Previously marked Hidden categories showing up in Report list

qcknuser

After nearly 30 years on Q windows, I've switched to Q MAC. After 5 months on MAC I'm feeling more comfortable but am still perplexed by Reports.

I want to do a report, any report, say Cash Flow, and don't want to wade through categories I haven't used in 20 years even thought I have marked them "Hidden" in the "Categories" under "Window".

How to do this ? thanks. Carol

jacobs

@Jon Too easy! That’s cheating. 🤣

(But a actually, I think it’s a good idea to least skim through the unused categories before deleting them, as one may suggest itself as something useful for the future, or a better alternative to one or more categories already in use.)

Jon

Reports will shows any category that has spending or income present for the time period the report covers - the Hidden flag only stops those categories from being available when you categorize a transaction. If you want to exclude a Category from a report you will have to edit the report & deselect the category.

OTOH, reports should only show categories that have transactions using them - I wouldn't expect to see a category listed with $0 in spending or income.

qcknuser

Sorry, I wasn't clear.

When I am customizing a report, which I nearly always do, I have to go through a list of categories that I want included. Here I am offered a list of all categories that I have ever used, some I haven't used in decades.

I know they don't don't show up on the report, but I'd prefer not to wade through 100 categories that I've used over the years but no longer do, just to get to the bottom of the list so I can customize the report to include categories I want.

Jon

There's no way to exclude categories from that list at present. There's an Idea thread suggesting an option for that, you should go add your vote & comment to that thread:

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7949173/add-a-show-hide-checkbox-for-hidden-categories-when-creating-editing-a-report

qcknuser

too bad. I'll vote. thank you.

jacobs

It would be great for that Idea post to get some additional votes, as it currently has only 6 votes over the past year, and thus has yet to be submitted to the developers for their consideration.

@qcknuser said: Here I am offered a list of all categories that I have ever used, some I haven't used in decades.

For a long time, I resisted what I thought would be a painful job of cleaning up my category list. But one day I looked at it and realized it was actually pretty quick and easy to reduce my category list. Getting rid of categories you've never used is particularly easy: open the Categories window, se the filter at the top to show Unused Categories, ignore the ones marked as Required, and quickly review the Unused ones to see if any seem useful enough to leave; then select and delete the Unused ones.

I wish the Categories window allow you to sort by the Uses column (like most other windows), but I still found it pretty easy to identify categories I had used rarely or a long time ago and merge some of them into categories I now use, and to mark others which weren't candidates for merging but which I no longer use as Hidden. I ended up with a much smaller Categories list, without spending a lot of time.

Jon

There's also an option on the menu at the bottom of the Categories window (the circle with three dots - is there an actual name for that?) that will delete all unused Categories (well, except the Required categories they won't let you delete).

jacobs

@Jon Too easy! That’s cheating. 🤣

(But a actually, I think it’s a good idea to least skim through the unused categories before deleting them, as one may suggest itself as something useful for the future, or a better alternative to one or more categories already in use.)