Babette,
That was a very informative email and well worth reading!
Thank you for your time and effort!
Best,
Elizabeth
To: ggcsquicksig@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2015 12:41:40 -0700
Subject: [ggcsquicksig] Quicken's "Separate" is not Equal!
From: bcbloch@xxxxxxxx
THIS IS LONG, BUT I HOPE, WORTH READING. IT DESCRIBES A BASIC PROBLEM
IF YOU USE THE ACCOUNT DISPLY OPTION OF "KEEP THIS ACCOUNT SEPARATE", WHICH
DOES
NOT SEEM TO BE CLEARLY DOCUMENTED ANYWHERE!
BOTTOM LINE: IF YOU SELECT TO DISPLAY AN ACCOUNT AS
"SEPARATE", ITS TRANSACTIONS WILL NOT APPEAR IN ITEMIZED CATEGORY REPORTS
UNLESS
YOU ARE SURE TO CHECK "INCLUDE HIDDENT ACCOUNTS" AND THENi CLICK
ON "ALL ACCOUNTS" OR SELECT THE PREVIOUSLY "HIDDEN" ACCOUNT IN THE
CUSTOMIZE SCREEN FOR SELECTING WHICH ACCOUNTS TO INCLUDE IN YOUR
REPORT.
Last week, I tried to run an Itemized Categories Report for 2104, I
selected "All Accounts" and selected the categories I wanted included.
When the report ran,, with "Last Year" Selected, I was stunned to find some
categories missing entirely, and others with too few transaction.
e.g., only one transaction under
AUTO, and that for a car wash. I get good mileage out of my old Honda, but
not THAT good.
I ran and reran the report, to no avail. Then I went into one of my
registers...once the checking account, once a credit card account, and used the
little report icon in the category field. I chose the AUTO :Service
Category , and by going to the full report after it showed the last six months
AUTO: Service for I went to "Show Full Report", and set it for "last
Year" and selected Auto and all its subcategories. Result: All the
missing transactions for that category were included.
But, this would mean I'd have to go through the routine for each category
one at a time. Not quite what I wanted. I validated the data file,
fearing it might be corrupted. Everything was OK, and the problem
persisted.
I searched Quicken's Support pages and Live Community and the Help Files
and Google for every wording of the problem I could think of, and found
nothing to explain its cause.
My last thought was to uninstall and reinstall Quicken, but I found the
same problem existed on my husband's computer, so that didn't seem too likely a
fix. Finally I sent a message to Jeff Parker, our Quicken contact and program
designer.
He took the problem around the office and sent back word that no one could
figure it out. HOWEVER, he then asked me a few questions to check for
him:
Was I sure I had Release 8 on
Quicken 2014 (which I am using)? YES
Was there any chance I was using
a Beta Testing copy of the program from that year? NO
Had I changed any of my account
Display settings, like HIDE or SEPARATE?
OH?! Well yes...I have all my Credit Card accounts marked "Separate"
for display...we don't want their balances included in our Net Worth total on
the Account Bar. (Don't ask...it's a choice of our own peculiar way of
looking at finances).
Before Quicken 2013, you could simply check a box to omit an account from
the New Worth total shown on the Account Bar. You could also Hide accounts
that were closed or no longer in use for some reason. In 2013, someone
decided it would be an "improvement" to do away with the "Don't Include in Net
Worth Total" and create a new Display option called "Separate"
Marking an account "Separate" keeps it out of the Net Worth total on the
Bar, AND relocates it on the bar to an area below other accounts not ID'd as
"Separate". Your three Display options are:
Keep This Account
Separate - account will be excluded from Quicken Reports and featur
(sic!).
Hide in Transaction
Entry Lists
Hide Account in Account
Bar and Account List
The only thing in the Help Files about these options is a small graph, as
follow:
After finishing our Taxes on TurboTax, I turned to year end reports in
Quicken.
The only thing in the Help Files about these options is a small graph, as
follows:
====================================================================================
Hide in Account Bar & Account List
Hide in Transaction Entry Lists
Keep this Account Separate
Close Account
The account is not displayed in the Account Bar and Account List
X
The account is not included in net worth calculations
X
The account is not included in features using historical data
X
The account is not included by default in reports and graphs
X
The account is not available as a selection in transaction entry lists
(transfers, Reminders setup, etc.)
X
X
The account is not enabled for transaction download
X
The account balance is set to zero
X
Notes
Hiding an account in the Account Bar has no effect on
reporting or other features.
A closed account cannot be reopened.
================================================================================
After the light bulb glowed when I remembered that I had identified
accounts as "Separate", I customized the report again. I checked the box
to include "hidden" accounts, selected the "all accounts" option, indicated I
wanted "Last Year" and ran the Itemized Category account again.
Voila!! All transactions in all selected categories were displayed.
Maybe I'm getting dim after too many years with Quicken, but that
description of the three display options does not tell me that the accounts
will
be omitted from reports unless you "unhide" them, nor that they are,
essentially
hidden! In fact, the annotation says that "Hiding an account in the
Account Bar and Account List has no effect on reporting or other
features!
