Spending reports showing Stock purchases as "uncategorized" transactions

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Diana
Diana Member ✭✭✭

I ran a Spending report and noticed there were a bunch of "uncategorized" transactions but their tally was $0.00. So I checked and they were all stock purchases made during the time period with cash that was already in the account. All of my investment transactions with an action of "Bought" show up as uncategorized. I tried validating. I tried supervalidating. I tried changing transaction types. I was not able to clear the uncategorized marking for these transactions.

Any idea how I can get clear this incorrect categorization?

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  • Mark1104
    Mark1104 Member ✭✭✭✭
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    that is the way it works….. 'spending' are expenses, not investments.

    there is nothing wrong with your file.

  • Diana
    Diana Member ✭✭✭
    edited August 2023
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    Not sure I agree. I have investment accounts and I purchased stocks inside them. They were purchased with the cash that is in the investment account. These stocks are assets, not expenses. Similarly, when I purchased my house, it was not an expense and is listed as an asset in Quicken? So back to my original question, why is Quicken classifying my stock purchases as "uncategorized" expenses in a Spending report and how do I fix this?

  • Mark1104
    Mark1104 Member ✭✭✭✭
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    open up the report and click the gear in the upper right corner, settings>categories and then unclick 'uncategorized (it should be the first category in the list)

  • q_lurker
    q_lurker SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
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    I will suggest it is simply an unfortunate consequence of some enforced Quicken programming rules or policies.

    It seems to me Quicken tries to require that every transaction be categorized to an expense or income category or as a transfer to an asset or liability account.

    Now a purchase or sale of a security within an investment account is none of those. It is an exchange of one type of asset (cash) for another (security value). In that viewpoint, buying the security is not an expense.

    Yet Quicken in the report tries to apply its “rule” and thus it identifies those transactions as uncategorized. If I recall correctly, I have seen some appear as income and some as expenses. While it can be helpful to drill down on that uncategorized entry, it is rare that I find anything of real significance.

    All my opinion only. Hope that helps.

  • Diana
    Diana Member ✭✭✭
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    For Mark1104, I actually use the "uncategorized" category in reports to find entries that were mistakenly entered without a category. So your temporary "solution" does not solve the problem, it simply hides it.

    And yes, it is a simply error in Quicken. But given that it is a software package to track income, expenses, assets and liabilities, it is annoying to find things that are simply errors in the software.

    Reduces my confidence in the Quicken application. What else is mishandled?

  • Mark1104
    Mark1104 Member ✭✭✭✭
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    it is not an "error" in Quicken - it is 'working as designed'. And it has been that way for 30 years.

    Since "midhandled" is predicated on "beauty in the eye of the beholder", I suspect anything you don't like about the program is "mishandled".

    If you do not like the design, maybe a $60 a year program is not for you?

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