Quicken for Mac: Business Accounts
As a start Kudos to Quicken for releasing Home & Business for Quicken for Mac. Though its functionality is nowhere close to that of Quicken for Windows, I can see a light at the end of the tunnel where I will be able to move on from the Windows Version!
In Home & Business for Mac, all BUSINESS the accounts (i.e.., checking, investments, savings, etc.) are sorted alphabetically and there is no ability to re-order them (as least as I can see).
In Home & Business for Windows, all the Business teh business accounts are i) sorted between Checking / Savings / Invoices / Investing / Etc. and ii) can be manually rearranged within each such group.
Is / will this be a a feature coming to Home & Business for Windows as it is far easier to work with "organized / sorted" accounts!
Thank you.
Comments
-
Hello @JoelC,
Currently, the way to change the order from alphabetical is to change the account name (for instance, putting the number 1 at the beginning of the account you want at the top of the list).
If you would like to see this functionality added in the future, I would recommend adding your vote and a comment to this Idea post:
I hope this helps!
Quicken Kristina
Make sure to sign up for the email digest to see a round up of your top posts.
0 -
Does the new "Business" Quicken Mac have the rental features in it?
Signature:
This is my website: http://www.quicknperlwiz.com/0 -
Does the new "Business" Quicken Mac have the rental features in it?
Nope. Nor does it have invoicing, receivables, or clients. It allows any transaction to be assigned to a business, and adds a separate business dashboard. There's a rough start on mileage tracking, which can be entered, but not searched, selected, printed or exported.
I wish the Quicken product manager or marketing people had posted an announcement about this release, because Business and Personal for Quicken Mac is a major milestone. The legacy Quicken Mac 2007 never had business features, and users have been asking for business features since the modern Quicken Mac first came to market 9 years ago. So this should be a happy step forward for the Mac development team, and for users who have been wishing for a business version of Quicken Mac for a long time. But they needed to explain their process, so this isn't instead ridiculed as a failure.
The modern Quicken Mac development team has quite often added major new functionality iteratively — and I think that's what we're seeing here: the first step in a multi-step long-term project, where additional features will be added in future releases over time. This approach lets them incorporate user feedback as they continue to develop the features, and it allows them to put out a start rather than keeping it in the lab for another year or more while building the full Cadillac version. But they need to explain that. Instead, longtime Quicken Windows Business & Personal users are likely to try Quicken Mac and become angry when they discover the limited business functionality doesn't match their expectations.
Meanwhile, the marketing wizards at Quicken changed their main product pages to remove any distinction between Quicken Mac and Quicken Windows. The page for Business & Personal promotes…
- Track payables, receivables, vendors, customers, and more
- Send invoices in a flash. Create customized templates with your company’s logo, colors, and messaging, and send invoices with a click.
- Get paid faster with PayPal payment links — included automatically.
- Get custom tools for rentals. Property management made easy. Streamline and organize rentals, tenants, documents, occupancy, and more. Get the tools you need to tackle it all.
- Use the Lifetime Planner to see how choices you make can impact your retirement… Like Premier, Business & Personal lets you evaluate individual holdings in ETFs and mutual funds with Morningstar's® Portfolio X-ray® tool… And, of course, you can use it to manage your rental properties, personal LLC or corporation, family trust, or any other business entity.
And none of this exists in Quicken Mac (yet).
To me, the failure here is their marketing/management team for not being clear about what is and isn't in this first iteration of Quicken Mac Business & Personal and setting proper expectations; the product development team has made a good start and just needs to keep plugging away at adding key business functionality,
Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 19932 -
@jacobs What prompted me to ask the question was I looked at the changed product page and noticed that there wasn't any mention of any limitations in the Mac product. I figured they didn't have rental in it and therefore their advertising can certainly be considered "false advertising". I think their marketing group should talk to their lawyers and see what they think of this.
Signature:
This is my website: http://www.quicknperlwiz.com/1 -
P.S. @jacobs Thanks for the very through explanation. I will also add that I was extremely surprised that I had heard nothing in this forum about the addition of "Business" to Quicken Mac.
Signature:
This is my website: http://www.quicknperlwiz.com/0 -
@Quicken Kristina , appreciate the response and voted added!
0 -
@jacobs , appreciate you joining the thread and, as always, you are spot on.
As I noted in my OP, kudos to Quicken for releasing this update. I am thrilled that they have done this as there is an indication — for the first time — that Quicken for Mac will, in time, have a full blown business functionality.
As thrilled as I am — and apologies for jumping on my soapbox — I do wish that my two pet peeves for Quicken for Mac would be addressed namely i) ability to copy account layouts and ii) ability to create reports using the memo line both of which are HUGE for me and frequently used in Quicken for Windows!
0 -
As I continue my journey toward using Quicken's Business capabilities I noticed that within the Business tab a number of the charts (and related reports) make no sense (i.e., I can not reconcile them no matter what I do). Is this because I have business accounts setup, personal categories setup and no business categories setup. Will this sort itself out once I get business categories setup.
As an example, the Business Tab / Profit Loss / Income Versus Expenses chart is only pulling information from the A/R account ignoring the entires in the checking account?
I ask because the last thing I want to do is go to the trouble of setting up Quicken Business and then have to reverse engineer the charts and reports, that will not be fun.
0 -
As I continue my journey toward using Quicken's Business capabilities I noticed that I have an issue with my credit card tracking.
I incur some expenses in month X, I incur other expenses in month X+1 and pay the credit card towards the end of month X+1 as the credit card statement period straddles two months.
I record the credit charge in the Checking Account Register on teh date payment is made in month X+1 using the splits feature. This is a problem for accounting purposes because the charges that are incurred in month X will be treated as being incurred in month X+1.
I record the credit charges in this manner because it has been — at least until now — the best method for managing cashflow (i.e., because the credit charges are in the Checking Account) I know how much cash I need and when I need the cash to pay the credit card bill.
Question 1: Is the real world best practice / method of recording credit cards to setup a separate credit card account. Is the benefit of so doing greater than not being able to see everything in one account?
Question 2: What other methods are used to track credit cards that provide accurate / proper accounting?
Thank you.
0 -
Yes you need my standard credit card answer…….
The proper way is to set up a credit card ACCOUNT and enter the charges into it when the purchase is made and assigning it to a category. Then when you pay the credit card bill you TRANSFER the payment from your checking account to the credit card account (not a category). Then if or when you download the payment from the bank you match it to the one you already entered.
When you enter the payment in your checking account you put the credit card account name in for the category using square brackets around the name to indicate it is a transfer...like this… [credit card] or newer Mac versions have a separate Transfer column.
I used to do it the wrong way for years! Then I wised up and now enter them properly. I would split my credit card payment into all the categories on one transaction in my checking account. And since I always pay more than the bill I would need to figure the difference and put it to another category. But then I needed to have them entered on the date the charges actually happened, especially at year end for taxes. So I finally set up a credit card account. It makes it much easier to enter and balance!
And if you split your credit card payment into the categories and some of the categories are Transfers to the same Account it will lump all them together and make 1 transaction in the Transfer Account.
Here's a list of some other reasons why you should do it this way…..
You don't have to wait to make the payment and split it out
You won't run out of split lines (In older versions there's only 30 lines)
You can use both the payee and memo fields for more description
You don't have to figure out the difference if you pay a different amount
Then your Credit Card Account will exactly match your statement
Charges get entered with the right date (better at year end for taxes)
You can enter all charges to date, not just what's on the bill - then you can see what you still owe
You won't forget what a charge was for if you enter it right away from the receiptI'm staying on Quicken 2013 Premier for Windows.
5 -
@volvogirl , I appreciate your response.
I note that this was the manner I envisioned were I to setup a CREDIT CARD ACCOUNT.
In addition it is no more work than I already do other than having to manage another account.
One follow up, how does one true up / reconcile the CRDIT CARD ACCOUNT (i.e., is it that you reconcile to a zero balance as at the statement date [assuming one pays the statement in full and in the exact amount])?
Thank you.
0 -
@JoelC The reply you received from @volvogirl is exactly what I was going to suggest. By having a separate credit card account, you record the expense of each transaction when the transaction is made, rather than when you pay the credit card bill. This is ideal for personal use, but really important for business use. This eliminates your current method of recording a month of credit card changes in one transaction with many split linesin your checking account. And that also makes it easier if a transaction requires a split among two or more categories, because you'll be recording a single transaction with the necessary splits.
In terms of reconciliation, it doesn't matter whether you are paying the account balance in full or not, because the payment each month — a transfer from your checking account — is just another transaction in your monthly reconciliation. So you do it just as you do currently with your checking account: when you get your monthly credit card statement, click Reconcile in the Quicken account, enter the balance on the credit card statement, and mark off the transactions in Quicken as they appear on the credit card statement. You should get to a $0 difference between Quicken and the statement balance, and then click to complete the reconciliation. This records each monthly reconciliation in your account history, so you can go back to it should you ever need to.
Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 19935 -
Any comments / thoughts on my post of 08:855 AM EST on the accuracy of the Business Tab charts and reports?
Yes, you need to set up Business Income and Business Expense categories for transactions to be included in the Business Dashboard and reports. You can either edit your existing transactions to use Quicken's default busines categories, or you can merge some of your existing categories (if you use them exclusively for business income or expenses) into Quicken's default Business categories. And you can create your own categories, as long as they are sub-categories of Business Income and Business Expenses; if you do the you have to define the proper tax form and tax line for your categories.
Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 19930 -
nice to see this is available, my quicken for Mac updated to upgrade 7.4.1 but I am not able to upgrade my sub to the quicken Mac business and personal (currently on quicken deluxe). - is this not available for Canadian users ??
0 -
my quicken for Mac updated to upgrade 7.4.1 but I am not able to upgrade my sub to the quicken Mac business and personal (currently on quicken deluxe). - is this not available for Canadian users ??
I don't know, but I would think it should be available since it's the same application — it's not a different download than the one you have — with just some additional features turned on in the software based on your subscription. But I'm not sure if Canadian subscription offerings are different. Unless one of the Quicken moderators jumps in here with an answer, I suggest reaching out to Quicken Support via phone or chat to inquire about upgrading your subscription.
Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 19930 -
@jacobs and @JamesX714 , it is available in Canada. How do I know, I live in Canada! Hope that helps!
0 -
Thank you very much for reply and YES it does help since after I posted, I called quicken support and they told me it is not available in Canada yet…. very strange.
Saying all this if I go to my account now, the option to upgrade to business and personal is showing so I assume this is not the upgrade to windows only version since the Canadian quicken page only shows the windows "icon"
On a side note, with the quicken for Mac business and personal , can you let me know you are able to track GST / HST (and print a quarterly report) like the windows version?
0 -
@JamesX714 the Mac version of Quicken for Business is very basic compared to the Windows versin of Quicken for Business. The mac version is a work in progress and the fucntionalitythat you seek is not yet built in.
The current functionality includes account separation (i.e., personal versus business), category separation and rough mileage tracking. All the things are down the road (i.e.e, A/R, A/P, invoicing, HST tracking, etc.). There is a ways to go.
I hope this helps.
1 -
very helpful… tx again.
was excited when I saw this for version 7.4.1 • NEW - Stay organized with Estimated Quarterly Tax Payments calendar" and assumed this was for HST tracking… not sure if worth the cost to upgrade yet… may hold off until newer features are added.
Thanks again and hope you can continue to provide updates in the community!
0 -
@JamesX714 , happy o provide future updates, not a problem
1 -
@JamesX714 The Quarterly Estimated Tax Payments card in the Business Dashboard is perhaps the least useful new feature I've seen in Quicken. 😂 Is is literally a box which shows the deadline dates for each quarter, and you can click a button to mark a quarter as Paid or Not Paid. That's it. It is not integrated with the actual tax payment you make — that is, a payment of estimated tax doesn't automatically set the quarter to Paid — and it doesn't show the payment amount or the payment date.
So I don't see how this will be useful to anyone. It's basically a to-do calendar for four payments a year.
It is also set up to mark quarterly payments made separately for each business, even though this Business & Personal is targeting individuals with Schedule C businesses, and individuals don't make separate estimated tax payments for each business. It also doesn't allow you to indicate payments for each jurisdiction — federal, state and/or local — for which you might need to make quarterly estimated payments. So if you have 7 rental properties set up as businesses, you need to change to each business, mark the quarter paid, change to the next business, mark it as paid, and so on — even though you as an individual are making only one estimated tax payment to IRS. So its implementation seems to actually be wrong.
Hopefully the developers have greater plans for this feature in the future! I thought they should have left it out at the current time because it has such limited functionality.
Quicken Mac Subscription • Quicken user since 19931 -
@jacobs and @JamesX714, I agree that teh quarterly estimate tax dates is useless. in its place, I setup reminders for the monthly / quarterly tax payments. I find this to be both i) bulletproof and ii) effective.
I hope this is helpful!
0 -
As I continue my journey toward using Quicken's Business capabilities, the treatment of credit cards is not clear / obvious to me.
I have a credit card. I use it to pay expenses. Some of the expenses are incurred in month X, some expenses are incurred in month X+1, and the bill is paid towards the end of month X+1.
I currently enter the charges in a the Checking Account Register on the date the bill is paid using the splits to record the individual transactions. This clearly will not work as all the charges incurred in month X will be treated as having occurred in month X + 1.
I like entering the credit card transactions in teh above manner as it assist me in managing cash flows (i.e., it is in my checking account so I always know how much cash I need to pay the bills).
Question 1: Is there a way to do i) get the accounting correct and ii) easily know how much cash is needed?
Question 2: Is the best practice / preferred method of achieving my objectives to setup a separate account o manage credit cards?
I would be grateful for any and all real world advise / guidance.
0 -
Yes as I answered above. You need a separate credit card account. Especially to get the dates entered for the charges, especially at year end. You can run reports for just the checking account and credit card account.
I'm staying on Quicken 2013 Premier for Windows.
0 -
Hmmm, weird that my post re-posted!
0 -
As I continue my journey, I was thinking about the treatment / tracking of income taxes.
As my company earns funds each month the laws in Canada are that I need to submit a prescribed amount to CRA (i.e., the Canadian equivalent of the IRS). The amount submitted each month is generally less than the amount actually owed for a growing business meaning there is a balanced owing at the end of the year.
I was thinking of tracking the taxes in a manner similar to a credit card; namely i) create a Credit Card account for the tax liability ii) each month enter the estimated taxes in that account (i.e., similar to a credit card charge) iii) each month enter the interim taxes remitted (i.e., similar to a credit card payment ) and iv) true up at when the taxes are filed and the final amount owing / refunded is determined by CRA.
Similar to my post on credit cards, I would appreciate best practices / comments / insights in respect of:
- The above proposed method for tracking business taxes; and
- The approaches / best pratices followed by others in similar situations.
Thanks in advance.
0
