Need some help with quicken basics

They are definitely not redundant.

I'll limit the response to addressing classes. Classes allow you to use the same set of categories for mulitple purposes.

Say you owned many rental properties: most likely they would logically share the same categories; but if you use classes to identify the individual properties, you would not need to create multiple categories to accomplish the same result.

For a more personal application: if wanted to track the same categories for you and your spouse ... it would be a pain to try to use different categories (or sub categories); how much simpler to assign each category a class that specified the person to whom the transacation belonged. (Even simpler in the you/spouse situation: you could assign no class to the transactions for the spouse with the most transactions, and a specific class to the spouse that created the fewest transactions.)

Not to panic.

Quicken makes "automatic" backups every seven days, or so. It puts those backups in the BACKUP folder in the folder where your Quicken data resides. Those Quicken automatic backups have

*nothing* to do with the backups you make. (Your Quicken preferences allow you to control how many of these backups Quicken will save before it begins to overwrite previous of its backups).

The Quicken backups you make occur whenever you specifically make them; and they reside where ever you tell Quicken to put them.

Should have made it clearer.

When you see that dialog box that appears after you have exited Quicken ... Quicken is telling you that it is in the process of making one of its "automatic" backups ... despite the word "copy" that appears in the message box.

(In fact, a Quicken backup is nothing more than a "copy" of your Quicken data.)

Thanks John, Your answer was 99% complete and understandable. I really appreciate your attention to detail.

One more question: would you give a couple of examples as to the coding structure such as where to put the sub class,

I seem to remember Quicken included a "sample" data set, but no more.

Thanks and best regards,

Ted

When I was poking around in the Help a minute ago, trying to double-check on something, I came across these differences between Quicken classes and categories:

a.. Classes let you group transactions without categorizing them as income or expense. b.. You can assign a transfer between accounts to a class. c.. You can associate a class with a specific copy of a tax form. For example, if you run two small businesses and file two Schedule C forms, use one class for each business, and assign each class to its own Schedule C copy.

If you had an apartment rental business; you could have a class for each property, and a class for each apartment. You could report income as "Rental Income/1234 Main Street:Apartment C ... where "Rental Income" is the category, "1234 Main Street" is the class for the property, and "Apartment C" is the class for the specific apartment (being used as a subclass in the example.)

You enter a subclass the same as you do a subcategory, with a colon to separate the subclass from the class.

However, unlike subcategories, subclasses are not defined as subclasses (in the Class list, there are only "classes" ... no designation of subclass); they only become subclasses when you use them to the right of a colon following another class in a transaction.

This answer may be redundant to what others have said, but it may also make things clearer.

You can think of categories, sub categories, classes and sub classes as ways to "earmark" a given transaction, identifying it in ways that are useful to you.

So, you might code a bill with the category "Utilities." You might add another earmark to this transaction with the sub-category "Electricity." Then, you might earmark it again with the class "17 Main Street." And a final earmark might be "Apt 2." Using all these earmarks would identify the transaction as the electric utility charge for Apartment 2 at your apartment building located at 17 Main Street.

So, what's the difference between categories and classes? None really, except for how Quicken handles them mechanically.

A sub category is firmly wedded to a category. There's no way you can earmark a transaction with a sub category without also using the category above it, which means before using a sub category you have to define the relationship between the sub category and the category it's attached to. If you try to enter a transaction with only a sub category Quicken will correct your mistake and put the category in front of the sub category before recording it.

In contrast, classes and sub classes "float" and can be attached to any transaction, anywhere, any time. If you've already defined a class you can attach it to any category or category/sub category transaction, ad hoc, and Quicken will accept it. The disadvantage of this is that you can attach a class, by mistake, to a transaction where it's not appropriate e.g., the class "17 Main Street" to your auto lease payment.

So, the distinction comes down to the mechanics of Quicken, no more, no less. If you use lots of sub categories, the category list you might ask Quicken to produce gets rather long rather fast, because Quicken doesn't really produce a "Category" list, it'll only produce a "Category and all sub category" list. You can get around this by using classes instead, at the risk of attaching classes to transactions where they aren't appropriate.

Tom Young

Nice description of categories vs. classes. I think I finally understand.

Thanks.

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Thanks for the explanation. I think I'm finally beginning to understand. I've used "sub categories" for ages but have stayed away from "classes" simply because I couldn't figure out what they were all about. Your explanation was much clearer than Quicken's. Thanks again!

Thanks to all of you. I think I finally "got it"

I scanned two books in the store ( one from the Intuit Press and another from Que ). Neither said anything substantial about categories and classes. I suspect they don't know either or feel it's so simple as to not need explaining. One of them did stress repeatedly that "classes" were optional.

I found that Q will keep one from making gross errors, but still allow some margin for a shot in the foot if you persist.

I also found - to my surprise - that you can duplicate names as categories, sub categories and classes such that:

test:test/test is allowable.

Thanks again to everyone.

God bless,

Ted