Question about split transactions
Jose68
I'm coming from Money, and there is only one thing that is bugging me
in Quicken: how to enter split transactions. Maybe there is a way to
do this in Quicken, but I can't find it!
Let me use an example, an expense with two categories:
- Games - $25
- Software - $35
- Sales Tax - $7
- TOTAL $67
In Money, I could type $67 as total, and once in the split window, I
could type $25 and $35, and let Money assign the difference ($7)
proportionately into all categories by pressing F6. Or I could assign
that difference to one single line item, if applicable, pressing F5.
Is there something similar in Quicken? When I'm splitting a
transaction in 4 or 5 splits, it is a pain to have to calculate sales
tax one by one.
Thanks!
R. C. White
I've always done it "the hard way", I guess. :^{
In the Split transaction screen, I enter each taxable item's actual price,
then press * (for multiply), enter 1.0825 on the numeric keypad, and press
Enter. (Our combined State and local sales taxes are 8.25%.) So, for a
$39.95 item - like the Quicken 2010 Deluxe that I bought last month, my
keystrokes were: 39.95 * 1.0825 <Enter> - and Quicken calculated the $43.25
(after rounding) and entered it, then went to the next Split line.
It might be easier for someone like me, with over 50 years experience on
10-key adding machines, and it can get tedious on those few transactions
when I need to split the tax between more than 3 or 4 lines. But I rarely
find it a problem.
I think there is an automatic allocation feature, but I don't recall ever
having used it.
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(Retired. No longer licensed to practice public accounting.)
r...@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Using Quicken Deluxe 2010 and Windows Live Mail in Win7 x64)
"Jose68" <jose.si...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:7e3426eb-3ff2-4b80...@x5g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
superjacent
You can do that in Quicken. At the register type in $67 and then
click for splits. The first line in the split will be $67. If you
then over-type the $67 with $25, the second line in the split will
show the difference, and so on.
Hope this helps.
Andrew
How is this proportional allocating the different parts of the $7.00 sales
tax to each line as the balance goes down? I trust you might not have read
the subtle question!
You're right in that as you delineate how much of the total should be on
each line, that doesn't do what the OP asked which is how to automatically
ALSO allocate the sales tax percentage to each line.
To RC who also posted - I don't remember Q ever being able to do the
allocation of sales tax proportionally across the board, but it would be
nice - sometimes I allocate different purchases to different categories and
would also like to add the appropriate sales tax to each line without
manually calculating it like you mentioned in your other post.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------
Regards -
- Andrew
Jose68
As Andrew said, that doesn't really help. In my example, it would show
$42 left after I type $25, and if in the second line I type $35 it
will show $7 left for the third line, but THEN I would like to press
F6 (as in Money), so the $7 are proportionately allocated to the two
previous line items.
I guess you can do it manually, but heck, computers are supposed to
make our lives easier!! :)
superjacent
You're right, I didn't read the subtle question.
Andrew
> ...
> I guess you can do it manually, but heck, computers are supposed to
> make our lives easier!! :)
http://quicken.intuit.com/support/feedback/ can be used to supply feedback;
it's a good idea -- I should have asked for this years ago! I fact, I just
did.
Jose68
> Jose68 wrote:
> > ...
> > I guess you can do it manually, but heck, computers are supposed to
> > make our lives easier!! :)
>
> it's a good idea -- I should have asked for this years ago! I fact, I just
> did.
> --
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> Regards -
>
> - Andrew
I'll have to send my feedback too. It is really helpful, and should
be really easy to implement.
Doug
> > in Quicken: how to enter split transactions. Maybe there is a way to
> do this in Quicken, but I can't find it!
>
> Let me use an example, an expense with two categories:
> - Games - $25
> - Software - $35
> - Sales Tax - $7
> - TOTAL $67
>
> In Money, I could type $67 as total, and once in the split window, I
> could type $25 and $35, and let Money assign the difference ($7)
> proportionately into all categories by pressing F6. Or I could assign
> that difference to one single line item, if applicable, pressing F5.
>
> Is there something similar in Quicken? When I'm splitting a
> transaction in 4 or 5 splits, it is a pain to have to calculate sales
> tax one by one.
>
Yours is one of the many questions we see here that can be reworded as
"why won't Quicken, an accounting program, let me violate all the rules
of accounting and put any number I want wherever I want?"
You did NOT spend $28 on games and $39 on software. You spent what you
wrote. If you wish to pretend that money you spent on taxes was spent
on software, be my guest. But why would you imagine Quicken would be
programmed to facilitate faking the numbers?
Doug
Jose68
Thanks for enlightening me, Doug. Maybe you want to reword my
question as you did, but that would be your question, not mine. But
maybe because I have worked as an accountant myself, I neither
consider Quicken an accounting program, nor I want to track my
finances as I would do as an accountant. For example, I do NOT want to
track sales tax as a different category. I want to allocate sales tax.
And I am sure that a significant percentage of Quicken users are NOT
tracking sales tax as a different category, nor they would want to.
If I was to do as you seem to suggest, so "I don't fake the
numbers" (good grief), I guess that if you purchased JUST the piece of
software in the example about, you would create a split transaction to
make sure you put $35 as software, and $4 as sales tax. What a pain.
And what about expenses that I pay with my debit card and don't keep
the receipt? Do I need to back-calculate the pre-sales tax portion
and make a split for that?
The more I think about this, the more I would like to keep my question
as it was. I would like Quicken to make my life simpler, and help me
allocate sales tax (or anything else I want to proportionally allocate
for that matter) as Money does. And don't worry, if Quicken hears me
out, you won't have to use it. It would be an option. You can keep
tracking sales tax for all your purchases.
But thanks for letting me know that I am violating accounting rules,
and living around faked numbers. I never saw it that way.
R. C. White
You are right. Doug is wrong.
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(Retired. No longer licensed to practice public accounting.)
r...@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Using Quicken Deluxe 2010 and Windows Live Mail in Win7 x64)
"Jose68" <jose.si...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:d1d76211-10d8-40ab...@g1g2000pra.googlegroups.com...
R. C. White
I don't know where you studied accounting, but you apparently misunderstood
what you were taught.
An expense - or an asset purchase - includes all the costs necessary to get
the item into your possession and ready to use. Depending on the type of
product acquired, those costs might include freight, shipping and handling,
installation, commissions paid by the buyer...any of many kinds of
expenditures. AND taxes levied on the buyer for the transaction, such as
sales taxes paid to the seller (for transmission to the state) or use taxes
paid directly to the state for items purchased sales tax-free (for resale or
from another state in some cases) but on which the use tax must be paid.
A much longer lesson is available, Doug, but this should suffice for today.
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(Retired. No longer licensed to practice public accounting.)
r...@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Using Quicken Deluxe 2010 and Windows Live Mail in Win7 x64)
"Doug" <Doug_...@yho.com> wrote in message
news:riJMm.18948$ky1....@newsfe14.iad...
Doug
> Hi, Doug.
>
> I don't know where you studied accounting, but you apparently
> misunderstood what you were taught.
>
> An expense - or an asset purchase - includes all the costs necessary to
> get the item into your possession and ready to use. Depending on the
> type of product acquired, those costs might include freight, shipping
> and handling, installation, commissions paid by the buyer...any of many
> kinds of expenditures. AND taxes levied on the buyer for the
> transaction, such as sales taxes paid to the seller (for transmission to
> the state) or use taxes paid directly to the state for items purchased
> sales tax-free (for resale or from another state in some cases) but on
> which the use tax must be paid.
>
> A much longer lesson is available, Doug, but this should suffice for today.
>
> RC
University of Connecticut, many years ago. I understand aggregation of
separate costs to form a larger cost, such as in Cost of Goods Sold.
But the way I was taught, sales tax does not add to an asset's
valuation. If I bought a $10,000 truck and paid $1,000 State Sales Tax,
I would debit $11,000 from my bank account, create a $10,000 asset, and
book a $1,000 expense for Sales Tax. Is that not correct?
I believe that for OP to wish to distinguish his computer game expenses
from his software expenses, but not his tax expenses, is whimsical. He
has every right to be whimsical in his bookkeeping if he wishes, but
there's little reason for Quicken to have been programmed that way, is
there?
Doug
Doug
would capitalize a point-of-sale Sales Tax payment. Maybe there is one.
I understand the impulse to fold the sales taxes paid to the State into
the "cost" of the purchase. Now that Sales Tax is generally not federal
deductible, there's little benefit for an individual to track the
expense. One could just as easily IGNORE the taxes, too, and (using
Quicken's feckless terminology) simply not categorize that portion of
the split instead of apportioning them.
Many of my purchases involve a mix of taxable and non-taxable items. So
when for example I'm splitting a Costco bill, I might have some portion
categorized as groceries, some as clothing, and some as medicine. In my
state, groceries aren't subject to sales tax, so if Quicken apportioned
the sales taxes to all the split categories, that would be incorrect also.
But I still come back to the notion that Quicken can't be expected to
read my mind. It has to be programmed with some conventions in mind,
and the conventions Intuit used are vaguely based upon bookkeeping
principles. My recollection is that this thread began with a new
Quicken user asking why Q didn't let him do something that Microsoft
Money did let him do. The only reasonable answer is that Intuit didn't
write the software that way because they didn't think anyone
would/should want to falsely categorize an expense.
Doug
TomYoung
> I'm actually having a hard time thinking of a situation in which one
> would capitalize a point-of-sale Sales Tax payment. Maybe there is one.
Well, from a strict theory standpoint, R.C. White expressed the
accounting convention correctly, so there's actually lots of
situations where you'd capitalize sales taxes. Quicken gives you the
flexibility to be conventional or unconventional in your
accounting. :-)
> Many of my purchases involve a mix of taxable and non-taxable items. So
> when for example I'm splitting a Costco bill, I might have some portion
> categorized as groceries, some as clothing, and some as medicine. In my
> state, groceries aren't subject to sales tax, so if Quicken apportioned
> the sales taxes to all the split categories, that would be incorrect also.
You've expressed the most significant problem to the "really easy to
implement" process of automatic allocation of sales tax. In
California, unprepared food items sold at supermarkets are not taxed
but ready-to-eat hot foods are taxed, as are soft drinks and cat
food. But, for my accounting, it's all "food" and the only way an
automatic allocation of sales tax could work is if I set up two
categories of "food" - maybe "food non-taxed" and "food taxed" and
then Quicken supplied a check box in the category setup that
identified each category as to sales tax eligibility. Depending on
how you categorize purchases, where you shop, and your local sales tax
structure you could end up with dozens of categories you'd have to
identify this way.
> But I still come back to the notion that Quicken can't be expected to
> read my mind. It has to be programmed with some conventions in mind,
> and the conventions Intuit used are vaguely based upon bookkeeping
> principles. My recollection is that this thread began with a new
> Quicken user asking why Q didn't let him do something that Microsoft
> Money did let him do. The only reasonable answer is that Intuit didn't
> write the software that way because they didn't think anyone
> would/should want to falsely categorize an expense.
Nah, that's not the case. Accounting conventions are certainly *not*
what drives the programming at Quicken; it's much more the "black
letter" government rules and and regulations, e.g., capitalizing the
"expense" of broker's fees in your stock basis. I've complained here
before, many times, that Quicken should have a lot more accountants
working on the product to catch improper accounting that's "built in"
by the programmers.
Tom Young
R. C. White
"TomYoung" <somb...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:b368275e-7201-4378...@f1g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
> On Nov 18, 12:20 pm, Doug <Doug_Ell...@yho.com> wrote:
>> I'm actually having a hard time thinking of a situation in which one
>> would capitalize a point-of-sale Sales Tax payment. Maybe there is one.
>
> Well, from a strict theory standpoint, R.C. White expressed the
> accounting convention correctly, so there's actually lots of
> situations where you'd capitalize sales taxes. Quicken gives you the
> flexibility to be conventional or unconventional in your
> accounting. :-)
I agree.
Sometimes it's hard to recall that Quicken was designed as a checkbook
program. It took a very pragmatic approach, ignoring accounting theory in
many ways.
>> Many of my purchases involve a mix of taxable and non-taxable items. So
>> when for example I'm splitting a Costco bill, I might have some portion
>> categorized as groceries, some as clothing, and some as medicine. In my
>> state, groceries aren't subject to sales tax, so if Quicken apportioned
>> the sales taxes to all the split categories, that would be incorrect
>> also.
> You've expressed the most significant problem to the "really easy to
> implement" process of automatic allocation of sales tax. In
> California, unprepared food items sold at supermarkets are not taxed
> but ready-to-eat hot foods are taxed, as are soft drinks and cat
> food. But, for my accounting, it's all "food" and the only way an
> automatic allocation of sales tax could work is if I set up two
> categories of "food" - maybe "food non-taxed" and "food taxed" and
> then Quicken supplied a check box in the category setup that
> identified each category as to sales tax eligibility. Depending on
> how you categorize purchases, where you shop, and your local sales tax
> structure you could end up with dozens of categories you'd have to
> identify this way.
I practiced public accounting in California for 18 years (1962-1980) and had
plenty of experience with the sales tax, both professionally and personally.
Then I lived and practiced in Oklahoma for 10 years; the sales tax rules
were mostly the same. Now I've been in Texas for nearly 20 years, but
retired, so my experience here is only personal, not professional - but the
general sales tax rules are still similar. "Groceries" are not taxable, but
meals and some prepared foods are. As you said, a Quicken programmer would
have to deal with "dozens of categories" in trying to program automatic
allocation of sales taxes - and then we users would have to classify each
multi-item purchase receipt to match those! Can you imagine how much WE
would gripe about that inconvenience?
>> But I still come back to the notion that Quicken can't be expected to
>> read my mind. It has to be programmed with some conventions in mind,
>> and the conventions Intuit used are vaguely based upon bookkeeping
>> principles. My recollection is that this thread began with a new
>> Quicken user asking why Q didn't let him do something that Microsoft
>> Money did let him do. The only reasonable answer is that Intuit didn't
>> write the software that way because they didn't think anyone
>> would/should want to falsely categorize an expense.
>
> Nah, that's not the case. Accounting conventions are certainly *not*
> what drives the programming at Quicken; it's much more the "black
> letter" government rules and and regulations, e.g., capitalizing the
> "expense" of broker's fees in your stock basis. I've complained here
> before, many times, that Quicken should have a lot more accountants
> working on the product to catch improper accounting that's "built in"
> by the programmers.
Tax laws are written by legislators - and very few of those are accountants.
That's why so many corporations have to keep more than one set of books.
One set is kept according to accounting principles developed over centuries
by accountants who were trying to report accurately the results of business
activities. The other set is kept according to laws, which are concerned
with producing tax revenues and - more and more in recent decades - with
motivating taxpayers to act in certain ways that lawmakers want us to
behave. These tax provisions very often do not conform with accounting
principles! They don't have to make sense; they are the LAW! :^{
Even if tax laws allow you to deduct the sales tax you pay on your new car
or computer or shirt or candy bar, the tax on that transaction is still a
part of the cost - to you - of buying that property.
Accounting theory has evolved over the centuries, but I suspect that, even
at the "University of Connecticut, many years ago", that is what was being
taught in accounting theory classes. That's what I was taught at the
University of Oklahoma in the 1950's (BBA in Accounting, 1956). And I'm
pretty sure that is what today's students are learning.
> Tom Young
Doug
so I'll agree I was wrong about the undesirability of allocating sales
tax expenses to the accounts of the goods being purchased.
I still don't understand why anyone using Quicken would find this
useful. If one is going to go to the trouble of finely categorizing
their purchases, why not categorize the tax expenses, too? Do they
blend their FICA and income tax back into their salary? But I don't
need to understand why someone would wish to do so, and needlessly
described doing so as "wrong". To the OP: sorry.
TomYoung wrote:
> there's actually lots of
> situations where you'd capitalize sales taxes.
So, in my truck situation, I'd amortize the sales tax over the life of
the truck? I guess I can see that, although I don't like it. The truck
loses value over time, for sure, but the one-time expense of the sales
tax is incurred all at once and is a function of the purchase action,
not the life cycle of the good purchased. Knowing what to capitalize
and what to expense was always more art than science if I remember
correctly. But one factor was, I thought, whether or not the
item/service being acquired had some enduring value. I can re-sell the
truck, but I cannot transfer any worth to another person once I've paid
the state its sales tax. The "value" of the disbursement instantly
dissipates.
> In
> California, unprepared food items sold at supermarkets are not taxed
> but ready-to-eat hot foods are taxed, as are soft drinks and cat
> food. But, for my accounting, it's all "food" and the only way an
> automatic allocation of sales tax could work is if I set up two
> categories of "food" - maybe "food non-taxed" and "food taxed"
I seem to recall living in jurisdictions where "children's" clothing was
untaxed and "adult" clothing was taxed. Silly, and fraud-provoking.
Doug
Doug
so I'll agree I was wrong about the undesirability of allocating sales
tax expenses to the accounts of the goods being purchased.
I still don't understand why anyone using Quicken would find this
useful. If one is going to go to the trouble of finely categorizing
their purchases, why not categorize the tax expenses, too? Do they
blend their FICA and income tax back into their salary? But I don't
need to understand why someone would wish to do so, and needlessly
described doing so as "wrong". To the OP: sorry.
TomYoung wrote:
> there's actually lots of
> situations where you'd capitalize sales taxes.
So, in my truck situation, I'd amortize the sales tax over the life of
the truck? I guess I can see that, although I don't like it. The truck
loses value over time, for sure, but the one-time expense of the sales
tax is incurred all at once and is a function of the purchase action,
not the life cycle of the good purchased. Knowing what to capitalize
and what to expense was always more art than science if I remember
correctly. But one factor was, I thought, whether or not the
item/service being acquired had some enduring value. I can re-sell the
truck, but I cannot transfer any worth to another person once I've paid
the state its sales tax. The "value" of the disbursement instantly
dissipates.
> In
> California, unprepared food items sold at supermarkets are not taxed
> but ready-to-eat hot foods are taxed, as are soft drinks and cat
> food. But, for my accounting, it's all "food" and the only way an
> automatic allocation of sales tax could work is if I set up two
> categories of "food" - maybe "food non-taxed" and "food taxed"
Doug
> car or computer or shirt or candy bar, the tax on that transaction is
> still a part of the cost - to you - of buying that property.
>
> Accounting theory has evolved over the centuries, but I suspect that,
> even at the "University of Connecticut, many years ago", that is what
> was being taught in accounting theory classes. That's what I was taught
> at the University of Oklahoma in the 1950's (BBA in Accounting, 1956).
> And I'm pretty sure that is what today's students are learning.
>
Well, of course it is "part of the cost". Aren't some costs expensed?
Aren't some costs booked in one account, while others to other accounts?
Remember where this started: someone new to Quicken who wanted to
categorize his expenses. I'm not disputing that sales tax is a cost.
I am a little slow on the uptake here with the notion that sales taxes
paid are an asset <grin>.
Doug
ebloch
State Income Tax OR State Sales Tax.
If still true that would be one reason to maintain a seperate Sales Tax
Category.
"Doug" <Doug_...@yho.com> wrote in message
news:RbgNm.52801$gg6....@newsfe25.iad...
Andrew
OP bought a bunch of stuff in two categories (Games and Software),
wants to spread the cost of the sales tax across what he bought to find his
out of pocket cost for the stuff for his out of pocket expense. I am
assuming we're talking about personal expenses, nothing he's reporting as a
business expense. THAT'S IT! Nothing more.
If I go into a store and buy something for $5.00 and they charge me 8% sales
tax, the cost to me for the item was $5.40. If I buy two different things of
varying cost, then the sales tax needs to be distributed across
proportionally to allow me to track my true out of pocket costs for the
items.
I think that's all he cared about! How much did each of the games and
software cost him? That's all. Not hard.
slb
You hit it on the head. Quicken was written as a personal check writer, not a
GAAP compliant double-entry business accounting package. Unless you're running a
publicly traded company or have other business requirements, GAAP, depreciation
schedules, salvage value, etal. will probably have little meaning for you.
I have an MBA in finance and 12 years in the "Big 8" (am I dating myself RC?)
and have seen every chart of accounts scheme imaginable. I personally record
sales taxes as a separate category for a couple of reasons.
Years ago they were deductible Schedule A items along with state and personal
property taxes. It always reduced the tax bill by a coupleof hundred and I had
detailed backup if I was ever audited.
I'm also curious how much I pay all the various government entities for the
year. Sales taxes amount to a couple of thousand, on top of all the other taxes
I pay the vultures. For some reason though, I never broke out all the taxes on
utility bills -- talk about extortion.
Finally, it was easier for me to put taxes in a separate category than to try to
apportion and deal with the taxable/non-taxable issues and different tax rates
by municipality. Years ago if I made a purchase in one municipality and returned
to the same merchant in another, I could be charged/credited at different tax
rates. Also Quicken's crappy little calculator didn't help simplify the effort.
Am I GAAP compliant? Who cares? It's money out of pocket and Quicken lets me
categorize it and report it any way I see fit. There is no right or wrong answer
when it comes to PERSONAL finance.
sb
Jose68
Thanks, Andrew! Right on!!!
I don't know how this ended up as a discussion about capitalizing
stuff!!! A $25 game and a $35 program?
Maybe someone doesn't use the split function at all... but if you do
extensively, as I do, what I was asking for saves me time. In some
cases, I even want to keep record of the price I paid for different
items (some of them in the same category) bought at the same time.
Which is why "splits" were created! I might have 7 line items in the
split window, or more! Actually, Q allows to have tens of lines!!
And to add even more!
Well, how do you do it today? Do you multiple every item (let's
simplify and assume that everything includes tax in this given
receipt) times the sales tax %? If you have 7 line items, how many
extra key strokes are we talking about? Let me tell you, the
functionality of Money is really simple, and again, Doug, doesn't
force you to use it!!! For me, it is much easier to add the price of
the items from the receipt (which are pre-tax), and once I've split
all the categories, allocate the remaining amount (after checking that
all that is left is really the tax amount) proportionally among all
the split items. It works great. And I'm sure more people would use
this that some features that Q has implemented.
And related to the fact that some expenses are not taxable, I agree. I
never used the "F6" key in Money to split my Costco bill into
groceries and clothes. I calculated the easier one, applied manually
the taxes to it, if applicable, and left the rest for the other
category. I can do that in Q the same way as in Money
But please, don't get this into an accounting discussion. It is much
simpler. I know that a lot of people adds sales tax to the same
category of the item being purchased. If splits are a feature of the
program, it just makes sense to give options for users to do things in
a simpler way.
Jose68
Doug, I remember where this started. I did it. And let me tell you, I
never said anything about assets!! My question was how to categorize
them, as an expense, NOT an asset, if someone wants to do it in the
same category as the item being purchased.
I understand you are suggesting that I categorize sales tax. Fine. You
go ahead and do it.
I won't. For a few reasons:
1. I've lived in Spain, Singapore and California. In Spain and
Singapore, sales tax were never deductible. So there was no point in
using that category.
2. I don't see the value in knowing how much I spent in sales tax. But
I want to know how much I spent in things, including EVERYTHING that I
had to pay in exchange of the given good
3. A lot of my expenses are in just one category. As I download the
expense from my bank or credit card, I can assign the TOTAL amount to
a category. Having to split every single entry in Q would be a pain so
big that... I wouldn't do it :)
So, for those of you that do not care about sales tax as a category,
and include the tax in the original category, how do you enter this
transaction from Walmart?
- $35 in clothes for my kids
- $25 in clothes for my wife
- $30 in a cool accessory for my car
- $45 in a lamp to replace the one I broke last week
- $20 in replacement parts for my bike
- $13.56 in sales tax (8.75% in San Diego)
- $168.56 total
Do you type this?
- $35 * 1.0875
- $25 * 1.0875
....
and so on???
What I'm saying is: you type (or is downloaded) a total of $168.56.
Then you type $35, $25, and so on, going thru your receipt. And when
you are done, there is an unassigned value of $13.56. At this time,
you press "F6", and all amounts are basically multiplied by 1.0875
(instead of you typing *1.0875 5 times, in this example).
Am I so crazy asking Q developers to look into this? Is this as
insane as Doug suggests?
R. C. White
> I have an MBA in finance and 12 years in the "Big 8" (am I dating myself
> RC?)
Yep. I spent only 2 years in the Big 8. Twenty years after my BBA, I
enrolled at Cal State College San Bernardino for an MA in Administration
with a concentration in Business Administration, not Public Administration.
(Don't you love alliteration?) Just about the time I graduated, they
changed Cal State College to Cal State University, and they changed my
degree to an MBA.
Tax rules change every time Congress meets - and when Treasury adopts new
Regulations or the IRS publishes new Rulings, Procedures, etc. - and often
when some court somewhere decides that some rule or law has been interpreted
wrongly. In the early 1960's, ALL state and local taxes were deductible on
Schedule A, and we spent lots of time asking taxpayers about their cigarette
taxes, gasoline taxes, auto licenses, etc. Then the rules changed: NO
state taxes were deductible - except state income taxes - and then sales
taxes. We tried for a while to record and/or reasonably estimate how much
sales tax each client had paid; after the IRS published charts, we found
that they usually were more generous than our calculations, so we stopped
trying to do that for most clients. Remember, this was LONG before Quicken!
Not one taxpayer in 100 had records to match what many of us have today.
They couldn't even guesstimate how much they had spent for groceries or
clothing or utilities or anything else (except their new car), with or
without sales tax. So this kind of argument never happened in those days.
The point of that last paragraph: If you plan to keep your personal
bookkeeping on the tax basis, you'd better be ready to revise your system
often. And don't try to reason it out; just follow the bouncing ball.
> Am I GAAP compliant? Who cares? It's money out of pocket and Quicken lets
> me
> categorize it and report it any way I see fit. There is no right or wrong
> answer
> when it comes to PERSONAL finance.
AMEN!
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(Retired. No longer licensed to practice public accounting.)
r...@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Using Quicken Deluxe 2010 and Windows Live Mail in Win7 x64)
"slb" <s...@nospamaol.com> wrote in message
news:4B061229...@nospamaol.com...
Doug
the notion that you should not want to do that which you clearly want to
do. Categorize anything you want any way you want.
Now -
Jose68 wrote:
> 2. I don't see the value in knowing how much I spent in sales tax. But
> I want to know how much I spent in things, including EVERYTHING that I
> had to pay in exchange of the given good.
Do you see the value in knowing how much you spent in state or local
income tax, or property tax? Why do you want to know only some of your
tax burden?
I live in the suburbs outside Washington, DC. I sometimes shop in
Maryland, Virginia, and in DC itself. The sales tax regimes in all
three are different. Only by categorizing sales tax can I have any idea
what I'm paying.
One might very well expense the cost of a piece of software, but I
certainly want to consider big-ticket, long-life purchases as assets in
my Household Inventory account. Things like motor vehicles, living room
furniture, photography equipment, or major electronics. For my own
uses, Quicken is just as important for giving me an accurate Balance
Sheet as it is for listing my income and expenses. Maybe more important.
enjoy Quicken,
Doug
Jose68
tracking sales tax. What I said is that I don't see the value in know
how much I spent in sales tax. But that is me. I can certainly
understand why some people might want to do it. But for me, it's just
not worth it.
A large percentage of my transactions are single-category. If I were
to track sales tax, most of them would be split categories, and it
would just take more of my time.
Now, for big items, I actually, do something similar to what you do,
and what other posters were saying. I transfer all the amount to an
asset account, including sales tax, but I depreciate sales tax
immediately. The difference is that, in "my books", that depreciation
is in the category Auto:Depreciation, instead of Sales Tax. It works
for me. I can understand how your way works for you.
But then we are back to square 1 :) If someone wants to allocate
sales tax in a split for several categories, Q is not providing any
help. And it would be an easy programming addition.
Anyway, thanks for the conversation! It's always interesting to read
different points of view!!
Jose
On Nov 20, 11:53 am, Doug <Doug_Ell...@yho.com> wrote:
> Hi Jose - please forgive me for beginning my comments, days ago, with
> the notion that you should not want to do that which you clearly want to
> do. Categorize anything you want any way you want.
>
Jim Nugent
> Yours is one of the many questions we see here that can be reworded as
> "why won't Quicken, an accounting program, let me violate all the
> rules of accounting and put any number I want wherever I want?"
>
> You did NOT spend $28 on games and $39 on software. You spent what
> you wrote. If you wish to pretend that money you spent on taxes was
> spent on software, be my guest. But why would you imagine Quicken
> would be programmed to facilitate faking the numbers?
Because your financial recordkeeping system should tell you what you need to
know. When I used to deduct state sales tax on my federal return, I had a
separate category for it, and, in this example would have just entered all
the numbers from the receipt.
Now, I no longer track sales tax separately, and it's more useful to know
what I paid for something, including the sales tax. So I also do the
price*(1+ t) method.
--
Jim
Jim Nugent
> But please, don't get this into an accounting discussion. It is much
> simpler. I know that a lot of people adds sales tax to the same
> category of the item being purchased. If splits are a feature of the
> program, it just makes sense to give options for users to do things in
> a simpler way.
A long, long time ago, I used to take a gas station receipt that included
gas and a car wash, and split it into two pieces: Auto:Fuel and
Auto:Maintenece. Now, I have three kids, a house, and too many demands on my
time. It goes in as Auto:Fuel.
A similar thing happens when I take a grocery store receipt and enter it as
"Groceries." It may include dishwasher detergent, paper towels, tissues and
what not, but I ignore that and just budget "Groceries" taking the above
into account.
How this is done depends on what I want to learn from my financial records.
That's probably different for different people.
--
Jim
Jose68
Now I have another example that's bugging me. I have my TV, phone and
internet with AT&T U-verse. The invoice is something like this:
U-verse TV - $79
Broadband - $35
Phone - $25
HD fee - $10
CA local video fees - $7.01
Federal Universal Service fund - $2
Sales Tax - $1.68
It is a pain to manually distribute the CA local video fees, Fed
service fund and sales tax among my 3 categories: TV, internet and
phone.
How do you guys categorize this in Quicken?
In MS Money, it was "easy". I input the total bill, the first 4 items,
and the remaining amount (those $10.69) was magically and
proportionately split among those 4 items. Do you all have a category
for "Federal Universal Service Fund" or equivalent? Or for State
video fees? Or even sales tax?
Thanks!!
Andrew
> Jim, I agree. It all depends on how you want to track your finances.
>
> Now I have another example that's bugging me. I have my TV, phone and
> internet with AT&T U-verse. The invoice is something like this:
>
> U-verse TV - $79
> Broadband - $35
> Phone - $25
> HD fee - $10
> CA local video fees - $7.01
> Federal Universal Service fund - $2
> Sales Tax - $1.68
>
> It is a pain to manually distribute the CA local video fees, Fed
> service fund and sales tax among my 3 categories: TV, internet and
> phone.
>
> How do you guys categorize this in Quicken?
>
> In MS Money, it was "easy". I input the total bill, the first 4 items,
> and the remaining amount (those $10.69) was magically and
> proportionately split among those 4 items. Do you all have a category
> for "Federal Universal Service Fund" or equivalent? Or for State
> video fees? Or even sales tax?
>
> Thanks!!
>
>
>
For my telephone service, I use UTILITIES:TELEPHONE for the entire bill.
For the cable people (like your example above), I use UTILITIES:CABLETV and
implicit is that taxes and subservices (like internet fees which are part of
the 'cabletv') are included. But it depends on what you do with your data.
Do you really need to sub-analyze all the little pieces of a bill? Quicken
makes it convenient (although in your case it doesn't have the ability to
split a difference across categories as we've discussed), but at the end of
the game, does one need to be so anal in that? If so, unfortunately, you
need to do it manually. (Personally, I would never have a separate category
for "Federal Universal Service Fund" or "State video fees". Why would I
need to track it at that level? YMMV)
John Pollard
> Jim, I agree. It all depends on how you want to track your finances.
>
> Now I have another example that's bugging me. I have my TV, phone and
> internet with AT&T U-verse. The invoice is something like this:
>
> U-verse TV - $79
> Broadband - $35
> Phone - $25
> HD fee - $10
> CA local video fees - $7.01
> Federal Universal Service fund - $2
> Sales Tax - $1.68
>
> It is a pain to manually distribute the CA local video fees, Fed
> service fund and sales tax among my 3 categories: TV, internet and
> phone.
>
> How do you guys categorize this in Quicken?
>
> In MS Money, it was "easy". I input the total bill, the first 4 items,
> and the remaining amount (those $10.69) was magically and
> proportionately split among those 4 items. Do you all have a category
> for "Federal Universal Service Fund" or equivalent? Or for State
> video fees? Or even sales tax?
I suspect that the "local video fees" should apply only to the cable
portion of the bill; and the "Federal Universal Service fund" should apply
only to the phone portion of the bill. So I'm not sure spreading either
of the two over all other split categories would be correct.
Oilcan
Here is how I do my AT&T Universe Bill. I basically looked at the
detail of the bill to determine where the fees and charges below and
have this as a memorized transaction. As the bill generally does not
change (usually only the fees change) it works well for me.
Cable Memo: Uverse TV U300 $79.00
Cable Memo: Promotional Discount ($10.00)
Internet Memo: Yahoo! Broadband Elite $20.00
Job Expenses Tag: Reimbursable Business Exp $20.00
Internet Memo: Bundle Discount ($10.00)
Telephone:Residential $30.00
Telephone:Residential Memo: Promotional Discount ($5.00)
Cable Memo: HD Technology Fee $10.00
Cable Tag: CA Local Video Service Fee $4.19
Cable Tag: CA Local Video Facilities Fee $0.50
Telephone Tag: Federal Universal Services Fee $2.00
Telephone Tag: 911 Emergency System $0.09
Cable Tag: CA Sales Tax $0.84
I do a similar breakdown of other bills (cell, electric, garbage, etc.).
I used to enter tags on purchases, but found I never had enough to
deduct so for the most part I have stopped tagging those transactions.
The bundle discount probably could have been split between the Cable,
Internet and Phone, I just lumped it under Internet as my choice.
Jose68
ok to just add it to the cable category. But I assume it should apply
to phone and internet too, right?
I agree with John that spreading fees over all categories as I was
doing was not the best way to handle it.
Thanks! I'll simplify it, and I'll follow your advise.
And I guess I'll do the same thing for G&E. I get a charge from "City
of San Diego Franchise Fee Differential 1.03% Gas 5.78% Electric",
which last month was $5.00, and I guess I'll need to split that
between G and E. There are other charges that I was also spreading
over both, but they can be identified as gas or electric easily.
I guess the "proportionately allocate difference" feature from Money
was making me have some bad habits :) Although I also like that for
sales tax allocation! ;)
Han
62518d...@x5g2000prf.googlegroups.com:
> Hello,
>
> I'm coming from Money, and there is only one thing that is bugging me
> in Quicken: how to enter split transactions. Maybe there is a way to
> do this in Quicken, but I can't find it!
>
> Let me use an example, an expense with two categories:
> - Games - $25
> - Software - $35
> - Sales Tax - $7
> - TOTAL $67
>
> In Money, I could type $67 as total, and once in the split window, I
> could type $25 and $35, and let Money assign the difference ($7)
> proportionately into all categories by pressing F6. Or I could assign
> that difference to one single line item, if applicable, pressing F5.
>
> Is there something similar in Quicken? When I'm splitting a
> transaction in 4 or 5 splits, it is a pain to have to calculate sales
> tax one by one.
>
> Thanks!
What I have done in a few cases is use the calculator when entering
amounts in a split window. I would multiply each part that is taxable
(for instance) with 1.07, since Jersey now has a 7% salestax.
--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid
Oilcan
portion - according to the second of the bill that provides the line of
line itemization of the charges. So in my case, I would not split it
out. I believe the tax is on the HD Tech Fee (although I think it is
off a penny due to rounding).
Mr.Jan
Mr.Jan
$67 shows up on the top line. If you assign the first line to GAMES
and $25, quicken puts the remaining $42 as unassigned. Then, you do
software and finall the SALES TAX for $7 which is the remainder.
Then you memorize the transaction w control M and it will save the
amounts or as a percentage.