in Fees & Charges. New Dashboard (figure-2) correctly shows $110, but the classic dashboard's Main View (figure-3) incorrectly shows $10 - and while there if you click on Fees & Charges you will see details of the discrepancies showing both $10 and $110 (figure-4).

Figures 1 & 2:

Figures 3 & 4:

I have reported this issue (via Help > Report a problem) every year since 2021 and posted it here back then. My guess is that fixing this is not trivial and perhaps low priority. I am hoping that the moderators may use their influence to flag this to the developers. Thank you.

Quicken Jasmine

Hello @BK,

Thanks for providing more information. After digging deeper and talking with my team, log files will most likely be unnecessary. However, if you don't mind providing exact steps to reproduce that would be great! This is so I can create a CBT and send it to my development team.

I appreciate it!

BK

Thank you @Quicken Jasmine and here you go as you requested.

Preferably start with a new blank QWin file for simplicity, but not required.
Create or use any investment account, online or offline account does not matter
Steps:
1- In an investment account create the following two transactions:
* Enter Transactions > Miscellaneous Expense > Amount=$100 > Category=Fees & Charges > Enter/Done
* Enter Transactions > Withdraw > Amount=$10 > Category=Fees & Charges > Enter/Done
2- On the top ribbon, click on the SPENDING tab (to the right of the HOME)
3- To the right of the graph, click on the Fees & Charges category you used earlier. This will display just the corresponding "Fees & Charges" transactions at the bottom portion of the screen and the Total.
4- Observe: The $ values displayed at the top portion (either side of the graph) are different from the Total $ value displayed at the bottom right of the screen. In this example they are off by $100 for the MiscExp transaction.

This suggests that the code that is collecting the transactions in graph section of the dashboard's Spending tab is omitting those with blank payees (and MiscExp is a transaction with no payee).

[You can additionally observe this issue when comparing the Spending figures between the new Dashboard vs. the classic Dashboard’s Main View "See Where Your Money Goes“.]

Quicken Jasmine

Hello @BK,

Would you mind sending recent logs over and letting me know once you have done so? I will bring this up to my team tomorrow.

Thanks!

BK

Hello @Quicken Jasmine

Thank you for your reply. Exactly which of these log files do you want me to send? I doubt any would be useful because …

in my post, I started with a blank Q file in an offline Virtual Machine, and added a few offline made-up accounts, and then manually added a MiscExp transaction in the investment account.

In my main file however, I only use Withdraw (instead of MiscExp) since years ago because I know having MiscExp would lead to visual inaccuracies in the dashboard. This is not a download or datafile issue. This is specifically about entering an investment transaction of type Miscellaneous Expense (MiscExp), be it downloaded or manually entered. This can be reproduced in seconds:

In QWin, go to any investment account, select Enter Transaction > Miscellaneous Expense > Amount=$100 > Category=Fees & Charges > Enter/Done. Then observe that the $100 amount just entered is not included in the Total Spending figure of classic Dashboard's Main View ONLY (include "See Where Your Money Goes" to the view).

It appears that the Main View's "See Where Your Money Goes" Total Spending calculation is ignoring transactions with blank payee (MiscExp does not contain a payee field).

Thank you

NotACPA

Instead of the "MiscExp" txn, try using "Withdraw" … that dialog has a Payee field

BK

@Quicken Jasmine

The issue can be easily seen in the Spending tab. The MiscExp transaction (no Payee) is being ignored.

BK

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20452946#Comment_20452946

Thanks @NotACPA

I have and I also mentioned it in the prior comments. It works as a workaround of course, which is what I have been doing. However, it would've been nice to be able to take advantage of the MiscExp when it is an expense; after all it is there, why not use it. That allows one to visually distinguish between an expense vs an intentional withdrawal. It's all visual at the end - reports remain accurate.

P.S. take a look at the last screenshot I just added - causes confusion.

NotACPA

But a Withdraw, with and Expense category IS still an expense. Why does the Misc mean so much to you???

BK

I already answered that question. In addition since we know this is a bug, I'd like to further contribute to the health of the product as you have. I suggest that we allow @Quicken Jasmine take it from here since she kindly jumped in. Best regards.

Quicken Jasmine

Hello @BK,

Thanks for providing more information. After digging deeper and talking with my team, log files will most likely be unnecessary. However, if you don't mind providing exact steps to reproduce that would be great! This is so I can create a CBT and send it to my development team.

I appreciate it!

BK

Thank you @Quicken Jasmine and here you go as you requested.

Preferably start with a new blank QWin file for simplicity, but not required.
Create or use any investment account, online or offline account does not matter
Steps:
1- In an investment account create the following two transactions:
* Enter Transactions > Miscellaneous Expense > Amount=$100 > Category=Fees & Charges > Enter/Done
* Enter Transactions > Withdraw > Amount=$10 > Category=Fees & Charges > Enter/Done
2- On the top ribbon, click on the SPENDING tab (to the right of the HOME)
3- To the right of the graph, click on the Fees & Charges category you used earlier. This will display just the corresponding "Fees & Charges" transactions at the bottom portion of the screen and the Total.
4- Observe: The $ values displayed at the top portion (either side of the graph) are different from the Total $ value displayed at the bottom right of the screen. In this example they are off by $100 for the MiscExp transaction.

This suggests that the code that is collecting the transactions in graph section of the dashboard's Spending tab is omitting those with blank payees (and MiscExp is a transaction with no payee).

[You can additionally observe this issue when comparing the Spending figures between the new Dashboard vs. the classic Dashboard’s Main View "See Where Your Money Goes“.]

Quicken Jasmine

Hello @BK,

Thank you for providing those steps. I was able to recreate this issue and I have submitted a CBT to my team. There is no current ETA, however, I will keep an eye out for updates.

Thanks again!

(CBT-402)

BK

THANK YOU @Quicken Jasmine

Quicken Jasmine

Hello @BK,

You are very welcome!