How can one make a list of charitable donations for Tax purposes?

nanajana · December 2020

Is there a way in Quicken Mac to report a list of charity (category) donations for taxes with name of charity and amount? I know if I write a check to each one there is no problem. But if they are paid with a credit card they are in a "split" and are not listed separately. Quicken telephone help says it is not possible to list from credit card splits. Has anyone found a way? Or must we sift through every credit card bill to find them manually?

jacobs · December 2020

@nanajana Don't worry -- this forum is all about finding help and learning new ways of doing things with Quicken.

How you set up your accounts in Quicken has nothing to do with whether you connect to your financial institutions for downloading. I enter my transactions manually, but I still have a separate account in Quicken for each of my credit cards. Every purchase I make is entered in the appropriate credit card account. When it's time to pay the bill, it's entered as a transfer from checking to the credit card account -- paralleling what's happening in the real world. When I get my credit card bill, I reconcile it in Quicken just like I reconcile my checking account -- checking off each transaction to make sure my Quicken and my real credit card account agree.

Now, to show the Memo field in a register, you click on the Columns icon in the toolbar at the bottom of your register (on the right side), and then check Memo/Notes. You can change the column order by dragging the column heading to the left; you can change the column width by dragging the right side of the column heading to the right.

To show the Memo field in a report is similar: click View, then Columns on the drop-down, and then check Memo/Notes. (If you don't see View at the top of your report, you may be using the old Category Summary report; although this still exists in Quicken, it;'s been superseded by newer reports with better functionality: Transactions by… or Category Summary by…)

Reporting on expenses for charity would typically be done by using a Category (not Tag) of Charity. But if you have everything done by Tag, then you can create a report for a specific tag. Create a Transactions by Category Report, click on Edit, click on the Tags tab, click Include only transactions with… and uncheck everything except your Charity tag.

Post back here with anything that's not clear!

volvogirl · December 2020

I have an old version and don't do anything online. You should not be splitting out the credit card payment. You need to set up a separate credit card account for each credit card. Then enter the actual charges into it individually as new transactions, So each charge is a separate transaction with the right date. Then when you pay the bill from your checking account it is just a transfer to the credit card account for one total.

I used to do it the wrong way for years! Then I wised up and now enter them properly. I would split my credit card payment into all the categories on one transaction in my checking account. And since I always pay more than the bill I would need to figure the difference and put it to another category. But then I needed to have them entered on the date the charges actually happened. So I finally set up a credit card account. It makes it much easier to enter and balance!

Here's a list of some reasons why you should do it this way…..

You don't have to wait to make the payment and split it out

You won't run out of split lines (I used to use Q2004 and there was only 30)

You can use both the payee and memo fields for more description

You don't have to figure out the difference if you pay a different amount

Then your Credit Card Account will exactly match your statement

Charges get entered with the right date (better at year end for taxes)

You can enter all charges to date, not just what's on the bill - then you can see what you still owe

You won't forget what a charge was for if you enter it right away from the receipt

And if there are multiple categories purchased on a single credit card charge, you can split that one credit card charge to detail the items purchased each with their own category and memo/note.

nanajana · December 2020

Sorry - this doesn't belong in "Questions about using the community" but I don't see how to move it.

volvogirl · December 2020

Even if they are part of a split they should have the right category on them and show up in the category.

But regarding credit card splits. How are you entering them? You should not be splitting them.

Just in case you are entering your credit card bills the wrong way…..

The proper way is to set up a credit card ACCOUNT and enter the charges into it when the purchase is made and assigning it to a category. Then when you pay the credit card bill you TRANSFER the payment from your checking account to the credit card account (not a category). Then if or when you download the payment from the bank you match it to the one you already entered.

When you enter the payment in your checking account you put the credit card account name in for the category using square brackets around the name to indicate it is a transfer...like this… [credit card] or newer Mac versions have a separate Transfer column.

RickO · December 2020

I want to second what volvo girl says: do NOT record your credit card transactions as a split transaction in your checking account. Do it the way that Volvogirl recommends.

And this here is a prime example of why. While, yes the transactions may be categories correctly as Charity, when you generate the category report, they will all show up with the same Payee, namely the bank to which you pay the credit card bill. If you had followed volvogirls method, the category report would show each item with the proper pay, even if you had split to show, say, that part of the payment to the charity was charitable and part was for merchandise or services received.

So what do you do about it now? One option is to retroactively follow the better method, creating a credit card account and all of the necessary transactions, etc. That would probably be a TON of work. But at least please do that for 2021.

For now, I'm hoping you put something that identifies the payee in the memo field of your split transactions. If so, generate a Transaction Report by Time, with the interval set to Year. Customize (edit) the report to include only the charity category and turn on the memo field. Click the memo field header to sort by memo. You can then print this out. The only downside is you won't be getting subtotals by payee (which you would have using the better credit card reporting method). You can export the report to CSV and make the subtotals in Excel or Numbers if that's easier than calculating them by hand.

If you don't have the payee recorded in the memo, then you are pretty much out of luck. You will have to add this to the beginning of the memo lines, or take the retroactive recreation approach.

Hope that helps.

jacobs · December 2020

@nanajana I agree with all that has been suggested above for recording each credit card charge as its own transaction in a Quicken account for the credit card.

But assuming you haven't been doing this until now… you might find it helpful to create a report for just your Category=charity transactions and export it to open in a spreadsheet. As noted above, a Quicken Mac report like this contains all the split lines, but once you have it in a spreadsheet, you may be able to pretty quickly sort out the stuff you want from the stuff you don't, and clean it up to be a viable list of your charitable giving for the year.

nanajana · December 2020

This site sure confused me. I received emails from you helpful people. The emails said I could respond directly but my carefully prepared answers bounced. So I will write here.

Oh, dear. I have about 4 credit cards and none of them are connected online. I have avoided online features to keep things simple, fearing possible glitches. I just get statements and send checks the old fashioned way. Strange that the Quicken telephone support didn't mention this. I am not understanding why this would give Quicken an additional function. Won't a registered credit card still have a split transaction?

I always do describe the item in Memo/Notes (e.g. Red Cross). Years ago in an earlier version of Quicken I was able to make this kind of list. And I can almost do it here except it won't allow Memo/Notes to be included in a column. I have never used tags. If I gave all Charity items a tag for Charity, could I select/see the items then?

I have used Quicken for years but am still not very proficient. Sorry.

To RickO: You suggested I turn on the Memo field. But I think that is the problem - it does not have that option. Do you have it? I am using Q Version 6.0.3 (Build 600.37136.100).

I am fine with putting the results into Excel to finish it off. But for now I'd like to know how to get a Memo column in a Transaction report.

Many thanks to Volvogirl, RickO and jacobs.

jacobs · December 2020

@nanajana Don't worry -- this forum is all about finding help and learning new ways of doing things with Quicken.

How you set up your accounts in Quicken has nothing to do with whether you connect to your financial institutions for downloading. I enter my transactions manually, but I still have a separate account in Quicken for each of my credit cards. Every purchase I make is entered in the appropriate credit card account. When it's time to pay the bill, it's entered as a transfer from checking to the credit card account -- paralleling what's happening in the real world. When I get my credit card bill, I reconcile it in Quicken just like I reconcile my checking account -- checking off each transaction to make sure my Quicken and my real credit card account agree.

Now, to show the Memo field in a register, you click on the Columns icon in the toolbar at the bottom of your register (on the right side), and then check Memo/Notes. You can change the column order by dragging the column heading to the left; you can change the column width by dragging the right side of the column heading to the right.

To show the Memo field in a report is similar: click View, then Columns on the drop-down, and then check Memo/Notes. (If you don't see View at the top of your report, you may be using the old Category Summary report; although this still exists in Quicken, it;'s been superseded by newer reports with better functionality: Transactions by… or Category Summary by…)

Reporting on expenses for charity would typically be done by using a Category (not Tag) of Charity. But if you have everything done by Tag, then you can create a report for a specific tag. Create a Transactions by Category Report, click on Edit, click on the Tags tab, click Include only transactions with… and uncheck everything except your Charity tag.

Post back here with anything that's not clear!

volvogirl · December 2020