[X4U] OT - Help with Quicken categories

[Mark Phillips]

On Mar 9, 2005, at 7:01 AM, revDAVE wrote:

> -  Are you saying that if I set a new Quick fill transaction to equal 
> the
> name of an imported transaction - that it will work correctly?
> - Does the name have to be exactly the same every time - or can it 
> just be
> close? -  or are there other criteria that have to match?
>

If you can type in the text as a check or journal entry, and Quicken 
will "quick fill" the rest of the text for payee and category, then it 
will do so during the financial data download as well.

In the Preferences dialog under Registers, enable "Use QuickFill to 
fill in transactions". Also enable "Add transactions to QuickFill list" 
for a time to ease the capturing of the payees and so on.

When I download, I click on the first unmatched item in the list. If 
the QuickFill match is found, press the Enter key to save the 
transaction as "matched" and move to the next. Repeat this to the end 
of the new transactions. When you encounter a transaction that does not 
match, enter the category and press the Enter key to save it. At the 
end of this process all the transaction should be marked as "matched". 
Now you can press the "Accept All" button to post the transactions.

Be aware that Quicken will goof ATM transactions from time to time. If 
you click on the ATM transaction you may see that Quicken associated it 
with a previously cleared ATM transaction. This can bollox the 
reconciliation. The process in the previous paragraph helps to avoid 
these errors by giving you a chance to review the transaction date to 
be sure it matches the date in the checkbook ledger.

I still have to adjust several transactions each time. If you have a 
several accounts this can be quite a bit of hassle. Still, the task is 
streamlined by using the QuickFill feature.

hth,

Mark Phillips
Mophilly & Associates
On the web at http://www.mophilly.com
On the phone at 619 444-9210