- Introduction
- Using the Account Bar and Activity Centers
- Getting the Big Picture
- Selecting Accounts to Include in Your Net Worth
- Using Alerts
- Using Bills and Scheduled Transactions
- Taking the Next Steps with Your Financial Goals
- Using Online Updates
- Using Tips and Services
- Creating Links to Your Favorite Financial Websites
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Using Bills and Scheduled Transactions
The area beneath the Alerts section on the Quicken Home page is Bills and Scheduled Transactions. All transactions for the current month and those that have not been completed from previous months are listed here. Transactions include paychecks, bills, mortgage payments, utilities, banking, and every other account transaction you have entered in Quicken. You can use Bills and Scheduled Transactions to enter the transactions in your register—for example, when you make a payment for a bill or when a paycheck has been deposited into your bank account. In addition, you can add new transactions, change information for a single transaction, make changes to all transactions for an account, or delete a transaction. There are also some tools you can use to review your account checks and balances over a specific period of time by using graphs, or you can use the calendars to see exactly where your transactions fall within a month. Bills and Scheduled Transactions provides an efficient and quick way of keeping up with your incoming and outgoing account transactions.
Record Transactions
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If a Print button appears next to a transaction, it is because that transaction is paid using Quicken checks. Quicken checks are covered in more detail in Chapter 6, “Managing Your Bills.”
Click Enter to log the transaction in your register. The transaction information opens in an edit window. The edit window
differs, depending on the transaction type.
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If needed, make changes to this transaction by clicking in any of the fields and typing over the existing information, or
click the Edit buttons. Remove information by clicking the Delete buttons.
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To add information to the current transaction, click one of the Add buttons. For example, in this instance we are updating
a paycheck transaction by clicking Add Pre-Tax Deduction to add medical insurance information.
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Change the name, if needed, select the category that you want to use to track this expense, type the amount, and click OK.
When you are finished making changes, or if you don’t need to make any changes to the transaction, click Enter (as in this
example). Or, if you are recording a payment, click Record Payment.
Edit Transactions
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To edit all future instances of a transaction, select the transaction and click Edit.
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Make any changes needed, keeping in mind that these changes will take effect for all future transactions for this account.
Click OK to save the changes.
Tracking Transactions with Multiple Categories
If you want to track a transaction between different categories, you can add up to 30 categories. For example, if you want to track a payment you make to a credit card, for which part of the payment goes to the principal balance and part goes to satisfy interest, you could track this transaction under the Bank Charge and Interest categories. Here’s how you track transactions with multiple categories:
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1. After you select the first category from the Category drop-down in either the Edit All Future Transactions window or the Create Scheduled Transaction window, click Split (not shown).
2. In the Split Transaction window, in the Amount box, type the amount you want to track for the first category.
3. Click the second line and from the drop-down menu, select the second category. Then type the amount for that category.
4. Create as many categories as you need and when you are finished, click Adjust. The figure in Transaction Total should equal the total amount of the transaction. If it does not, adjust your split amounts until the total equals the correct amount.
5. Click OK to complete the split.
Skip Transactions
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To skip the current transaction—for example, if you don’t intend to apply a transaction for the current time period (for
example, for the current month)—click Skip.
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Click Yes to skip the current transaction or No to cancel. If you click Yes, the transaction will show up in the Bills and
Scheduled Transactions list the next time it is due.
Add a New Transaction
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Click Add a Transaction.
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From the Account to use drop-down menu, select the account that this transaction affects.
From the Transaction method drop-down menu, select the type of transaction. In Payee, type the name of the recipient (a person,
a company, or for money transfers, the name of the account) to which the transaction is being made, if applicable. From Category
drop-down menu, select the category you want tracked for this transaction.
In Amount, type the amount of the transaction. If you used split transactions, the amount will already be there, but will
be grayed out so that you can’t enter an amount.
In the Scheduling section, select or enter the begin, end, and frequency information for the transaction. If this is a one-time transaction, from the Frequency drop-down menu, select Only Once. You don’t have to complete any of
the other scheduling information.
Click OK.
Create an Alternate View of the Transactions
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To change the transactions you see, from the Show drop-down menu, select an option.
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To move forward or backward a month, click the forward arrow (>) or the backward arrow (<).
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To see a bar graph view of your finances, select Show graph. Hover your mouse over a bar on the graph to view your account for that time period.
To view calendars with the dates of all your transactions boldfaced, select Show calendar.
Click a day on the calendar to view the transactions for that month in detail. You can print this calendar to keep as a reminder or reference when paying your bills.
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Double-click a day to view the transactions for that day. You can even perform actions from here, such as creating a new
transaction and editing a transaction.
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To view your total account balances for a specific day, hover your mouse over a day on the bar graph. The day is automatically
highlighted on the calendar to show you the transactions for that day.
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To add a note to a day on the calendar, right-click the day and select Note.
When you are finished using the calendar and ready to return to the Quicken Home page, close the calendar.
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Type your note and click Save. The note shows up on the calendar as a small sticky note, which you can click to open and
then view or delete it.