Quicken question - type slowly 'cause evidently this is too much for me

[MSNative]

So I'm gearing up for my second attempt at Quicken. Please, take pity on my. Can someone please tell me how they setup their quicken accounts?

 

We buy most things on CC and pay off each month. I'd like to be able to break down spending my categories - grocery, travel, clothing,etc. What is the best way to do this? How many categories to you have? Do you enter each receipt as you get them or keep 'em and wait til you get your cc bill and break them out? How do you separate a home business acct? Completely separate or just a separate category?

 

Any advice, website recs, thread links, etc. is greatly appreciated.

[Jean in Newcastle]

What I do:

 

I enter each check or online payment separately by category.

I enter my credit card payment as one line but I hit "split" when I go to enter the category. Then I will divide the bill into categories.

I use mostly categories that were pre-entered by Quicken, but I do add some categories that are unique to our family (like Education).

[*Jen*]

One thing to check on is to see if your credit card has the option to download your transactions into quicken. We mainly use a debit card so our bank is set up to download the transactions into quicken. So each week I download the weeks worth of transactions and then categorize them using mainly quicken's categories, but a few special ones of mine own (education, pets etc) It takes me just a few minutes and then I only have to deal with the receipts if I have a transaction that I can't remember making and need to know what it was that I spent the money on or for trips to Costco/Target where the money spent may fall into several categories.

 

When I had my home business I created a whole separate Quicken file for the business. It was easier for me to keep everything separate.

[HistoryMom]

I heart Quicken. I use it for personal stuff and Quickbooks for the business, and Quicken is much simpler. I use the existing categories, with the exception of a few weird miscellaneous items that needed new categories like DH's bagpiping expenses. Where does THAT go? Entertainment? Business, since he gets paid for playing at weddings? The key, my accountant tells me, is to just be consistent.

 

For the business, if it's substantial, I'd separate it out. Quicken gives you different features that are useful for businesses, such as more detailed tax line items. I needed payroll and other features, so I moved to Quickbooks a few years back, but if it were still just me and DH, I'd probably still be using Quicken for all of it.

 

Also, don't forget that most banks and CC companies allow you to download transactions into your Quicken data. It makes it all MUCH faster, and you don't forget anything if you misplace a receipt. Then you just review the transactions, add your categories, and you're done.

 

Good luck! I've found that Quicken helps us stick to our budget, and I know to the penny how much we're spending, and for what, which is often the big mystery.

[Cheryl in NM]

Jean does it the best way: When you pay your credit card statement every month, make a payment to the credit card and split the transaction into the categories where you spent the money.

 

If you do not pay your credit cards off every month and want to track your expenses you have to set up the credit card in Quicken so that you can track expenses and payment. It's similar to a bank account.

 

Jen has a great idea also if you track your credit card as a credit card in Quicken, but it gets a little more complicated to blend Jean's and Jen's ideas.

 

When you ask about a home business account, do you mean a bank account? That is a separate bank account in Quicken and there are ways to classify your information in Quicken so that you don't need to have 1 Quicken file for personal and 1 Quicken file for business. Although, if your business is really a business and not a glorified hobby or a very small extra income from home you want to have a separate Quicken file for the business to prove that you keep everything separate in the IRS ever checks.

 

As far as entering your credit card receipts: if you set up your credit cards as credit cards in Quicken you will want to enter each individual receipt or download them from online. If you are just going to write a check every month then you total the receipts according to category when your credit card statement comes in and enter those amount in a split transaction in your bank account. There is a way to mix these 2 and if you want more info just ask me. I feel like I might be giving you more info than you want to assimilate right now.

 

Quicken has great tutorials, especially for set up.

[Allearia]

How I prefer to do it is enter each credit card transaction separately as it happens in the credit card account, then pay with a transfer from checking. I find dealing with split transactions a pain and like to be able to just look at the register and see everything. It also keeps me very aware day to day how much I have spent instead of seeing at the end of the month. I also like to enter expenses and then download transactions less frequently, though sometimes reconciling is a pain when I mess up on the exact amounts but it works.

 

I also put every single bill in as a reminder of when it will be due, how frequently, and the amount so I can see a graph of my checking account balance over the month and adjust my grocery or non-essential spending if necessary. I use this as sort of a budget so I put in an estimated amount for groceries, gas, etc. every week and when I go shopping I enter it and put in the right amount and store. It has been very helpful to really keep on top of our spending. Once you are positive all the bills are in and the groceries, etc. then you can even look ahead from month to month to see the direction the cash flow is going and see how much you can afford to add to savings or (for those with debt) how much extra you can pay on the credit card this month and still be able to pay property taxes in three months. I can put in a theoretical expense, say $200/month for a class, and look over the next year to see if that is realistic. It works better for me than using the separate budget feature, as we get to a less month-to-month spending place that may change.

 

I have been using Quicken consistently for a year now and it has been so great for our finances! It does take a while to do though. I started last October and downloaded statements from the bank and credit cards beginning the previous January and just did my best because we really needed to see categories. If you don't have cc debt that may not be necessary.

[MSNative]

Lots to ponder and try. Thank you for your ideas. I love quicken's debt. reduction plan and used that to successfully pay off school loans and cars years ago. It's just the day to day record keeping that was getting me. Off to quicken!!