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Add Keyboard Shortcut to Jump Directly to the Amount Field During Transaction Entry (Mac)

mybank2002

First, thank you for the improvement in version 9 that allows moving between transactions and accounts with the arrow keys. That is a big deal for keyboard-driven workflows and exactly the kind of thing that makes Quicken feel like a professional tool.

Building on that: when entering or editing transactions in the register, there is currently no way to jump directly to a specific field using a keyboard shortcut. The only option is tabbing through every preceding field (Date, Check#, Payee, Category, Tag, Memo) to reach the Amount, which is slow and fragile depending on which columns are currently visible.

What I would like to see is a "Go to Field" submenu added to the Transaction menu (or accessible via right-click on an active transaction row), with an entry for each register field: Date, Check#, Payee, Category, Tag, Memo, Amount/Payment, Deposit, and so on. Fields not currently displayed in the register would simply be grayed out.

The reason a menu matters as much as a shortcut: macOS has supported system-level keyboard shortcut assignment to any menu item for over a decade via System Preferences. Users can already assign their own shortcuts to any named menu item without Quicken doing anything extra. Tools like Keyboard Maestro can also target named menu items reliably, which is far more stable than counting Tab presses. Many professional Mac apps expose comprehensive submenus specifically to enable this kind of user-defined shortcut mapping, and it costs the development team very little once the menu items exist.

This would be especially useful for users whose Payee and Category are already filled in by QuickFill and who just need to get to the amount quickly. It would also benefit anyone building automation workflows around transaction entry.

Thank you for considering it.

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Comments

Jon

If you look at all the different account types there are something like 4 dozen different fields that can be displayed in a register. That's probably too many to have meaningful shortcuts for, or to fit in a usable menu. Still, if you want to see this happen you should make a Product Idea thread for it so other people can vote on the idea; that's the best way for you to get this suggestion in front of the developers.

RickO

This is similar to something I've been asking for for a long while: adding a hierarchical Account menu to the Accounts menu which would then also allow one to add keyboard shortcuts to jump to specific accounts.

Quicken Laura

Hi @mybank2002,

Thank you for taking the time to reach out with your request and for sharing your feedback!

I went ahead and changed your post to an Idea so other users who have the same or a similar request can vote on your idea by clicking the up arrow (see below).

Thank you!

UKR

As a Quicken for Windows user I'm just wondering …

It's my understanding that Q Mac users can rearrange the order of columns in an account register. Correct?
So, how about moving the Payment and Deposit (or Amount) columns further to the left, to be able to reach the field with less Tab key presses?

A little cleanup in the register might also help:
- Do you use Tags for any of your transactions? If not, remove the Tag column from the register view.
- Do you show the Amount column together with the Payment and Deposit columns? It's not necessary to show all three columns. Use only the column(s) you actually use: either Amount or the Payment and Deposit pair.
This will make a little more space available for the other register columns to show more characters. And it will reduce the number of Tab key presses when navigating in a transaction.

Jon

@UKR Yes, in Quicken Mac the columns can be rearranged.

jacobs

Just echoing @RickO on the desire to have a submenu on the Account menu listing every account, so users could use the built-in macOS tool to set up customer keyboard shortcuts to any menu command. This is one of my most sorely-missed features from the old Quicken 2007.

That said, I'm not sure if/how much I'd take advantage of a key command to jump to the (first) amount field; I find it pretty easy to rapid-fire a few Tabs to get there. But I do appreciate that it would be faster and more precise than tabbing, which often requires looking up at the screen to make sure you've landed in the right place. (I periodically tab into the Tags field by mistake, creating a new tag for the amount I was trying to enter.) So yes, I think it would be worth adding a command key to jump to the amount field, or the first amount field if there are more than one.