I think this is generally going to be a personal choice. I currently do it this way:

since my incomes all come into my main checking, and I want outgoing money to be "trended" correctly, I will categorize the money in my checking account as going to savings with the category "savings". However, in my savings account i categorize it as "transfer in" so that it doesn't show up twice (transfer in and out don't appear anywhere in trends, etc). Only "new" income is categorized then so for example if my savings has interest, its categorized as "interest". then if I look at a month under trends for the income category I will see "savings" (money from my checking account) and "interest" (money from my savings account) accurately.

This has MOSTLY worked just fine. My biggest problem is what to do when I am using the money from savings. For example, I transfered $8k out for a purchase recently and have it as "transfer out" (so it won't be counted) and then in checking i have that new money shown as "transfer in" so it won't be counted. Then the actual check i wrote for the $8k item shows up and is counted as whatever category I want as "spent". again, generally this is great and it does show where I am spending... but my home page now says I am living outside my means becuase my "spending" was so much higher than my income due to that one large $8k cost. (I know that money came from savings ... but in the program there isn't a way to tag that easily i guess)

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erh1 (Nov 22, 2009 1:03 pm)

FrankiiieD,

Follow up question for you. First, I'm assuming "trending" is a feature of quicken online? I don't see it in my desktop version. Not sure if you can answer this but every time I search for what I'm looking for your post keeps coming up.

Second, I had previously tracked my savings incorrectly and want to adjust. The situation starts when I get a check from my wife to deposit in our savings (differ accts). When I download my transactions I want to keep that transaction as an expense so I categorize as Savings payment. But when I download the transaction in the savings account I can't set it so that it doesn't count as income. If I chose a category it becomes income. If I try to change to a transfer it adds the transfer out in the original account, thus, doubling the transactions, unless I delete the check transaction. I don't want to do that b/c I want to see that as a deletion from my income.

Thanks if you can help or if anyone has an answer for this type of situation.

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FrankiiieD (Nov 23, 2009 3:08 pm)

I do use Quicken Online. I apologize as I believe being new to this forum I didn't realize all the options out there and that I should post in certain areas for certain products, hence the confusion.

in the Online version, trends are a very important (and easy) way to see where everything is going. Picking any date range and going by income or spending or savings or whateve, you see broad categories and then can drill down. You can also edit from within that screen which is nice.

As far as the savings question, speaking only from the online version, what I would do if this were me is on her account when money comes in its obviously labled paycheck or whatever and categorized as income. if she sent money to a savings account via transfer or check directly in that account the category should be savings as to where the money was "spent". in the savings account itself I would simply label it as "transfer in" so that its not counted as "income". As far as definitions go (and again speaking from the online version) anything called "transfer out" or "transfer in" is merely seen as moving money around and while it shows up as a positive or negative amount...its not seen as "spent" (leaving your various accounts completely) or "income" (money that hasn't been with you before)

so when I move money from a savings account to a CD for example, I don't categorize that as "savings" or anything else at all..i simple have them set as "transfer out" and "transfer in" and none of my trends will change.

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erh1 (Nov 23, 2009 9:13 pm)

FrankiiieD,

Actually, my fault. I just noticed in the bread crumb navigation that I'm in the wrong product area (this is for online version). Guess I got excited when Google returned something along the lines of my question.

Appreciate the advice.