quicken 2003 Basic Category Question?!

I don't understand what you're trying to accomplish. Why would you want date information included in the category? You can run reports for income and expense activity during a period of time.

its not really a date, it a main category and it has subcategories.

"fall04" sounds like it translates into a time period Fall of 2004. Rather than creating categories that include time period information, you could use one set of categories for all time periods and run reports to specifically look at income/expense info during the Fall of 2004.

However, if you really want to create 4 main categories every year with the same sub-categories, you'll probably need to do it manually. That means you'll have to create a Spring05 main category and then create all the same sub-categories you had for fall04. Renaming fall04 to Spring05 changes all the fall04 entries, as you've found.

Are you familiar with the reporting capabilities of Quicken? I hate to see you go through all this work 4 times every year when it seems unnecessary.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah that would be a good idea but what about out standing check that roll into the spring semester from the fall?

thanks
jw

I don't understand your question. Quicken doesn't care when checks clear.

I know thats why when you print out a statement for aceratin time you balance wouldnt be right because there would be some checksnot cleared at that time

You don't print anything out when you reconcile with Quicken. Have you ever done a Reconcile within the program? You enter your statement information in, and then you put a check mark next to the items that have cleared.

You can write a check on 1/1/2005 and not have it clear until 12/31/2005, and you won't have any problems balancing your checkbook within Quicken. You wouldn't have problems reconciling with a paper register that way, right? The same goes for Quicken.

Intuit publishes books for every version of Quicken, and they're quite good. You might want to pick one up for the version you have and read it over. Making categories for college semesters isn't going to help you in any way, and it will make using Quicken more difficult and confusing.

hmmm goood point, ill try that. I really apprecite your help, ...quicken master you...