AboutLinda Saltz, CPA, QBalance.com Expertise QuickBooks best practices, troubleshooting, accounting, tax
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Experience Accountant and CPA over 20 years. Specializing in accounting software for over 12 years, Certified QuickBooks Pro Advisor, QuickBooks seminar instructor since 1997.
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Question I have all loan accounts setup in Quicken and all of my payments to these accounts setup as transfers. However Quicken Help notes that you cannot include a Transfer and a Category both in the same transaction. Is there a way to get around this procedurally? The automation of the Transfer is ideal from a time management standpoint but the Categories are essential for tracking, budgeting, etc. I really appreciate your assistance. I've been scratching my head on this one for awhile! Thanks.
Answer Hi Christina,
Can I assume that you want a category in the transaction to book the interest expense portion of the loan? If this is the case why not use a check and code the portion that is the Loan principle balance to an account (found at the bottom of your list) and a second line can be added to allocate the interest.
If you are trying to predict cash flow for budget purposes then you would want the loan payment to hit the reports as a category so you can budget the funds needed. Of course, then you have the problem of not reducing the loan balance on the balance sheet reports.
You might try setting up the following categories and replacing Loan #1 with the name of the bank and last 4 digits of the loan number: First we will start the categories with the letter "z" so they display on your reports at the bottom
Add Categories - type is expense
z
Loan1 Prin & Int
Loan1 Contra -Prin portion
Loan2 Prin & Int
Loan2 Contra- Prin portion
You can post the entire loan payment to the category Loan 1.
Next go to the account for Loan 1 and enter a decrease for the interest and categorize it to Loan 1 Contra. You can automate this
entry from the tools menu > scheduled transactions, choose the loan
1 account. You would want to take the principle for the entire year
and divide by 12 so that by the end of the year your principle balance on your balance sheet will be accurate.
You can then "not budget" for Loan 1 contra account and OMIT this category from your budget reports by clicking on the customize button on the top right of the budget report, click on the categories tab and select all but the Loan 1 conta account. Click on the display and give this report a unique name. Click ok . Next click Save report on the report button bar so you can easily retrieve this report.
Hope this helps,
Linda Saltz, CPA
Advanced Certified QuickBooks Advisor
www.qbalance.com
We sell QuickBooks software and supplies at a discount.
