Help with setting up Costco transactions.

Can someone give me ideas how to set up categories, and tabs when setting up purchases at Costco. Usually about half is groceries (food) the rest is misc, tires or other. I'd like to set up splits so whatever the total bill is, it automatically splits to 50% Groceries/Food, and 50% Misc/other. I think I know how but have many old years worth to change, and want new transactions to get split automatically. I was thinking to just split a reference bill of $100 with split of $50 for Groceries\Food and $50 for Misc\Other and let quicken do the rest???? then after getting that Memorized Payee set how to use it to change current Costco transactions? Thanks

Answers

  • Tom Young
    Tom Young SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2021
    I couldn't copy the "Help" file topic "How do I memorize and use a split transaction with percentages?" so I took a screenshot of the process:
    You should be able to find this by clicking on Help > Quicken help and doing a little searching.
    However, you can't apply this memorized payee "backwards" over prior transactions; any splitting that you want to do to older transactions you'd have to do manually.  Frankly if you haven't saved every receipt from prior Costco visits I wouldn't even bother with trying to split out those transactions because that information is, essentially, lost.
    Looking at our family's Costco charges over the last year or so I counted 14 different Category/SubCategory that I've used over that time, with some transactions also Tagged, so trying to set up some sort of "standardized" Costco memorized payee doesn't seem to practical to me unless you really want to limit yourself to "Food" and "Miscellaneous", and nothing else.  But setting that up as a standardized split percentage breakout doesn't seem to add much value to the accounting process.

  • TTSguy
    TTSguy Member ✭✭✭✭
    I think that Food for 50%, Misc for 50% will help me do what I need to do. I guess my next question is, after I get my next Costco transaction figured out by the 50/50 percentage split in the transaction, and memorize the payee, can I then use the "USE" feature in the memorized payee list to manually make the older transactions all 50% & 50% (You can see my previous post about how handy the "USE" feature can be with Memorized payees)
  • Tom Young
    Tom Young SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    I'll admit I'm not aware of the "Use" option in the Memorized Payee and have never used it.  If it works as you've described and you want to make everything previously purchased from Costco a 50/50 split then using the "Use" option makes sense.
  • q_lurker
    q_lurker SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    Tom Young said:
    I couldn't copy the "Help" file topic "How do I memorize and use a split transaction with percentages?" so I took a screenshot of the process:
    @“Tom Young”. I have been thwarted by Quicken’s internal browser for that copy process. If you can find the same page with a full-featured browser Copy should work fine. 
  • Chris_QPW
    Chris_QPW Member ✭✭✭✭
    q_lurker said:
    Tom Young said:
    I couldn't copy the "Help" file topic "How do I memorize and use a split transaction with percentages?" so I took a screenshot of the process:
    @“Tom Young”. I have been thwarted by Quicken’s internal browser for that copy process. If you can find the same page with a full-featured browser Copy should work fine. 
    This is one of the things I hate about the new help.  They know the full link that they display in the embedded web browser, but refuse to change the window so that it shows it so that one and just copy the link. If you are going to make your help "web based" that one of the very first things that should be shown.

    And the searching for this on the main support site is terrible.
    Signature:
    This is my website: http://www.quicknperlwiz.com/
  • TTSguy
    TTSguy Member ✭✭✭✭
    It's not just that! Split itself is seroiusly screwed up! Now I know why there's so many posts about Split Transaction Problems. Now I'm afraid to go back and look 20 years at my old split transactions!! Help!!! - And my Sync is set to off. Thanks for helping me guys (and or gals)
  • Ps56k2
    Ps56k2 SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2021
    TTSguy said: It's not just that! Split itself is seroiusly screwed up!
    Like what ....  Your topic is how to split a Costco bill by using percentages....
    An interesting and informative reply on the % usage within the Split feature.... should give you the 50/50 you want.   Not sure how useful that is for any meaningful reporting... and then you slip into the Quicken is broken followup...
    .... sigh...

    QWin - R54.16 - Win10

  • Ps56k2
    Ps56k2 SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2021
    Tom Young said:
    I couldn't copy the "Help" file topic "How do I memorize and use a split transaction with percentages?" so I took a screenshot of the process:
    tnx for posting that @Tom Young - will have to try it on something...
    Just tried it on a random Grocery charge.... works great -
    in the Amount column field - just enter "25%" and the numeric amount appears.... I added th Memo comments.


    QWin - R54.16 - Win10

  • TTSguy
    TTSguy Member ✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2021
    [Removed- Off Topic]