Is it possible to filter the same transaction report by Category "OR" Tag?

ifunlisted
ifunlisted Member ✭✭
edited May 2022 in Reports (Windows)
I have several groups of expenses that are split between business and personal, and the business expenses can't just be categorized as business, they actually have to be submitted to the business and then reimbursed through a separate business account. The business portion of those expenses are lumped into a general "Reimbursement" account which is essentially also the category, so because of that, I need to use Tags in order to itemize and track those expenses. For example; I purchase $30 of gas, $10 of that is simply categorized as Gas, the other $20 is transferred into the Reimbursement account and tagged as Business Gas. It all works well and it's a method recommended by a lot of small business users like single-member LLCs. The problem I run into is trying to run reports on those items that are part business and part personal. Sticking with the example above, I'd like to have a monthly report that shows all gas spending. Ideally I would like to be able to run and save a transaction report that includes anything Categorized as Gas OR Tagged as Gas. Currently the criteria seems to only allow one or the other, but not both. Am I missing something simple?

Comments

  • Jim_Harman
    Jim_Harman SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    Unfortunately Quicken's report filters between Categories and Tags are essentially and AND function. 

    Tags give you another "dimension" for classifying transactions. Do you use Tags for anything other than tracking business expenses?

    If you have both business and personal expenses that use the same Categories, rather than having a separate Tag for each type of business expense one way to set things up would be to have "Business" and "Personal" tags. Then if you want a report of all personal expenses, you would select the Personal tag, for business expenses pick the Business tag, and for all expenses select all tags. If you want just business gas expenses, you would pick Category = Gas and Tag = Business.

    If you don't use Tags for anything else, you could eliminate the Personal tag and use "No Tag" as the selection for personal expenses.

    It is not clear to me why you need the "Reimbursement" account.  
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  • ifunlisted
    ifunlisted Member ✭✭
    Thanks Jim, I appreciate it. I'm a single-member S Corp LLC so I need to use an "Accountable Plan" to meet IRS regulations for expense reimbursement and eventual tax deductions. The recommended way to do that is to pay for expenses as an individual employee of the LLC, then have the LLC reimburse me for the business-related portion of the expense.
  • ifunlisted
    ifunlisted Member ✭✭
    ...and the business accounts have to be completely separate from any personal accounts... so no direct transfers in Quicken for those expenses. The expenses in the Accountable/Reimbursement account are submitted to the LLC on a regular basis much like a monthly or quarterly invoice.
  • Tom Young
    Tom Young SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited October 2021
    If the single member LLC is being reported on Schedule C in your personal Form 1040 then the Reimbursement Account certainly isn't needed since it's all your money.  That is, money received from any source is "yours" and money spent for any reason is "yours", so moving money from your business checking Account to your personal checking Account is simply a transfer with no real income or expense effect. 
    Accordingly, that $30 spent on gas should all be Categorized as "Gas" but be split between "personal" and "business" activities for proper income tax reporting.  There's no need for any Tagging beyond the "personal" vs. "business" aspect.
    If the single member LLC has opted to report taxes as a corporation then, really, the business needs its own Quicken file separate and distinct from your personal Quicken file.  In that case the Reimbursement Account in your personal file makes sense, and there's no need within the personal file to Categorize the business' expense as Gas.  That Categorization takes place over in the business' Quicken file when the entry is made in the "Reimbursements Payable" liability Account. 
  • ifunlisted
    ifunlisted Member ✭✭
    Thanks Tom. Yep it's an S Corp (Schedule K-1, 1120s). I do all the business finances separately in Quickbooks.

    I also keep track of the business finances in Quicken Home & Business alongside my personal finances. It just makes it a lot easier to get an overall view of things since there's a lot of crossover yet still essentially one entity.
  • garysmith87
    garysmith87 Member ✭✭✭✭
    This suggestion may or may not help you.  But back in the early Quicken days before there were tags or classes or Home and Business versions, I used Quicken in conjunction with my Schedule C business and personal accounts.

    In order to separate out the business expenses from my personal expenses, I created a set of Business categories that all were prefixed with "Bus".  Thus, I had Auto:Gas and Bus:Gas categories/subcategories.

    And my business expenses would be Bus:Gas, Bus:Office Expenses, Bus:Rent, Bus:Insurance, etc.  

    Using this method, it's easy to get the total I spent for Gas.  I'd just create a report that had BOTH categories included.  And if I needed to see what I personally spent for gas outside of the business, I could just include the one Auto:Gas category. 

    And it's really easy to get a report with my business expenses by filtering the categories to include only those that have Bus.

    And I even set up Bus:Income to track my income.  And I could even easier create a business Income/Expense sheet with just those categories.  

    It's not elegant, but it works.  I continued using that strategy of creating categories for my business expenses by prefixing them with Bus even when tags were instituted in Quicken.  

    Let me know if you might want to change your strategy just a bit by doing it this way.  
  • ifunlisted
    ifunlisted Member ✭✭
    Hey thanks Gary! I do something very similar... my business accounts are kept separate (and classified in Quicken as Business Accounts), and then to make it easier with categories, I have all the business ones start with LLC (LLC-Gas, LLC-Cellular, LLC-Office, etc). Like you said, it's not necessarily pretty, but it works well.
    Even with that method in place though, I still run into the issue with the expenses that have a personal portion and a reimbursed business portion. Those are split transactions where the business portion cannot be accurately categorized because it's a transfer...hence the Tags for those items.
    The closest I've come to getting reports to include BOTH selected Categories and selected Tags is to set up the report using search criteria in Matching field under Tags. Eg; set up a customized search with "gas" in the "Tag contains" field. This means I have to tag the each line in a split even if it's already categorized under essentially the same name. It also means that if I want to make any historical comparisons from prior to formation of the LLC, all of the old transactions would also need to be tagged. Eg, if I want to compare total combined annual spending for Gas over the last several years, I need to go back and tag all of my personal and past business transactions. That process becomes a little more difficult than just doing a search & replace to add the tags because some of those were already tagged as something else, or more than one category contains the word "gas" (or cellular, or office, etc).
    If I take a little time and get more creative re-naming past categories and adding tags, I think it can be done. I was just hoping it can be done a little more simply, like having a report with an Either/Or search criteria so it catches all transactions with selected categories or tags.
  • Jim_Harman
    Jim_Harman SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    Another wrinkle on this for automobile expenses may be rather than splitting fill-ups and other expenses between business and personal, you keep track of your business mileage and classify all your auto expenses as personal. Then the business reimburses you based on the business miles driven. For 2021 it is $0.56 per mile. Consult your tax adviser for confirmation of this.

    Here is a tutorial on Accountable Plans for LLCs
    https://www.kitces.com/blog/accountable-plan-s-corp-owner-employee-deduct-business-expenses/


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  • ifunlisted
    ifunlisted Member ✭✭
    Very true. In my case, I have to use the Actual Expense method for anything automobile-related because I don't own the vehicle.
  • volvogirl
    volvogirl SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    One thing I didn't see mentioned that may help, even through you are not self employed or filing a Schedule C in your personal tax return.....

    To be included in business reports (and I don't know where else) you have to assign the category to a schedule C tax line item number.  To check the tax line assignment open the Category list by either clicking on the Category Icon or go to Tools-Category List or Ctrl+Shift+C.  Then select the category and right click on it to Edit it.  Click on the Tax Reporting Tab and check the box for Tax related and pick a Schedule C: tax line item.

    I'm staying on Quicken 2013 Premier for Windows.

  • ifunlisted
    ifunlisted Member ✭✭
    Good point. I still don't think that would solve the issue of being able to break down and track the individual business-related portion of split expenses (and differentiate gas from cell from office, etc) in the reports.
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