Add a spending category to a transfer

Sisyphus1967

I'd like to be able to note the spending categorization for some transfers. This may only apply to me but I track accounts for multiple members of my family and when they make a transfer, it doesn't note the purpose of the transfer as a category. Similarly if I have a loan that I'm paying that doesn't update online, my transaction will record the principal payment as a transfer, rather than categorizing it as the type of payment it was.

Chris_QPW

Never going to happen. Quicken needs to separate out income, expenses, and transfers to do proper accounting. If a transfer had a normal category there would be situations where that transactions would be double counted.

If you want to separate out transactions by family members, I suggest you used tags. If you want to "state the purpose" I suggest you record it in the memo.

Boatnmaniac

I, too, was going to suggest using tags and/or a note in the memo field. If your family members are transferring money to a different account for some kind of expense, then there should also be a separate expense transaction or transactions in that account. Those separate transactions are where the category needs to be applied, not with the transfer transaction.

Regarding the loan: Did you add the loan account as a manual offline account with the loan tool in Add Account? If you set up the loan this way it will create a Loan Reminder which will split the payments category into principal, interest and just about any other related fees that might be applicable to that loan. Then each month (or payment period) you enter the Loan Reminder into the payment account which will automatically adjust the payment amortization schedule for principal, interest, etc….and it will all be properly captured in the various spending reports and in the Budget. When the payment from the bank downloads, it will be or can be matched to the Loan Reminder that has been entered. This process works quite well. (NOTE: It is recommended that you do not connect the loan account to the lender. Connected loans do not work as I described here….they do not have account registers so they have no transactions that can be viewed, edited or linked to the payment account.)

Sisyphus1967

@Boatnmaniac Possibly I've setup my loan wrong then. I used an offline account for it. The reminder that got setup transfers the principal to the loan balance from my payment account and categorizes the interest. So I effectively don't have a categorization for the principal, just the transfer. Your note seems to indicate that I could get the categorization on my payment for the principal but then I'm uncertain how I record the balance reduction on the loan.

Jim_Harman

Strictly speaking, transfers between accounts are not income or expenses, but if you want to treat transfers from an account as income or expenses for reporting purposes, you can customize the report so that it includes the "spending" accounts but does not include the other account(s). Then if the spending account receives a transfer, the sending account will be listed in the Income section of the report as FROM <account-name>.

If you are using the Banking > Cash flow report for a transfer you are treating as income, you should include the receiving account but not the sending account, and on the Advanced tab next to Transfers, select "Exclude internal". The terminology is confusing, but "Exclude Internal" tells the report to ignore transfers between accounts that are selected for the report (payments from your checking account to a credit card account for example) but to include transfers between the selected accounts and other accounts.

Other reports have different default settings, but they work the same way: Include the "spending" accounts but not the other account(s), and on the Advanced tab set Transfers to "Exclude internal". If the report has an Organization setting on the Advanced tab, set it to “Cash Flow Basis”.

If you want to exclude specific transfer accounts from the report, you can scroll to the bottom of the Categories tab, where you will see all of your accounts listed. Un-check those you want to exclude.

You can control which transfers are included in your budget Budget reports by clicking on Manage Budget Categories on the Budget page and making selections in the Transfers In and Transfers Out sections.