Proceeds from stock sales show in report but purchases do not

Question

I have an investment account at Merrill Lynch, with a checking account linked to it.  Creating an report has a category for divs and interest, but none for buys or sales.  Yet my report includes the total for the sales but not the buy that followed with the proceeds.  The consequence is my income is inflated that month because the buy isn't picked up in the report.

I see no way to edit the transaction boxes to select a different category, nor does the general category list include sales or buys similar to the DivsInc category.  How can I exclude sales from reports, or how can I get both sales and buys to show up in them?

I have Quicken Deluxe version R60.20, Build 27.1.160.20 running in Windows 10 Home.

Jim_Harman · Answer

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”.

Charles T Cullen · Answer

The comment about income and expense cancelling each other out makes sense.  Thanks.

I have tried playing with the transfer options in Advanced settings, but results weren't good:  when it helped in one case, it hurt in another.

I'm going to explore the Cash Flow option as well as customizing the report in a different manner from what I've been doing.

Many thanks to the two of you who responded.  Much appreciated

q_lurker · Answer

The I&E by Category report does have a customization option (Advanced Tab) that provides four different options for how transfers are handled.  You might play with those to see of one or the other helps.