Categories VS Accounts - Quicken

"John" <com> wrote in message
news:google.com... 

Quicken shows any accounts you have setup in the category list in order to
facilitate the recording of transfers between these accounts.

Assume for example, that you have set up Quicken accounts for your checking
account and for your credit card.

You make a credit card payment from your checking account, and need to
record this payment as a debit from your checking account and a credit to
your credit card account. In Quicken you will enter the payment only once,
most likely in the checking account, and you will select the [credit card
account] from the drop down category list. If you then take a look at your
credit card account you will see that the payment appears correctly and is
cross-referenced back to your checking account.

Another obvious every day example is selling shares from an investment
account and transferring the proceeds to your checking account.

Hope this helps clarify the situation

John wrote: 

Quicken will set up a Transaction Register for each Account.
Then, within each Account you can use Categories to track your spending
or income. The Categories will be available to every account.

For example, if you write a check for groceries, you would record it in
your Checking Account, with a category of Groceries. If you charged
your groceries to a MasterCard you would record it in your MasterCard
account, with a category of Groceries.

If you want to know the balance in your Checking Account, or the balance
on your MasterCard, look in the appropriate Transaction Register, or in
one of the Account summaries. If you want to know how much money you
spent on Groceries, create a Report on the Groceries Category.

Bernie

com (John) wrote in
news:google.com:
 

I believe that in typical double-entry bookkeeping, expenses and income
_are_ treated as accounts. But for these accounts, at the end of the
accounting period (month / quarter, etc) they are "zeroed out" with
entries, so they start the new accounting period with a zero balance.

To make things easier, and permit "checkbook" style bookkeeping,
Quicken uses the term "category" for income and expense accounts.
The balances in these "categories" are not explicitly shown, but
are created "on the fly" when Quicken creates a report.

Quicken uses the term transaction to record an event which is posted
to one account and one category, and the term transfer to record an
event which is posted to two accounts. To view the "balance" in a
category account, though, you must run a category report. Using the
accounts as intended allows you to use standard Quicken reports for
income report, balance sheet, and cash flow report.

scott s.
..

In accounting terms - - -

"Bernie" <com> wrote in message
news:com... 

Accounts are shown on your balance sheet.
(A point in time statement of finances - what your own/owe, etc.)

Categories are shown on your P & L statement.
(A period of time statement of income & expenses - why did your balance
sheet change from one point in time to another)
Categories are really income and expense accounts, in accounting terms.

Jim M.