Savings Goals/Categories and Transfers to Checking to Make Payments
Complete Quicken newbie here. Searched the resources but can't find an answer, or perhaps I'm just not understanding what I'm reading! I've read that you CAN'T categorize transfers. Is there a work-around? Example: I have 3 categories in my Savings account. If I transfer $300 from my Savings account, Vacation category to my Checking account to pay for airline tickets, how do I reduce the Savings-Vacation category? I only see the transfer from [Savings] to [Checking]. Savings total reduced by $300 and Checking total increased $300 (good). But how do I specify the $300 savings reduction to my Vacation category? Any help is appreciated, and in non-accountant terminology, please. I just installed Quicken subscription for Windows. Not synching with my bank, just using manual entries for now. Thanks! ⭐️
Best Answer
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@LCC Treasurer normally transfer transactions between accounts are linked and considered one transaction. Transfers are just that - movement of cash from one account to another. Where the category comes into play is when payment is actually made for the airline tickets.
Transaction 1 - Transfer from Savings to Checking for 300.00.
Transaction 2 - Pay the airline for tickets purchased for 300.00 out of Checking using the "Vacation" category.
Together these two transactions show where the 300.00 originally came from and what it was used for.
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Answers
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@LCC Treasurer normally transfer transactions between accounts are linked and considered one transaction. Transfers are just that - movement of cash from one account to another. Where the category comes into play is when payment is actually made for the airline tickets.
Transaction 1 - Transfer from Savings to Checking for 300.00.
Transaction 2 - Pay the airline for tickets purchased for 300.00 out of Checking using the "Vacation" category.
Together these two transactions show where the 300.00 originally came from and what it was used for.
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Categories are global and are for the whole database and for all accounts. Or did you set up Savings Goals? I don't know how Savings Goals work.
I'm staying on Quicken 2013 Premier for Windows.
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Thank you, that makes sense for the expenditure! Follow up question: Then for the Savings account, where can I see the remaining in my Vacation category? I thought Quicken would work like a spreadsheet, where I could see how my Savings account balance was split into different categories with their current balances. There must be a report for this?
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@LCC Treasurer I think you would use the budget feature in Quicken to keep track of your vacation category balance. I must admit that I do not use budgeting in Quicken. But you can easily set one up. To get started, click on the Planning tab, and then select "Budgets". The wizard then should guide you through the set up. Then you can customize it to fit your needs. There are reports you can also create and export to a spreadsheet if you need. I am sure there is documentation available and there are many users in this Quicken forum that user the budget feature that would be a resource for you.
I just did a quick search on "Budgets" under support and there are articles and videos out there for you to use. If you click on Help in Quicken, and then search on "Budget" you can find a lot of information and "How to's" about budgets.
The other thing that you might find helpful is what @volvogirl mentioned is "Savings Goals". This feature is also located in the Planning tab.
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Thank you for explaining that categories are global…I was thinking they were account-specific. ✔️
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Super! I did not even think of it as "budgeting"….I'm stuck in spreadsheet-mode. 😋 THANK YOU for these suggestions. I'm ready to jump in. Wish me luck!
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This sounds like what I want, and I will definitely check this out. Many thanks for your suggestion!
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