Getting Started with Categories, Subcategories, Income, and Transfers (Edited)

Josienurse

I downloaded my data from my bank and am trying to set up catagories. So far, I am only working on / learning Simplify for 1 checking account.

1. What catagory should I place Debit card purchases?
2. Why can't I place more than 3-4 sub catagories under a main catagory
3. Under Income. We have several income sources and a Social Security check. Some are incomes for me and some for my husband but I can't seem to add these specifically for each of us ? Why ? I want to see the amounts we recieve specifically
4. How to I add income (extra money via checks) in to my checking account Simplify file. For example, We sold a house but put the proceeds into a savings account. We received an insurance payment and put that in to a savings account. These extra checks all affect our "net worth" but not yet since they are in a savings account. But - sometimes, we move money from savings to pay a bill. Not sure how to account for this.
5. Lastly, if I transfer money from our checking account to pay a Credit Card Bill, how should that be catagorized ?

Wondering if there is a video specific to Catagories??

Thanks for your help

JosieNurse

Coach Aldair

Hi @Josienurse,

Welcome to the Quicken Simplifi Community! I'm happy to help clarify these questions as you get started.

I'll go through each one below:

1. Debit card purchases: These should be categorized based on what you purchased. For example, groceries would go under Groceries, gas under Gas & Fuel, and restaurant purchases under Restaurants & Dining. Quicken Simplifi automatically assigns categories to downloaded transactions, but you can change them as needed.
2. Subcategories: Quicken Simplifi supports up to three category levels: a main category, a subcategory, and a second-level subcategory. You can create as many categories and subcategories as you need within those levels. For more information, please see our Managing Categories and Subcategories article.
3. Separating income by person: You can create custom income categories to distinguish between your income sources. For example, you could create categories such as "My Income," "Daughter Income," and "Social Security – Me" or "Social Security – Sister." This will help you track each source separately in your Income reports.
4. For other deposits, such as insurance payments or proceeds from selling a property, you can categorize them appropriately based on the nature of the deposit. https://support.simplifi.quicken.com/en/articles/3359548-how-to-create-an-income-deposit-transaction
5. Credit card payments: When you pay your credit card from your checking account, use the Credit Card Payment category. This is treated as a transfer rather than an expense because the original purchases have already been recorded as expenses on your credit card account.

You can learn more about this in our How Do Transfers Work? article.

I hope this helps make things a little clearer as you get familiar with Quicken Simplifi!

Any questions please let me know.

Thanks!