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How to recategorize transactions based on Payee name?

(Sorry for all the following detail just to ask one question.)

When I "Download Activity" from my credit card company (Chase), the QIF file has 5 records per transaction (Cleared Status, Date, Check Number, Payee, Amount) and look like this...

---------------------------------------- (blank line) (blank line) C* D02/02/2006 NN/A PMENARDS BATTLE CREEK T-139.86 ^ C* D03/07/2006 NN/A PNEWEGG COMPUTERS T-31.64 ^ . . .

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When I import this QIF file into Q2003 and there are 1000 transactions (for example!), all 1000 transactions will not have any categories!

For the life of me, I can not figure out how to assign the "Household" category to all transactions that start with the Payee Name of "MENARDS".

I found an OpenOffice spreadsheet macro called CALC2QIF

formatting link
that converts spreadsheetdata to QIF format. (That site also has an Excel version.) Using the CALC2QIF spreadsheet macro...

1) "Import from QIF" the Chase QIF file into Calc (ignore "This is not a valid QIF file" error, see Note #1 below) 2) add a Category column 3) assign the proper category to all transactions 4) "Save to QIF" the updated QIF file

The updated QIF file (now with categories) will look like this...

---------------------------------------- !Type:CCard D02/02/2006 U-139.86 T-139.86 C* NN/A PMENARDS BATTLE CREEK LHousehold ^ D03/07/2006 U-31.64 T-31.64 C* NN/A PNEWEGG COMPUTERS LComputer ^ . . .

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When I import the updated QIF file into Q2003, the 1000 transactions will have categories!

It may look like a lot of work, but it is MUCH faster than doing recategorizing in Quicken.

I found a MAC program "QIF Convert"

formatting link
that would beMUCH more automated. Finally my question: Anyone know of "QIF Convert" type program for Windows?

Thanks, Mike

Note #1: The Chase QIF file is missing the "!Type:CCard" header record. Note #2: QIF File Format

formatting link
#3: I'm using Q2003 Deluxe on Windows XP with SP2.

Reply to
flinchlock
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Not sure why the exclamation point, but I hope you understand that the fi can't know what categories each Quicken user wants to assign their transactions to ... so no way to get categories placed in downloaded transactions by fi's.

This is a function of one of Quicken's fundamental features known as QuickFill.

You "memorize" transactions for payees that you want Quicken to assign categories to when you enter transactions for them initially or when you download/import transactions for them. And you make sure that the QuickFill function "Recall memorized payees" is selected.

I do not recall offhand how exactly the memorized payee name must be to the downloaded payee name for Quicken to correctly pick the Memorized payee. Newer versions of Quicken (Q2005 and later) have something called "Renaming rules" which allow much more variation in downloaded payee name (and can even use memo field data to rename a downloaded payee ... Q2006 only).

It *is* a lot of work, and while I don't know about how much work "recategorizing" would be, I am almost certain modifying categories as you are doing is more work than Quicken's Find/Replace to accomplish the same result. (Find/Replace allows you to select all payees with "MENARDS" in the name and replace their category with "Household").

Yes, the macro you note below, "xl2qif".

Typically fi's don't supply this; it shouldn't be necessary if you have the correct account open in Quicken when you import. (You can import any non-investment account transactions into any other non-investment account ... regardless of account type).

Reply to
John Pollard

John,

Thank you very much for your help.

About, 2 seconds after I posted my question, I noticed the Find/Replace feature allows all kinds of global changes!

Maybe I was too low on caffeine and was blind to not see that!!

So, I deleted my post... but, I forgot people use email instead of the web to access this group!!!

Old and In The Way, Mike

Reply to
flinchlock

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