How to add a transaction where I paid or received cash

Old Retired Guy · July 2021

Sold a car for $1,800 in cash. Did not deposit the money. Instead, I have been using it for expenses. For example, I paid the auto service shop $60 for some work on my car. Since I keep track of auto expenses, I would like both the sale of the old car and the work done on my new car in Quicken.

I am creative. I could enter the cash as a deposit in checking then a withdrawal. I could do the opposite with the expense. Create a bogus deposit to Other Income, then a payment out of checking for Car Repair.

Do you have a better way?

Same thing could be done for non-cash charitable contributions where I gave clothing, TV, yard tools to charity and valued the donation at say $100.

Mark1104 · July 2021

your idea makes sense...

splasher · July 2021

You need to create a cash account. The funds from the car sale would be deposited in it and any cash payments you make would then be paid out of it.

Like wise, when you take out money from the ATM, it would be a transfer to this cash account and then you would enter transactions as you spent it in the cash account. If you don't want to track every cash payment you make, just track the important ones (like the car repair) and every once in awhile, reconcile the cash account by counting up your in-hand cash and entering an adjustment to make its balance agree.

Your non-cash charitable contributions could be similarly tracked in a second cash account, but I would definitely keep it separate from the real cash account.

Bottom line is, don't get creative with your checking account, it should only reflect those transactions that are shown on your bank statement.

Bob_L · July 2021

@splasher is exactly right. A really minor clarification I would make is to book the cash discrepancy adjustment to a category called something like "miscellaneous cash expenses" as opposed to "adjustment" to capture what really happened.

Maybe I am not following as to how it would work, but trying to run non-cash contributions through quicken doesn't make sense to me.

Old Retired Guy · July 2021

Thanks for the replies.

Bob - I wanted to explain the "Why I want this list." Maybe it will help in offering solutions. Sometimes, I get organized. When I do, I want one list. For example, other than non-cash, I have all auto repairs in Quicken. Furthermore, I have a tag for each car. So I can easily see the repair record of each car. Same thing with contributions. I run a list of charitable contributions for my tax return. Then I add in non-cash. Finally, I have an H.S.A. for medical. I sometimes pay for small prescriptions with cash. It would be nice to have one list of H.S.A. eligible expenses. Right now, I have my printout or export from Quicken, then I have non-cash H.S.A. eligible expenses I add to the spreadsheet.

Does that make sense?

Bob_L · July 2021

Sure, but you were talking about no cash contributions like clothing to charity. I don't see how you would track those in quicken. Seems a spreadsheet would work better. Just my opinion.

Mark1104 · July 2021

it works fine in Quicken.... just create a "misc income" item to offset the non-cash expense item. But I'd create a unique 'other asset' to run the "misc income" and non-cash expense through. I would NOT comingle it with your bank ACCOUNT. Maybe not what the creators of Quicken were thinking, but it certainly can work.

NotACPA · July 2021

When I make a non-cash contrib to a charity (such as our local charity wine auction) I create, in my Cash account a transaction with at net $0 amount.

It's a split transaction where the 1st line is a negative amount to my Wine category, and the 2nd line of the split is a positive amount to my Charity category. The amounts are the same, so the net is $0.

NOW, how I value the wine (or the clothing, or whatever) is another issue, but this is a simple way to record the transaction in Q.

How to add a transaction where I paid or received cash

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