Add "Other Credits" and perhaps other lines to credit card reconcile

Doug Fisher
Doug Fisher Member ✭✭
edited January 5 in Product Enhancements

Credit card statements often are organized as Previous Balance, Payments, Other Credits, Purchases, Cash Advances, Other Debits, Fees, Interest, New Balance.

Quicken's reconcile screen groups Payments/Other Credits and Charges/Cash Advances (which might be better as Charges, Fees, Cash Advances).

It's no great shakes to put these into the onboard calculator and add them up.

But I helped design data bases, and part of the challenge was to take into account data entry errors and avoid manual mathematical operations as much as possible because of the known tendency for them to introduce error. So perhaps you might consider adding a few more lines to the initial reconcile screen to correspond to those commonly found on credit card statements so that entry becomes simple transcribing? This also is shown to improve productivity.

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Comments

  • Jim_Harman
    Jim_Harman Quicken Windows Subscription SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭

    Another way to handle fees and credits is to enter them as transactions in the credit card account. Then they will be easily visible and you can assign Categories to them.

    QWin Premier subscription
  • Boatnmaniac
    Boatnmaniac Quicken Windows Subscription SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭

    This is how I manage them. Works really well and is then easily tracked in reports.

    Quicken Classic Premier (US) Subscription: R61.16 on Windows 11 Home

  • NotACPA
    NotACPA Quicken Windows Subscription SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭

    Q user since February, 1990. DOS Version 4
    Now running Quicken Windows Subscription, Business & Personal
    Retired "Certified Information Systems Auditor" & Bank Audit VP

  • UserDavidC
    UserDavidC Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭✭✭

    I would prefer to go the other way: remove the Charges, Cash Advances & Payments, Credits entry fields altogether.

    I always just enter zero in these fields. As far as I know, Quicken doesn't use these fields so why are they even there?

    Quicken user since 1995.
    Current Quicken for Windows subscription user. I usually upgrade to the latest version about 1 week after full release.

  • Boatnmaniac
    Boatnmaniac Quicken Windows Subscription SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭

    Quicken does use those fields. It will enter transactions in the register for each cost or income that one enters there and those transactions will be categorized with the categories one enters for them. Some people do use those fields to capture that missing transaction information.

    For people who download transactions, it's quite possible that they do not need to enter that data because the transactions would likely have been downloaded earlier.

    But people who manually enter their transactions might not see that data until they get their statements. These fields make it an easy way for them to enter those missing transactions without needing to manually enter that data separately..

    Quicken Classic Premier (US) Subscription: R61.16 on Windows 11 Home

  • q_lurker
    q_lurker Quicken Windows Subscription SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭

    I believe the idea was written as applicable to credit card accounts and this reconcile screen:

    The two middle fields Charges and Payments are not used and are not required (anymore). They could be dropped as @UserDavidC suggested with no impact on behavior.

    The OP seems to be thinking those two middle fields are required and they are adding two or three values from the statement to make each of those two entries. That seems to be what they are trying to get away from.

    I think the better approach is dropping the unused fields such that only the closing ending balance would be the entry to transcribe.

  • UserDavidC
    UserDavidC Quicken Windows Subscription Member ✭✭✭✭

    @q_lurker is correct. My credit card reconcile window is slightly different (probably due to FI download is not active for my credit card accounts) but is essentially the same as q_lurker shows.

    Quicken user since 1995.
    Current Quicken for Windows subscription user. I usually upgrade to the latest version about 1 week after full release.