Recording the transaction and sale of a vehicle

dbrooking84

I traded in a car for a new car

Then put a downpayment on the new car

Then also had a loan on the new car

After that, I put a bunch of money uplifting the new car

I sold the new car for more money than the original price of the car but for less than what I had invested into it, thus creating a (Capital LOSS)

I'm wanting to capture the capital loss in my transactions and get rid off the asset on my books instead of it hanging around as a loss in the assets section. What would be the best way to do this?

Tom Young

I can discuss the proper accounting here but I'm a Win Quicken user so I won't go into the mechanics of making the entry in Mac Quicken. (I have to assume that mechanically Mac Quicken and Win Quicken work more of less the same.)

From the sounds of it you've done all the accounting needed to do to get you to the point of having an asset Account (the car) that shows a negative amount? If that's the case then all you need do is make an entry in the amount of the loss in the asset Account that zeros it out. (In accounting terms that side of the balanced entry in the asset Account is a "credit.") The balancing entry (a "debit") would be to an Income or Loss Category (Win Quicken term for an entry that will show up on an Income and Expense Report, not on a Balance Sheet).

Win Quicken has a "built in" Category for Investment capital gains and losses and in QWin a user is allowed to use that Category, if they wish. But since capital losses on personal property (assumed to be the case here) are not deductible it would make more sense to create a custom Category here (maybe something along the lines of "PP Capital Loss"). That way the loss does properly show up on an Income and Expense Report but doesn't mingle with actual Investment losses that are generally deductible for taxes.