Report issue (Q Mac)

Paul1

I have set up a new student loan account in 2024 for one of my kids.

Each time I make a payment from my checking account  I utilize [TRANSFER] to the loan account and [CATEGORY] to Education:Student Loan.

However I cannot get anything to show up in a report with the education category.

As a test, when I deleted the [TRANSFER] part in the entry (in my checking account) it then shows up in the report.

Anyone else run into this?

jacobs

The problem is that you should not be creating a transaction which is both a Transfer and has a Category. In fact, the Quicken software should prevent you from doing so; the developers said a few years ago that they would block such transactions, but they have never gotten around to it. Why? In accounting, a transfer is movement of money between accounts — in this case from an asset (your checking account) to a liability (your loan) account, and transfers of funds cannot simultaneously be income or expense.

But, you're saying, it sure feels like an expense when I pay it every month! Of course; from a cash flow perspective, it definitely acts like an expense. So what can you do?

First, remove the category from your Transfer transaction. Then, you can tweak the settings of your report to force it to include the transfer on the report. In the report, go to Edit > Accounts and uncheck the loan account. Then click on the Advanced tab and check the radio button for "Include selected transfers with any account outside of report". Since you removed the loan account from the report, it is "outside" the report, and Quicken will add a Transfers section below Expenses which will show Transfers To the loan account.

The only downside of this is that you can't use the category you wanted to; you're stuck with seeing the loan payment in the separate Transfers section. But it's clear enough what Transfers To [student loan account] is, and it is counted in your bottom line on the report as an expense.