Tracking Multiple Areas from Single Account

Mike_L

This is not a critical issue. I am just trying to learn the best ways to use Quicken.

Hypothetically, I have an account with 25,000 in it. I want to assign 7,000 to HOUSE, 8,000 to MISC, and 5,000 to VACATION. Is there some way to track the expenditures and balances for each easily or is the solution to use a separate account for each.

Thanks

Sceptic

@Mike_L you don't necessarily need separate accounts. If your goal is to allocate money within a single account to different purposes (e.g., HOUSE, MISC, and VACATION), there are several ways to do it in Quicken.

1. Savings Goals - Best if you simply want to earmark money for future spending. Savings Goals are designed to reserve portions of an account balance without requiring separate real-world accounts.

2. Separate savings accounts (real or offline) - Best if you want to see a clear running balance for each purpose. You can transfer the designated amounts into each account and always know how much remains available.

3. Tags - Best if your primary goal is reporting. You could tag transactions as HOUSE, MISC, or VACATION and then run reports filtered by Tag. The drawback is that Tags don't automatically provide an "available balance remaining" view the way Savings Goals or separate accounts do.