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Community Discussion: Uncategorized Transaction error

Community Discussion: Uncategorized Transaction error

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There are enough misleading statements and outright mistakes in this discussion to make it nearly incomprehensible for purposes of problem solving.

The original post gives no clue where the original poster is seeing the problem. And even after being asked to provide that information, the best the op can do is say "It's on the 'main view' of the home screen."

While Quicken comes out-of-the-box with a single Home tab view named "Main View", that information is virtually useless for directing other users to the location of this problem. Every home tab view can be renamed, so there is no reason to believe that every user will have a Home tab view named "Main View" (I, for one, do not have a Home tab View with that name).

Worse than that: even if the Home tab View names were fixed, knowing the name of the View would not be sufficient. Each Home tab View can be independently customized to show one, or many, of the dozens of Home tab Widgets available in Quicken: users reporting a problem with a Home tab view need to specify the Quicken name of the Widget (or "Dashboard") in question.

For this discussion, the likely candidate (as "confirmed" by another poster in the discussion) is the "See Where Your Money Goes" home tab widget. And when the user clicks on a button or pie-slice in that Home tab View, they will be taken to the Quicken "Spending" tab.

It is in the pseudo-register on the Quicken Spending tab that Quicken will display those "Uncategorized transactions" that are the subject of the Community Discussion.

User ToddK hijacks the discussion to complain about a totally different problem (Quicken removing the "transfer category" from 401k contributions for $0.00 in Paycheck transactions). When that separate problem (reported many times already in the Community) is solved, those $0.00 401k contributions should not be counted as "Uncategorized" on the Spending tab.

Several posters complain that clicking on a transaction (on the Spending tab) does nothing - and they are right ... but that's not a bug. When you click on a transaction on the Spending tab, or in an individual account, or in the "All Accounts" pseudo-register, nothing ever happens (except the transaction becomes "selected"). Nothing is supposed to happen when the user simply clicks on a transaction in a "register".

If the user is attempting to deal with uncategorized transactions on the Quicken Spending tab, they need to do that the same way they would deal with the same transaction in ANY other "register" (or pseudo-register): just key the changes in the appropriate fields.

If there are multiple transactions in the Spending tab that need the same change made, those transactions can be selected in the Spending tab just as they could be in any other register/pseudo-register. Select multiple transactions as you would select multiple files in Windows Explorer (File Explorer), right-click a selected transaction and select "Edit transaction(s)".

[Some users are getting reports of uncategorized transactions that are split transactions - but the users can't seem to tell they are looking at split transactions. They apparently don't recognize that split transactions display "--Split--" in their Category field on the Spending tab, just as they do in their registers. Those split transactions should be corrected on the Spending tab just as they would be corrected in their respective registers: open the split dialog and modify as needed.]

There appear to be two possibilities to explain the only real problem I can discern from some postings in that discussion: that the Spending tab "Uncategorized Transactions" button is indicating 1, or more, uncategorized transactions; but clicking that button does not display any transactions.

So either:

1.) the non-zero count on the "Uncategorized transactions" button is incorrect (and there are no "true" uncategorized transactions) or 2.) the non-zero count on the "Uncategorized transactions" button is correct, but the Spending tab is failing to display them.

To help narrow down which problem exists, the user can employ other Quicken features to double-check the Spending tab reported results. Example: the Banking > Transactions report can be used to locate uncategorized transactions (and to fix them, if any are found). [I have a Saved Quicken Banking > Transaction report that locates uncategorized transactions - I can run it from the Quicken Toolbar.]

If no alternative approach produces useful evidence of uncategorized transactions, while non-blank uncategorized transactions appear on the Spending tab (which I don't believe will happen) then this "problem" goes from minor annoyance to significant "problem" (since having uncategorized transactions, but being completely unable to locate them would be serious issue, an issue likely to have been reported in other Community Discussions).

[Last Community Post: 11-26-2022 @ 6:56AM]
Reply to
John Pollard
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That sentence should have read:

"There appear to be two possibilities to explain the only real problem I can discern from some postings in that discussion: that the Spending tab "Uncategorized Transactions" button is indicating 1, or more, uncategorized transactions; but clicking that button does not necessarily display ALL the uncategorized transactions. "

As it turns out; possibility #2 is what is happening: Quicken is failing to display ALL of the uncategorized transactions, when a certain condition exists.

[While the issue is not directly related to "paycheck transactions", another (apparent) Quicken bug in the treatment of paycheck transactions (namely improperly blanking out the category of a $0.00 amount 401k contribution), is causing those damaged paycheck transactions to expose the Spending tab bug.]

When ANY split transaction has any split line that is both uncategorized and has a $0.00 amount, such a transaction will cause the confusing bug on the Spending tab: Quicken will recognize that there is an uncategorized (split) transaction, but fail to display it when the "n Uncategorized Transactions" button is clicked. This problem will occur for EVERY split transaction (paycheck, or not) that has an uncategorized split line with a $0.00 amount.

On the Spending tab, Quicken apparently uses the $Amount to determine whether it is seeing Spending or Income: when the amount is zero, Quicken will treat the same transaction (or split line) as both Spending and Income.

In any event, I think the Spending tab is a poor place to locate and correct uncategorized transactions ... even if Quicken fixes the error noted with uncategorized $0.00 amount split lines.

The Banking > Transaction report will accurately display all uncategorized transactions (for the Accounts selected for the report) - just Customize and deselect all categories but "Not Categorized". The Banking > Transaction report is a much better choice for discovering and correcting uncategorized transactions, than the Spending tab. [Last Community Post: 12-10-2022 @ 3:44PM] [22]

Reply to
John Pollard

I meant to add that I see the problem in R45.11 and R45.13, but not in R43.26.

Reply to
John Pollard

...

Hi John, I enjoy reading this, especially when it may or does affect me. I'm curious as to whether these are going to other fora, like posts in the Quicken newsgroup itself, or archived somewhere, other than just one-offs in this newsgroup?

If not, have you considered other venues or archival options? You obviously spend a lot of time composing these.

They're a great source of information and I hope you get a bigger audience other than just here.

Reply to
Andrew

This is the only place I post these days; I don't think anything I post here ever goes anywhere else.

The only other place I know is the Quicken Community. I stopped posting in the Quicken Community as I did not like Quicken's Community policies.

I regularly read what goes on in the Quicken Community, primarily to arm myself with knowledge about ongoing Quicken issues. With what I learn from the Community, I can (for example) elect to hold off on, or even skip, new releases; and I also pick up pointers for my own Quicken use there.

I choose certain Community Discussions to comment on here when I think I might be able to offer some additional observations/insights not present (or not clear) in the Community Discussion.

[I recall back when Intuit first began hosting a "forum" for Quicken users (back around 2005). At that time several regulars in this newsgroup expressed the hope that users in this newsgroup would not all switch to the new Quicken "forum" and stop posting here. I was one of the earliest posters in that new Intuit Quicken forum, and I suspect that my contributions fell off in this newsgroup after that; but I have always intended to continue to make some contributions here. Now this is the only place I post about Quicken.]

Thank you.

Reply to
John Pollard

I also appreciate your time & apparently extensive knowledge. Comes in handy at times - even though I'm still using Quicken H&B 2013.

Reply to
Frank Kirk

Thank you.

Reply to
John Pollard

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