QP2008 and Categories

I think so. :)

What appears to say "Hide Type" in the Category List display, is really two separate list headings that are very close together: "Hide" and "Type".

I did not do extensive research, but when I checked the "Hide" box for a category, it did not appear in the account register category drop down list ... when I unhid that category, it did appear in the account register drop down list.

OK, I've experimented some more and can see that I was confused. I won't take the entire blame, though, as IMNSHO, it's partly a user-interface problem, not to mention the Quicken help on hiding/unhiding categories reflects how it worked in prior versions of Quicken. (I used to design GUIs, so....) But I do thank you for explaining and correcting me on this.

Any ideas on the second issue? Why the graph (mentioned above) is simply ignoring transfers among my accounts? This graph worked fine last year (same Quicken version), but if I include all categories, it shows the transferred amount as an expense. When I exclude categories (like closed CC accounts, etc.) that shouldn't have any effect on the income/expense data, the transferred amount will show up as *income*. Makes no sense to me, and perhaps it's a fluke, but ... John, if you have any insight on this one, I'd appreciate it.

Thx and Regards,

Margaret

First, I think it's a bug that the small Income/Expense graph does not allow the selection of "Accounts" (it does in Q2005, and I can't think of any good reason for that restriction).

If all accounts and all categories were selected for the graph, the effect of transfers should be a wash. If you start excluding "account categories", especially when you can't control which accounts appear in the graph, I would think you'd see some strange results; the FROM half of a transfer might be present, but the TO half be excluded. Likewise, if Quicken is already excluding some accounts from the small graph, but including all "account categories", the results might not be what is desired.

[To duplicate the effect of the old "Exclude Internal Transfers" feature for a report/graph, you would normally exclude all the "account categories" for the accounts present in the report, but leave all the other "account categories" selected. With no ability to control (or see) the Accounts included in the small graph, I'm not sure how one would achieve the same results.]

I don't know how to debug the small graph; the best I can suggest is to try to display the "Full Graph" and see if you can determine what is happening from there (with the Full Graph, you can also see the Report to look at individual categories and drill down to individual transactions). [But trying to debug the small graph using the full graph assumes that the Full Graph will be initially created with the exact same customizations as the small graph, an assumption I'm not certain is true.]

Yes, this was my thought, too.

I never bothered to modify the graph during 2007, as the info looked correct to me. Toward the end of 2007, I also had a large transfer between these same two accounts via my local checking account, and as you mention below, the transfers were a wash. That's why I'm confused as to why suddenly on 1/1/2008, with no changes to the graph, it's showing the full amount of the transfer as an expense (with all categories selected). Interestingly enough, even though the amount was transferred *twice*, the total "expense" is not doubled.

As you say, when I start excluding categories is when the "expense" becomes "income" of the same amount. I even opened up a backup fileset from the end of 2007 and can see that the graph works as expected! These two transfers (one in 2007 and one in 2008) are identical. So why one is working and the other is not is a mystery.

Yes, I've tried this too, which is why I finally posted to the group, hoping that someone else had experienced this same phenomenon. Frankly, if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it! It's not like this graph is essential, but I do have Quicken open to this page, and I did find it useful. Oh well.

BTW, I went to the Quicken page I have bookmarked to report a bug, send feedback, and the most recent version in the drop-down box is Q2006! I noted in the comment box that my version is 2008. Do you know of a newer feedback page, or is it simply a matter of Intuit not having updated the list of versions. Any idea? The URL I used follows:

Anyway, thx for your comments, John.

Margaret

I poked around and found a newer page for sending feedback. Here's the URL. (I used TinyURL since it's so long....)

Regards,

Margaret

This is the url I have been using for a while. I do remember the other one, but I just assumed it had been replaced by the second one ... never considered that the old one would still be around.

I just tried one quick test, with a small new file; downloaded everything I could get from Discover card (transactions from

2003 thru 2007), manually entered several transactions for last year and a couple for this year. Told the small graph to display "Last 12 months": no data qualified! Changing to "Last year" (nearly the exact same date range) appears to show the effect of all the transactions (except the few for 2008, as expected). So something strange is going on.

Sometime in the next few weeks I hope to get my Q2005 data very clean for last year; then I can back it up and do a conversion to Q2008. At that point, I should be able to clearly see differences between the graph in Q2005 and Q2008. Maybe something will jump out at me then.