Cash Expenditures in Quicken

[TromboneAl]

How do you you Quicken users handle cash transactions?

In the past I've just treated an ATM withdrawal as "Miscellaneous." However, let's say I pay $18 cash for dinner at a restaurant. Is there a simple way to handle that, or do I need to create a cash account and transfer money to/from that?

 

[Leonidas]

How do you you Quicken users handle cash transactions?

In the past I've just treated an ATM withdrawal as "Miscellaneous." However, let's say I pay $18 cash for dinner at a restaurant. Is there a simple way to handle that, or do I need to create a cash account and transfer money to/from that?

I used to do that when I used Quicken. At first I was meticulous about tracking cash expenses, but after a while I found that to be a real pain in the butt because of the hassle of keeping receipts and the extra time I spent entering stuff. Eventually, I came up with some average figures on where I spent my cash each week and I just used those numbers automatically whenever I withdrew cash. I used a cash account and any ATM withdrawal went there and then was divided up according to my average numbers. For larger cash expenses (rare) I would manually adjust the figures. I created a transaction with the payee as "various payees" and a memorized split putting the amounts out to different categories.


Now that I'm using Money I might go back to that because I see that cash expenses are still high up in my list of expenses.

 

[Sarah in SC]

I enter the cash transaction and use the split feature to categorize the expense. It drives DH crazy, as I require receipts for these ATM withdrawals not to be categorized as "Don's Cash" (which is what I categorize his outrageous $30 week lunch habit)
But I do let him color-in the chart on the wall with crayon when we meet a new saving/investing milestone.

I find myself using cash less and less, and the debit card more often.
Sarah

 

[Cut-Throat]

How do you you Quicken users handle cash transactions?

In the past I've just treated an ATM withdrawal as "Miscellaneous." However, let's say I pay $18 cash for dinner at a restaurant. Is there a simple way to handle that, or do I need to create a cash account and transfer money to/from that?

Yes, I use the split transaction feature. about 95% of the time I use a credit card. When I do get ATM Cash - I record the whole amount as 'Misc Cash'. But if I do make a purchase that is $25 or more, I try to take the time to go back to my last ATM Misc Cash entry, Put in a Split and then mark $25 of it for the other expenditure. It's not that difficult and I like the detail.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

When I use the ATM, sometimes I think about the lonely quicken box sitting on the shelf at home...

 

[sailor]

I have a "wallet" cash account.
ATM withdrawal transaction is a transfer to this account.
But I rarely use cash these days (maybe once a month) so it's not a big deal.
I'm sure Big Brother loves us, because we leave nice electronic trail, but the convenience (automatic downloads to all our personal and business accounts - 14 of them) is worth it.

 

[AltaRed]

I use ATM as "Miscellaneous" and if something is significant I use the Split feature as well. Bottom line for us is that cash is almost exclusively used in the supermarket for "food and general household expenses, e.g. cleaning supplies" and I do not bother splitting.

What would be more important in our household is to use the Split feature for our credit card which we use for almost every thing else. I haven't had the enthusiasm to start that feature upon our return to Canada end of April but I need to. In the US, our Wells Fargo credit card had a 'spending report' feature online that I could look at each month....and they would send a written report at the end of each calander year showing annual spending by category. It was about 95% accurate for selecting the right categories and negated the need for me to separately do splits.

 

[trixs]

I just use a Cash Spent option. As soon as I withdraw cash for whatever reason it is simply deducted from checking as "cash". It might not be spent right away but I know it will be eventually. This keeps it extremely simple.

 

[Lancelot]

When I go to the ATM, I record the transaction as Dr checking; Cr Thai cash account. Before retirement I hated budgeting, but now it's a fun game to see if I can remember what I spent.

Lance

 

[Animorph]

I use a separate cash account in Quicken. I only use cash about twice a week, so it's not too bad keeping up with it. Occasionally there's a "misc" transaction in there when I find less cash in my wallet than in Quicken.

Dan

 

[free4now]

Not an answer to the original question, but I don't use Quicken at all anymore. I used it for several years, but found my time tracking minutiae of spending was not being rewarded in any way. I don't need quicken to know that little expenses add up, and I like to think I spend the extra time I would use categorizing spending on actually making good purchasing decisions and shopping around.

There were even little subtle ways I would lose money by being obsessive about categorization. For instance I would go to a more expensive gas station where I could use a credit card, rather than buying cheaper gas at Mobil with cash, just so the gas transaction would be properly categorized in quicken.

I do like the rule Cut-throat proposed of categorizing everything above $25 and not sweating the smaller stuff.