Using Quicken to track theatre production costs

For tracking purposes would set up a category [e.g., Theater Production] and sub-categories such as Rental, Construction, Supplies, etc.

Are these tax deductible? guess they might be if you are doing this as a business. Might find more specific/qualified help on tax issues in the Google forum 'misc.taxes.moderated':

Seem to be knowledgable posters there to answer questions like these. Suggest you provide a little more background info to help responders there.

Thanks JM. I'll check out that forum. I did as you suggested and created a category for these called PRODUCTION with stage, actors as sub categories. Another approach would be to create a separate account and use transfers instead? However it all came out of the same checking account.

Without a lot more background on just what you are doing, think a set of income and expense accounts should get you started. You are anticipating income from this activity??

If this is a business, and you expect to repeat these efforts for future plays, I would suggest introducing classes to distinguish between plays. You would use your standard set of categories for income and expense and simply append a class to keep track of which play was involved. Example; supplies for Fiddler On The Roof would be categorized; 'Supplies/FOTR' where FOTR might be shorthand for Fiddler...... Rental for Cats would be Rental/CATS and so on.

A Class Report for FOTR will summarize all income/expense associated with that play. An itemized Category Report. subtotaled by class, gives a report for all income/expense subtotaled for each play. I assume these activities are being co-mingled with normal household items so some customizing is necessary to filter out non 'business' activity for the example reports.

Also, if this is a business, all of the related activities are better off in a separate account, used only for the purpose of the business.

JC