Transaction Report Where Expenses Are In Red Using Quicken 2017

• Transaction Report Where Expenses Are In Red Using Quicken 2017 Download

I'm using Quicken 2017 (Mac).pretty much the question is as it's shown. I travel for work, and have two 'work credit cards'.they are paid off on the 1st of the month, but have a due date of the 25th and 20th. So, today, my register shows me as being -$3,000. I'm not, but the $8k in travel expenses that I haven't paid yet make it in the red. I am using Quicken Deluxe 2015. Each year I add a new checking (cash) account for the current year. However, when I write a check for the 2017 account, Quicken wants to draw from the 2016 account. How read more.

You may want updates. Thanks for visiting! Some readers are worried about my change in stance regarding credit cards. Misuse of best rewards credit card was the chief reason I came to be buried in debt. For years after coming to my senses, the only way for me to cope with credit cards was not to have one. I still believe that this is the proper course of action for anyone who hasn't gained control of her finances, and I would never condemn anyone for choosing not to own a credit card.

Now that I have a card again, let me assure you that I'm taking steps to ensure I stay out of trouble. I am not using credit unless I know that I already have money in the bank for the item I'm purchasing, and I'm paying my credit card bill as soon as it arrives. But there's one other trick I've developed that might be useful for some of you who still have credit cards but are afraid of misusing them. Earlier today,: With a credit card, your checking account balance does not reflect purchases that have yet to be billed. If you stay within your budget, this shouldn't be an issue but for a control freak like myself, the fact that the checking account balance is not up-to-date just drives me crazy. This used to cause me problems, too. One reason I got into trouble before was the lack of immediate feedback about how much had been charged to my credit cards.

The spending was invisible and painless. Now when I plug numbers into Quicken at the end of the day, I make two entries for each credit card transaction: one to the credit card account, and one to a “dummy entry” in the checking account, like this. Here I've just made a payment of $1310.86 on my credit card, which was the full outstanding balance. The remaining $591.73 is money that was charged after the billing cycle ended, and which will appear on next month's statement.

In my checking account, I have a “placeholder for Visa” item in the amount of $591.73. This is a constant reminder that I've already spent the money. Every time I charge something to the card, I enter it in the Visa register and increase the “placeholder for Visa” amount. This one simple trick has made a huge difference in how I perceive the money I've charged on credit.

Now I know that when I've spent it, I've spent it! Quicken has some functionality that approaches what you are trying to do here JD. (If I understand it properly). If the account is set up as a credit card: A. Like Chen said, Quicken’s Cash Flow section will net out the cash accounts (checking, savings, and credit cards) where checking and savings are (hopefully) positive and credit cards are negative, thus giving you a net total.

If you followed the credit card setup wizard, then as an extension of what Mark S. Is describing, a scheduled bill will appear in your scheduled transactions section which will always reflect what your credit card balance actually.is.

Then, you can see that value in that list as well as the calendar (a handy feature I’ve only recently started taking serious advantage of). I’ve been having trouble with my credit card –.so. close to paid off, then ballooning up by 600 bucks, etc. So now I’m doing what others suggested above – as soon as I make a purchase I transfer the money from checking to the credit card. Of course the result this pay period is that I have $12 in the bank and $20 in my pocket to get me to the 15th, but it’s a good exercise. I do have some backup cash in a savings account, and over the long run I think this will help me be more clear-eyed about credit spending. My strategy is to make as many purchases as possible using the credit card.

Every month, at the.start. of the month I make a single payment on the card for my budgeted expenses. This brings the card into a large.positive. balance. Then as the month goes by the card balance slowly drops towards zero. Usually it stays positive for the entire month. In this way, I never risk getting charged interest, overdraft fees, late payments etc, etc and I’m only ever spending money I know I have (because I’m always in credit).

Normally I get paid a small amount in interest on the card balance as well. If I have any large unbudgeted expenses coming up, I’ll make a payment a few days before to cover that as well. I agree about this failing of Quicken, so I wrote my own Excel workbook to track it.

Actually I use no fewer than 5 workbooks (in addition to Quicken) to track my finances. (Sounds like a Type A, doesn’t it?);) Anyway, I have two main checking accounts – one for bill payment (credit cards, loans, monthly bills) and one for my regular monthly spending (which is typically done only with cash or debit). For the second account I use something like the envelope method in one of my workbooks. I have one sheet in the workbook for each category, and I debit that category immediately whenever I make a transaction.

If the transaction is done via a credit card, I immediately move money from the “spending” checking account over to the “billpay” checking account, so that the money is in the billpay account when the bill comes due. I DO NOT EVER SPEND MONEY OUT OF THE BILLPAY ACCOUNT. I ONLY PAY BILLS OUT OF THAT ACCOUNT. FWIW, I use ING Direct for the billpay account, and a local credit union for the spending account. My transfers are done at ING Direct, from one checking account to the other. This way, the money literally does disappear immediately. Like I said, the money is typically spent via cash or debit (I tend to carry about $200 cash at all times, and for me, $200 cash will last about a month).

However, the means of payment is, for me, simply a mechanism. If I spend cash, debit, or credit, it’s all the same to me since I always make sure it disappears from the spending account right away. This is similar to what you’re doing, but for me it works better. It requires more maintenance, but the money literally disappears immediately.

Transaction Report Where Expenses Are In Red Using Quicken 2017 Download

I was reading these comments and thinking that a lot of people were giving many of the benefits of leveraging their money with credit cards, just to maintain tighter controls over their cash flow. Then I saw Daniel’s solution.

I think he’s found the right answer. Let’s say I’m going to spend $1000 on something. My choices are: a) pay cash now, lose the potential interst on that cash but not have to worry about screwing up my credit somehow; b) put it on the credit card, then immediately pay the credit card (this is what most people seem to be saying) – not sure how this is significantly different than option a other than it doesn’t require you to actually have the cash on you (although a check or debit card would have the same result) c) Daniel’s solution – charge it on the credit card and move enough money to cover the charged amount to a special holding account. This way, you still earn your interest on the money and get a free loan from the credit card company. I think this is the best of both worlds. I’m not quite so Type A, but I do track my credit spending fairly closely each month, so that I know what I’ll need to pay when the bill comes due. This has the added benefit that I will see any fraudulent charges very quickly, rather than being ignorant anbout them until the bill arrives.

Yeah, that solution evolved for me over a period of time. At first, my spreadsheet was used to help me get out of CC debt: when I was in CC debt, I needed to be able to predict where I would be at the end of the month, so that I knew how much I could pay to my CCs and still have a little bit of money at the end of the month. Now, it tracks much more than that. For us (me & my wife), the trick is in using the two checking accounts – one for billpay (and ONLY billpay) and one for regular monthly spending. You guys are making this too complicated. Quicken is a nice program, but it is wayy too powerful for simple personal finance stuff like tracking expenses.

I use EZ Money, a free, open source program that works on OS X and Windows (I’m sure you can compile it in linux). You can find it at When you enter a transaction (purchase/deposit/payment/etc), there is a checkbox called “pending”. You can then easily see which transactions are pending (not yet charged) and which ones have been charged. It also gives you a Balance and Actual number at the bottom the Balance is what you actually have after all the transactions have been reconciled, and Actual is the amount that shows up online at your bank account/credit card. This way you don’t have to do any tricks, you can clearly see the two numbers side by side.

For example, for my credit card, my Balance is 643, but my Actual is 307. That means there is about 336 dollars worth of stuff that isn’t showing up on my online account yet. I use a Chase card and they are incredibly slow at getting transactions processed, I couldn’t live without this feature.

It is also setup with budgeting in mind, allowing you to setup monthly budget for specific categories. There is also iBank if you use a Mac, but that costs money. Here’s what I do, similar to what many of you seem to be doing, but I make a.little.

money off of it. I use my BOA CC for almost every purchase, and when I get home from shopping, I transfer the amount of the purchase from my BOA checking account to my BOA savings account (this is the only purpose for that savings account, longer term savings get a better return at an online bank). Then, when my credit card payment is due, i transfer the money from my savings account to my credit card. This nets me a little interest on the money every month, while i accumulate points on the card, all while keeping me from spending more than what I have. For quite a while, I used dummy entries in my Quicken checking account to track charges against paycheck income. However, this got complicated, for a variety of reasons. Much easier is to do something along the lines of what Daniel describes.

My credit union offers a money market checking account with a halfway decent interest rate, and you get access to all your credit union accounts online. So, I opened a money market checking acct to complement my personal checking acct.

In the personal checkng account, I keep enough for utilities, monthly insurance bills, and the occasional workman who has to be paid in cash or with a check (this would include enough for mortgage payments or rent if my house weren’t paid for). All recurring costs are automatically deducted from this account. At the beginning of a month I also set aside in interest-bearing accounts $200 for disposable savings and $350 for property taxes & car and homeowner’s insurance; at the end of the month anything left goes into savings. In the money market account, I deposit the rest of my salary, which has to cover all other costs.

I put these costs on credit cardsthis requires me to keep a grip on expenditures during each credit-card billing cycle. Using an Excel spreadsheet, I divide each 30-day billing cycle into four “chunks” corresponding roughly to weeks (it’s actually three 8-day chunks and one 7-day chunk). Dividing the amount deposited per billing cycle by 4, I get about $375 per week-long “chunk.” I create 4 columns, each starting with $375. Every few days or maybe once a week, I enter the amount of each charge as a negative number in that week’s column. At the end of the “chunk” I click on the sigma button to get the balance. If it’s in the red, I know I need to economize the following week. If it’s in the black, I’m good.

Keeping track of the amount I’ve spent vs. The amount I have in the CC account guarantees that I will never charge more than I have. Keeping the CC fund in a money market checking account (which allows a limited number of debits per month) and paying the CC bill only once a month earns a little interest on part of my salary. Any money left over at the end of the month goes into my Roth IRA. Charging ALL my expenses other than recurring monthly bills–such as groceries, gasoline, etc.–builds up a nice kickback from American Express at the end of the yearI usually get around $350, which also goes into the Roth IRA.

In Quicken, I enter the charges again in an account to track charges. Because I track a lot of things in Quicken and because Mac’s version leaves a lot to be desired, the overall “balance” feature is useless; the tracker account serves to categorize expenses for tax reports and to give me an occasional view of where the money is going over the long term.

I really like this trick. I will make a new entry on my spreadsheet for this tactic. I use docs.google.com and I set up a spreadsheet there. It’s free and I can totally customize it, although it did take me a few months to figure out how I wanted it set up.

And I do see the logic behind wanting to use a credit card over cash – to add up rewards points. That could come in handy if you’re saving for gas points or travel points. But it’s true, you don’t want any of that charging to carry over because then any gain from the rewards points will be wiped out from interest payments on the balance. In Quicken 2007 for Windows, I enter every transaction and have all my accounts in there.

When I enter credit card transactions, my CC balance becomes negative, as it should. I can see how much money I will have left when the CC bill is due in the ‘cash flow center’. So, if I just charged $100 and have $1000 in checking, it will show $900.

There is an option, if you right click on the account name, to not include certain accounts in totals, this way it doesn’t add my IRA or savings to the net worth figure, just my checking and credit cards. Basically, the net worth is how much money I have left in checking after paying all my CC bills at the end of the month. I’ve been using this system since I got my first CC as an undergrad and have never not paid the bill in full, since there was no surprise at the end of the month! Proposed approach is wrong and complicated. There is no point of recording same transaction twice. And, by the way, credit card purchases are not cash purchases and you can’t mix them up with you checking account transactions.

Quicken already has all tools that you need to track your credit card debt. Set up credit card account in Quicken and record all credit card transactions in this account. When you make credit card payments record them as Transfers from your checking account to credit card account. Keep an eye on Cash Flow and Income Statement and Net Worth reports. I agree with Maxim’s comment here about how to use Quicken with Credit Cards.

I do this and one thing I would add to these many comments about Quicken is that I use the budget feature to track my spending. I spend every penny I can on my cc because of the rewardsBUT I have already established the habit of not spending the money if I don’t have it in the bank to pay the bill. So I download my cc transactions to Quicken, categorize them properly, and then use my budget reports to see if I have money left or not. I look at them regularly enough to know if I am going over in one category then I need to compensate somewhere else, and if I don’t then i will have to take money from my savings account to pay for my overbudget items. But I always pay the balance of my cc statement each month. So my point is that rather than having to enter transactions twice, or even use the cash flow reports as some mentioned, my budget reports tell me where I am with my money and I only have to enter transactions once.

General Disclaimer: Get Rich Slowly is an independent website managed by, who is not a trained financial expert. His knowledge comes from the school of hard knocks. He does his best to provide accurate, useful info, but makes no guarantee that all readers will achieve the same level of success. If you have questions, consult a trained professional.

Advertising Disclosure: Some offers on this page may promote affiliates, which means GRS earns a commission if you purchase products or services through the links provided. All opinions expressed here are the author's and not of any other entity. The content at Get Rich Slowly has not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by any entity mentioned at the site.

For additional information, please review our. See also: Our. Legal stuff sucks.

Quicken Reports and Graphs Quicken Reports and Graphs We have preprogrammed several reports listed below to help you keep track of project budgets, income, taxes, and more. NOTE: Quicken can only generate a report if the file you are working with contains data. If you are accessing a blank file, Quicken will return an error message stating that no matching transactions can be found. 1099 Detail Report (Vendor 1099 Checks) The IRS requires businesses to furnish 1099 Forms to all individuals, sole proprietorships or partnerships who receive more the $600.00 for labor during a year.

You must also send a copy of these forms to the IRS. Incorporated subcontractors are excluded from this requirement. The 1099 Report lets you sort through all payments made to subcontractors, allowing you to fill-out the required forms quickly and easily. Quicken, however, does not print the 1099 Form, so you will need to print out the Detail Report and transfer the information to the official IRS 1099 Form. Budget Report (Budget vs. Actual) The Budget Report allows you to quickly determine if a project is within the constraints of the initial estimate/budget.

Customize the report by creating a budget against which the Budget Report can be compared and analyzed. The default job is 99413-Sample. Cash Flow by Month (Summary by Category) The Cash Flow by Month Report allows you to analyze your cash flow for a month, subtotaled by category. Cash Flow by Quarter (Summary by Category) The Cash Flow by Quarter Report allows you to analyze your cash flow for a quarter, subtotaled by category. Income & Expenses by Month (Summary by Category) The Income & Expenses by Month Report lets you analyze business income and expenses by month and subtotals all amounts by category. You can define the date by selecting Report on Transactions, and choosing the particular date for which you need information. The default budget is Office Budget.

Income & Expenses by Quarter (Summary by Category) The Income & Expenses by Quarter Report lets you analyze business income and expenses by quarter and subtotals all amounts by category. You can define the date by selecting Report on Transactions, and choosing the particular date for which you need information. The default budget is Office Budget. Payroll Expense Report (Summary by Employee) The Payroll Expense Report lets you analyze payroll expenses (wages, taxes, mileage, and additional payroll expenses) for all employees. This report uses the checking and payroll accounts, together with the employee cost category.

The default date range is the current year. Payroll Withholding Report (Summary by Quarter) The Payroll Withholding Report lets you analyze categorized payroll withholding amounts for all of your current employees. This report draws from the checking and payroll accounts. The default date range is the current year. Project Detail Report (Project Income and Expenses) The Project Detail Report lets you analyze all income and expenses related to a specific job for any date range.

The default job is 99413-Sample, but you should customize the report for your own projects. Project Summary Report (Net Margin Per Project) The Project Summary Report lets you analyze income, expenses and profit margins related to a specific job for any date range. The default job is 99413-Sample, but you should customize the report for your own projects.

Transaction History by Name (All Transactions) The Transaction History Report allows you to analyze all transactions from each account, subtotaled by subcontractor, supplier, or payee. The default date range is the current year. Creating a New Memorized Report As you begin using memorized reports in Quicken, you may wish to modify some to better fit the needs of your business.

One way to modify a memorized report is to customize the settings each time you run a specific report. Another option is to save modifications, thus creating a new memorized report. Before permanently saving changes made to a form, make sure it includes all the correct details and settings as these will be your new default settings. Click the Memorize button at the top of the report window or under the Edit menu. Change the name of the report and description, then click OK. Quicken saves this new report as a separate form from the original memorized template report.