Hidden Accounts Appear in Drop-Down Menus

Why are hidden accounts shown on the Enter Transactions dialog? (see image) I have seen elsewhere in Community that "We can not remove hidden accounts from all drop down menus". (Discussion 7863761) As a software developer, this doesn't make sense to me. Can someone explain why? Hidden accounts are not displayed in the Account Bar, Transfer Money dialog, and there is a checkbox on the Account List. (That checkbox appears to be missing/hidden on the Enter Transactions dialog). But hidden accounts _are_ shown on the Category List (where "Show hidden categories" has no affect on hidden accounts) and the Enter Transactions dialog. What technology makes it possible to hide in some places, and not in others? And if it is indeed possible, why is this annoyance not a priority for the Quicken team?
Quicken user since 1995, now using Premier Subscription on Win10 Home.

Comments

  • Chris_QPW
    Chris_QPW Member ✭✭✭✭
    To me this comes down to the confusion of the syntax used for transfers.

    If you look at the regular register you will see there isn't any "transfer field".
    Instead they use the special syntax of [Other Account].  This confuses what this is.

    Is it a category?
    Is it an account?
    The real answer is it is neither it is a transfer.

    So when you go to the account list and make an account "hidden" are you talking about on the "account fields" only or does it apply to the category/transfers?

    It seems that not only does this confuse users it has confused where the hide accounts, and the hide categories should be applied.

    Personally I think that because of the way they ended up showing this, this should be handled by "hide categories".  If you look at the category list you will see that these transfers are shown there.  But for "some reason" you can't select the "hide" check box.

    Quicken is very inconsistent on this.  In older data files if you hide an account it does nothing to hide these transfers in the category lists.  In a new data file it will hide them, but if you select the option that is in some of the dialogs "show hidden" it won't show you them.

    This is an area that has never been cleaned up.

    BTW in the example you gave where the field is marked "Transfer account".  One might be fill that is an "account list", but I feel that is really a "Transfer list", and since they have chosen to show transfers on the category list, it would more "properly" be controlled by a "hidden" checkbox on the category list.
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  • UKR
    UKR SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    To make it easier to recognize closed and/or hidden accounts in selection lists and to avoid selecting them by mistake, I have renamed these accounts so that the name now begins with a "~"(tilde) character. That automatically sorts these accounts to the bottom of the selection list.
    e.g., ~ABC Credit Union Checking
  • Chris_QPW
    Chris_QPW Member ✭✭✭✭
    BTW as a side note, about the example you show.  Personally I think that list is done wrong.  Given that only accounts can be used there they should have made it an "account list" not a "transfer account list".  As in instead of showing [Account] it should just be Account.  There are plenty examples of doing exactly that in other places.

    To me whenever I see that kind of syntax ([Account]) it is usually because you are actually putting in a category that can just happen to also be a transfer.
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  • DericRock
    DericRock Member ✭✭✭
    UKR, I have 47 closed accounts and 61 other hidden accounts, having used Quicken since 1995. Even if I prepend the name with a ~ or a Z, I would still get a huge list of useless garbage. My original question remains: Why are hidden accounts shown on the Enter Transactions dialog?
    Quicken user since 1995, now using Premier Subscription on Win10 Home.
  • l0
    l0 Member ✭✭
    edited January 2021
    I join in frustration.

    It is certainly annoying when using the software. [removed - off-topic/disruptive]

    Even closed accounts show up in the category lists. I also have closed loan accounts with zero balance and checked as hidden, which still show up under Loan Summary. That too has been reported. No fix.

    I have been using Quicken since 1999.
  • lpa
    lpa Windows Beta Beta
    I agree that this is a major issue for the long time Quicken users. Having lived in 15 places since I started using Quicken in the early '90s my list is very long. There should and must be a way to hide these old closed accounts in all the dropdown/popup windows.
  • dudleysk
    dudleysk Member ✭✭
    I agree, very annoying!  Quicken, Please fix this.
  • Jim_Harman
    Jim_Harman SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited March 2021
    Quicken treats hidden accounts differently from hidden securities, and differently in different places.

    On the Investing Portfolio and Performance pages, if you select the Accounts dropdown and then Custom, there is a Show hidden accounts checkbox but the only accounts it puts in (parentheses) and hides if un-checked are those you have marked as Separate.

    The same applies to the Accounts tab in report customization.

    In short dropdowns, such as the From and To lists in Buy and Sell Enter Transactions dialogs for investing accounts, there is no Show hidden accounts checkbox and all accounts are included in the list. 

    It would certainly be nice if Quicken made the following changes:

    -- Make the Show hidden accounts checkbox show and hide accounts that are marked Hidden, not Separate

    -- Add a Show hidden accounts checkbox (default un-checked) next to the short dropdowns


    You might be able to work around this issue for the larger Account dialogs by marking your unused accounts as both Separate and Hidden. Marking them Separate also makes them excluded by default from reports, which is what you would want for most unused accounts.

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  • Jim_Harman
    Jim_Harman SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    QWin Premier subscription