Prior to 2008 you could use the same Category (i.e. Utilities) in both personal/family reports and in business reports (i.e. P&L). This is no longer true in 2008. For a Category to be included in a P&L report it MUST be designated as a "Business Type". It also has to be mapped to a line on a Schedule C. (I guess this makes it easier to sell Turbo Tax.)
From Quicken Support:
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92467132 Profit and loss statement is missing personal categories
Answer Personal categories are not included in profit and loss statements. The profit and loss statement is not a personal financial report, because it selects only tax categories assigned to the Schedule C for business tax purposes.
I got a response from Intuit. Here is the conversation:
This is from Intuit:
You can use the same category in both business and personal group. However, you can modify the name as Quicken will not take duplicate names.
For example for the Personal Expense you can name the category as Utilities and from the Business Expense you can name it as Biz Utilities and assign in some business related tax line item.
This is my response:
You do realize that the above is a logically inconsistent set. On the one hand you state that "You can use the same category in both business and personal group." You then say you have to modify them to make them different.
The fact is that you CANNOT use the same category in both business and personal groups. If you modify the name it IS NOT THE SAME.
I have data in my quicken file going back to 1992 and Quicken H&B 2008 just destroyed the value of the data in the file.
Please pass on the following to the person responsible for this "feature":
"I have been in the software business since 1971. I have to admit that changing the P&L reports to require "Business Type" and eliminating the ability to use the same Category (i.e. Utilities) in both personal and business reports ranges fairly high on my list of "unintended consequences" stupidity list."
Please make sure that the above paragraph is forwarded exactly as composed.
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