Transfers

Churchlady

Situation is as follows: downpayment on property was paid in Dec. 2023

A reimbursement for that expense was paid as a transfer from another account in Feb. 2024. (Totally separate data file)

The income and expense report shows it like a huge amount of income when it was actually a reimbursement. Was it due to recording in different years?

Jim_Harman

That depends on the date range for the report. If it is Last Year, then you will see the income but not the expense.

If the date range Includes both the expense and the reimbursement, then it depends on the Categories you have assigned. You may see the expense in one Category and the reimbursement in another.

Chris_QPW

There are four different ways that Quicken categorizes transactions.

Income

Expense

Transfer

Balance adjustment

You said, "Totally separate data file". Did you mean a different account the same data file? Because it impossible to record a transfer in Quicken if the two transactions are in two different data files even if this was a transfer in the real world.

If this is in one data file, then there are two ways to make it a "zero balance" transactions (neither affecting the overall total of income or expense).

That is to either use the same category for the reimbursement as ways used for the expense and make sure the report covers the period of time the includes both transactions, or a transfer between the two accounts (the later would be the most likely one to use).

If this money is coming in and out of from an outside source and you just want it to "appear in the register" without affecting anything else like the income or expense categories, then that is a balance adjustment.

To record a balance adjustment the category field should be set to [Account Name] where "Account Name" is the account that you are in.

Churchlady

Files are totally separate. My confusion is that the total expense of the down payment is in 2023. The reimbursement happened in 2024. However, the reimbursement appears as income in my reports when actually it was meant to cancel our the expense from 2023.

CaliQkn

@Churchlady I think if you use the same category for the reimbursement that was used for the original expense, the transactions should wash, and the reimbursement will not show as income.

Chris_QPW

If they are in separate data files then you want to use a balance adjustment. It is the only way to record it without it showing up as income.

Churchlady

I used the same category for both entries. If I run the report dated back to the first entry it shows as a wash. If I run report for the year when payment was made, it shows up as income. I keep thinking the problem is payment was made in 23, but reimbursement happened in 24. So confused!

Churchlady

Would putting all accounts back into the same data file solve any problems?

CaliQkn

@Churchlady make sure that the categories used for both files are coded as an expense. It could be that you might have the category coded in one file as income and that is why it's showing up as income.

Chris_QPW

I used the same category for both entries. If I run the report dated back to the first entry it shows as a wash. 

This doesn't make any sense based on what you told me before (that this is in two different data files).

You can't run a report that includes two data files. You must be talking about two accounts, but the transactions are in different years.

These are two separate data files:

The behavior you are describing is two accounts not two data files and is correct.

Given that this is for two accounts, with the transactions in two different years, then yes depending on the timeframe picked for the report it can show as a wash or as debit or a credit.

First off let me get something clear. A "negative expense" is "income" or more correctly a credit. If I debit $100 and then credit $100, I'm left with $0. I can reverse that and get the same result. Let's take a common transaction. You buy a shirt for $25 and record it in the category Clothing. Then you return it and get a refund. Now your record -$25 in Clothing, and it is as of you never bought the shirt. As a side note, if you turn on the Amount column in the register you can see the signs of the numbers. The use of the terms charge/payment or payment/deposit to that the numbers can be entered with positive numbers somewhat clouds the fact that you are dealing with debits and credits. Debit money flows out of your account, credits flow in. The Amount column will always show amounts going out of your account as negative, and amounts coming into your account as positive.

Let's go over the possible situations.

The two transactions are in the same data file but one year apart and you use the same category for both transactions, and expense category.

You run a report that includes both accounts and filter the report so that only 2023 is in it.

Then by definition, you have you are only including the expense/debit in the report. So, that report is going to show that as an expense (debit).

Next you run the same report, but this time you only include 2024. Then by definition you have only included the "negative expense" (credit), which you might think of as "income", but in reality, you will see that isn't under "income" is in the expense part of the report as a negative amount.

Next you run the same report, but this time including both years. Then by definition you have included both the expense(debit) and the "negative expense"(credit) and they are going to cancel each other out.

Note that Quicken will show this correct as a debit and a credit in the same expense category.

Here is an example:

Notice that Quicken didn't put this under Income, it put it under expense, but with a negative value.

Chris_QPW

I should also add that this can't be a transfer in Quicken because a transfer in Quicken has to have the same date on both sides of the transfer.