Yet Another Schedule E Discussion (Q Mac)

Hello @Fargraph,

You’re correct in your observations—Mac Quicken currently does not have full rental property support like the Windows version, and the Schedule E functionality on Mac is limited. Here’s what is happening under the hood:

1. Schedule E reporting pulls only tax-related categories. On Mac, a category must have a tax election assigned for it to appear in the Schedule E report. If a Business Expense category does not have a tax election, it won’t contribute to the Schedule E report. The report itself does not “know” IRS Schedule E line items; it only shows your Quicken categories that have tax elections.
2. The report shows Quicken categories, not Schedule E categories. This is by design. Mac Quicken does not translate Quicken categories into IRS Schedule E lines automatically. That means for accurate tax reporting, you must ensure your categories map properly to Schedule E lines via tax elections.
3. Future rental property functionality. The Mac version does not yet have the full rental property module found in Windows. Using a structured subcategory approach—like creating a “Rental Property” subcategory under Business Expenses and assigning tax elections to each relevant category—is the recommended approach. This is the method that will remain compatible with future rental property updates.

Your planned workflow—creating a Rental Property subcategory, ensuring all categories have Schedule E tax elections, and generating a custom Schedule E report—is accurate and aligns with best practices for Mac Quicken.

I also recommend that you create an idea post requesting full Schedule E/rental property support. This way, other users who have the same or a similar request can vote on your idea.

I hope this helps!