Just upgraded from H&B 2007 to H&B 2010 and one of the new "features" is Tags.
In the past, I've used sub-categories to split both business and personal entries between my wife and I. For example, I might have Consult_Income/wife and Clothing/wife.
Since the categories themselves were tied to a tax schedule, this didn't cause any problems.
Now, if I understand what is happening, the sub-category "wife" is now a Business tag and anything that I use this tag with becomes a business entry.
So, do I have to create a new tag in order to track my wife's Clothing entries?
My fault - I called them sub-categories since I didn't remember that they were actually called Classes. And, yes, I did use classes in earlier versions. And I still have the same question - please just substitute Classes for Sub-Categories in my message.
The rules don't change. The category, not the tag, defines the tax line assignment. Tags/classes just helps you separate the transactions into multiple groups. A tag of "Wife" does not make it taxable.
It might be best to have categories that separate business and personal for all transactions in that category. then use tags within that category to separate your transactions from your wife's.
Just to amplify the last paragraph: starting with Q2009 H&B, Quicken requires that a category be assigned a Schedule C Tax Line Item for the category to be considered a "business category".
The Help seems to suggest that if a Business Tag (which did not exist prior to Q2009, I believe) is assigned to a transaction, Quicken will consider that transaction to be a business transaction. But whatever Intuit intended, the only transactions that will be included in the P&L report are transactions whose categories have Scheduled C Tax Line Items assigned. I haven't attempted to test with all H&B (actually, in my case, RPM) business reports ... it's the P&L that seems to get all the questions.
I think that the rules did change -- merely using the tag "wife" causes non-tax related categories to appear on the Schedule C report as "**Unspecified Business Expense**"
John, I just looked at a P&L under Profit/Loss Details. A cateogry ("Haircut") with no Schedule C tax line assignment and listed as type "Personal Expense" in the category list, shows up as a Recorded Expense since I used my Tag (formerly Class) when I entered it.
You're right, my apologies. I had not tried this for a while; perhaps a newer release fixed the problem, since my last test. I believe the problem was reported several times in the Quicken Community, so there's reason to believe Intuit was aware of it.
I could not replicate what you are seeing until I started experimenting. Disclaimer: I am using H&B2008 so things maybe different 2010.
Let me explain how my file is setup: I have a business. I specified a Business tag ("Books") under the business information menus. I also have numerous tags representing clients as "other" type of tag (to track source of income) plus several other tags related to misc personal expenditures.
The categories related to my business are specified as business and have sched C lines assigned to them. All personal categories are either not mapped to a tax line or are mapped to appropriate 1040 or schedule A lines. When I run any P&L type of report I only get my business categories listed in the report. When I run the cash flow by Tag I can see that my mapping is correct: all business transactions have either the business tag "Books" or one of the client specific tags for income. My Schedule C report only reports my business categories with either the "Books" tag or one of my clients tag.
Then I started experimenting (after consulting the help file). I added the "Books" tag to several transactions that were not related to my business. They were posted to non-Business categories. Immediately these transactions showed up on the P&L and Schedule C reports.
So based on my limited experimenting it appears that for transactions to show up on P&L or Schedule C reports they must be either posted to a category that is designated as a business account OR have a Business tag assigned. This is also consistent with the information in the help file (search on Tags).
Hoping that things are the same in H&B2010, you should check the type of tag that "Wife" is listed. It should be an "other" tag and not a "Business" tag. Also check the classification of the categories impacted making sure that they have been correctly classified as personal vs business. It appears that one of these dimensions are incorrect if they are showing up on the business reports.
Are you saying that in current versions that ANY use of Tags automatically makes the transaction a business transaction and will show up on the P&L and/or Schedule C reports? It doesn't in 2008.
Yes, "Wife" is a Business Tag - something that got setup during the installation of H&B 2010. I did this not realizing all the implications. Now, I don't see any way to change the type of this Tag. And since I've been using this Class (now Tag) for many years on both personal and business expenses, all my prior year Schedule C reports are now cluttered with non-business expenses. Sure glad I had the foresight to finish all my 2009 tax work before I upgraded.
This is a mess! Caused by Intuit inverting the logic of classifying business expenses. In the past, a Category was either linked to Schedule C or not. Period. If it was, then Class (actually, Copy Number) could be used to generate separate Schedule's C. Now the logic is, if the Tag is a business Tag then the item is considered a business expense regardless of whether a Category is linked to Schedule C or not (if it isn't linked then the entry is reported as an "**Unspecified Business Expense**").
I'm going to have to think about how I can fix this. Prior year data (going back to Quicken 6) is surely a lost cause. I'll probably have to create several new Tags - some business and some personal. Then re-Tag all this year's transactions.
This might work: Setup a new tag that is your correct business tag--or even a dummy tag. Then go into Business>>Mange Business information. Select your business and click on the Edit button. Now change the "wife" tag to this new business tag. This *should* make the Wife tag an "other" tag instead of a "business" tag.
What I don't like is that Intuit assumes that a business only needs 1 tag.
One of the things that I see going on is that Intuit is trying to capture the small business market via Quicken. It is cheaper than QuickBooks and they have tried to add business features (a/p, a/r, sales tax) to a program that originally was intended as a Personal Finance manager. Unfortunately, I think they failed miserably.
Laura, Excellent suggestion - I'll try that and report back. Now a suggestion for you (untried) - since Quicken apparently still uses Copy Number, perhaps you could get multiple tags for a business by assigning them the same copy number.
I'll experiment with copy number later and report back. I had not noticed that option until today. If they are just numbers so that it would be Books1, Books2...etc then it does not give me quick report of the amount by client. My tags are currently the Client's name.
OK, trying your suggestion ... creating a new Tag and replacing "Wife" as the business tag does change "Wife" from a business tag to an "other". However, all the many years of transactions where I used the "wife" tag still are all considered business transactions - apparently only new transactions using the new tag will be properly listed.
I'm going to just have to forget previous years and re-do this years transactions.
Did I mention that I also have a business with the same problem?
Some years the changes Intuit makes are merely annoying. Then you have releases like this one and the one a few years ago when they totally messed up investment account transactions that really throw you for a loop.
If they're trying to capture the small business market, they really need to understand that the one thing small businesses do not have is spare time to struggle with poorly thought out and implemented software changes!
I forgot about past transactions. I'm surprised you did not get a message asking if you wanted to change prior transactions.
Check to see if the Find/Replace option will filter on Tags. If it does then you can globally change all past "wife" tags to something else. Or just change this year's tags to something new to get them out of the Business reports.
I'm not sure where Intuit is headed these days. They have been issuing buggy software lately, making strange enhancements that people end up screaming at them to fix things back to where they were, etc. This is not just a Quicken problem but also impacting QuickBooks.
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