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Quicken account with sub-accounts? thiswillbedeleted 11-06-2006
Posted by thiswillbedeleted on November 6, 2006, 11:15 pm
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 I'd like to use sub accounts to my main checkbook account. Is this
possible with quicken? If you're wondering why.... I'd like to send
the paycheck $ to "accounts" for various planning items, bills,
upcoming expenses, etc. But since the $ is still in checking, I'd like
to be able to reconcile the main account with all the data from the
subaccounts included.

I've used categories, but they tend to just help me track where the $
goes as it leaves the account. The budget feature is similar, it lets
one build a budget based on category expenses, but if I send the $ to a
category right after the check comes in quicken thinks the money is
gone and the category reflects a + number. That would be fine, but
since the bank account showed the $ going out to the category (which
now shows +) the account cannot be reconciled.

Suggestions, other than subaccounts as mentioned in the initial
question?

Ideas are very welcomed.


Posted by Andrew DeFaria on November 7, 2006, 12:43 am
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thiswillbedeleted@gmail.com wrote:
> I'd like to use sub accounts to my main checkbook account. Is this
> possible with quicken? If you're wondering why.... I'd like to send
> the paycheck $ to "accounts" for various planning items, bills,
> upcoming expenses, etc. But since the $ is still in checking, I'd like
> to be able to reconcile the main account with all the data from the
> subaccounts included.
>
> I've used categories, but they tend to just help me track where the $
> goes as it leaves the account. The budget feature is similar, it lets
> one build a budget based on category expenses, but if I send the $ to
> a category right after the check comes in quicken thinks the money is
> gone and the category reflects a + number. That would be fine, but
> since the bank account showed the $ going out to the category (which
> now shows +) the account cannot be reconciled.
>
> Suggestions, other than subaccounts as mentioned in the initial question?
>
> Ideas are very welcomed.
Ah the often requested but still unimplemented method AKA envelop
accounting. Nope. Quicken doesn't have 'em. If you don't have too many
of these "sub accounts" then look into /Savings Goals/.

--

Andrew DeFaria <http://defaria.com>
Go ahead and take risks....just be sure that everything will turn out OK.

--------------010704040509060709020801
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Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
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<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
wrote:<small><font color="#999999"></font></small>
<blockquote
cite="mid1162872929.110263.59430@m7g2000cwm.googlegroups.com"
type="cite">I'd like to use sub accounts to my main checkbook account.
Is this possible with quicken? If you're wondering why.... I'd like to
send the paycheck $ to "accounts" for various planning items, bills,
upcoming expenses, etc. But since the $ is still in checking, I'd like<br>
to be able to reconcile the main account with all the data from the
subaccounts included.<br>
<br>
I've used categories, but they tend to just help me track where the $
goes as it leaves the account. The budget feature is similar, it lets<br>
one build a budget based on category expenses, but if I send the $ to a
category right after the check comes in quicken thinks the money is
gone and the category reflects a + number. That would be fine, but
since the bank account showed the $ going out to the category (which
now shows +) the account cannot be reconciled.<br>
<br>
Suggestions, other than subaccounts as mentioned in the initial
question?<br>
<br>
Ideas are very welcomed.<br>
</blockquote>
Ah the often requested but still unimplemented method AKA envelop
accounting. Nope. Quicken doesn't have 'em. If you don't have too many
of these "sub accounts" then look into <i>Savings Goals</i>.<br>
<pre>-- </pre>
<a href="http://defaria.com">Andrew DeFaria</a><br>
<small><font color="#999999">Go ahead and take risks....just be sure
that everything will turn out OK.</font></small>
</body>
</html>

--------------010704040509060709020801--

Posted by Marty Kovacs on November 7, 2006, 10:33 am
Please log in for more thread options
thiswillbedeleted@gmail.com wrote:
> I'd like to use sub accounts to my main checkbook account. Is this
> possible with quicken? If you're wondering why.... I'd like to send
> the paycheck $ to "accounts" for various planning items, bills,
> upcoming expenses, etc. But since the $ is still in checking, I'd like
> to be able to reconcile the main account with all the data from the
> subaccounts included.
>
> I've used categories, but they tend to just help me track where the $
> goes as it leaves the account. The budget feature is similar, it lets
> one build a budget based on category expenses, but if I send the $ to a
> category right after the check comes in quicken thinks the money is
> gone and the category reflects a + number. That would be fine, but
> since the bank account showed the $ going out to the category (which
> now shows +) the account cannot be reconciled.
>
> Suggestions, other than subaccounts as mentioned in the initial
> question?
>
> Ideas are very welcomed.
>
I have been doing this for many years in Quicken for the same reason
you have. (BTW I am using QW 05 now). There is a side benefit to this
method which I will get to a little later. Since Quicken has not
implemented a way to do this automatically, the process I came up with
is cumbersome but has worked successfully for many years (more then 10).
At one time I had 8 sub accounts most of which were empty but several
(mortgage, car payment etc) were used all the time.

In this description Primary account is the "real" checking/savings
account. The sub accounts are not directly connected to the primary.

1. Set up the sub accounts as Cash Flow: Spending. I don't associate
these with any financial institution, taxes etc.
2. I use the Quicken Transfer tag in the num column to transfer
dollar's out of and into the appropriate sub account.
3. When you are going to add additional dollars to the
account you have to transfer the current balance from the sub account to
the primary account then add the new dollar amount to the transferred
dollars and then transfer the dollars back to the sub account. You MUST
to do this process in order balance the primary account.
4. When it comes time to balance the primary account you do not have
to transfer the sub account dollars to the primary. All you need to do
is to reconcile (mark as cleared) all of the transfers that occurred in
the previous period except the LAST one which transferred dollars to the
sub account. Since it has not been cleared, Quicken will use the amount
in the final balance.
Thats all there is to it.

BQ (Before Quicken :-) and using a DOS checking account program) my
budgeting process had me set aside money each week to pay my bills. At
the start I was paid weekly but I have used this process when the
company I worked for went to paying every two weeks. I would
set aside 1/4 of a monthly payment and when it came time to pay
the bill add the money into the checking account (it never really out,
but was just "hidden") and paid the bill.

Two side benefits came from this method:
1. I did not pay any fees to the bank since my account
balance was over the banks minimums that would have triggered a fee.
Some would say this is not a good way to manage money but I look at not
paying fees the same as earning interest (which most checking accounts
don't provide and if they do is insignificant).
2. By setting aside 1/4 of a payment each week at the end of each
quarter (March, June, Sept, Dec) I would end up with one free week
where I did not have to set aside money for monthly payment. This is
because each quarter is actually 13 weeks long not 12. Understand that
"accounting quarters" cross calendar month boundaries and even end and
beginning of year boundaries.

Hope this helps
Marty

PS... Rather long post, seems to take longer to describe then do it. LOL

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