Modify a bracketed category to be more descriptive
My wife has a category related to a credit card and tied to her checking account. I.E.; after she balances her monthly credit card account, she goes to her checking account to write a check to pay the credit card amount due. In the category space for the check, there is a weird designation that makes the correct choice anything but obvious to her. I want to modify that category to contain a better description … something like "VISA Card -XXXX". Seems this could be a subcategory of "Credit", but I don't know how to modify. When I go to category list and select the current correct category, I'm only given the option to merge … but can't do that either. How do I just change the name of the category and still have it tie the payment to the checking account?
Thanks!
Answers
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Is the category to a regular category Or in square brackets like [Visa]? Brackets indicate it’s a Transfer to another ACCOUNT not to a category. You can change the name of the account in the Account List.
I'm staying on Quicken 2013 Premier for Windows.
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So, yes. It's bracketed. You're saying if I change the account name in the account list I can make this Transfer make sense?
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You can rename accounts to anything you like. Because the transactions are transfers, there is no category involved.
Quicken user since version 2 for DOS, now using QWin Biz & Personal Subscription (US) on Win10 Pro.
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Yes. Here is a sample of naming from the Category List.
This is just to illustrate various naming options. You would update the name as volvogirl stated in the Account List.
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You might make the transfer make sense at the cost of making the account name not make sense.
The "description" should be the payee or in the memo, not that account name.
For instance, this is a transfer from my checking account to my credit card.
From the other side of the transfer:
Even though this is in the category field you shouldn't think of it as a category, it is the account name you are transferring the money to.
"To save space" Quicken Windows doesn't have a "transfer field" instead it uses the syntax of [Other Account Name]. It saves space, but it is quite confusing.
EDIT
Note that the payee's name will default to whatever was set in downloaded transaction (or in this case the reminder) in both accounts unless you change it.
I used to like to use the credit card account name as the payee for the reminder, but these days I just let is be the one downloaded like this.
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Thanks all. The name change to the account worked just fine. When we entered a check for payment of the credit card bill, we put the changed [Visa card -XXXX] in the category box. When I looked at the transaction in her credit card ledger, the referred back to her checking account. Looks good to me! Appreciate the suggestion(s).
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Good to hear. I wasn't sure if you wanted it to be something like [Credit Card Payment], which of course wouldn't make much sense as an account even if it makes sense as a category.
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Just curious, what was the name of credit card account before that didn’t make sense? Where did that name come from? Did she set up the account with that name?
I'm staying on Quicken 2013 Premier for Windows.
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The original name of the Transfer (or rather, when she first brought it to my attention!) was something like [Credit-XXXX] where the number was meaningless. I simply changed it to read [Visa Card - XXXX]. This made much more sense to her when writing a check for the monthly charges on that card.
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