I have an auto loan from USAA. WHen Quiken downloads it, it treats the interest expense as Interst income, which, sadly for me, it is not. 1. WHy is there no option for interest expense?
2. What do I need to do to make it work right?
Auto Loan: Interest Expense, not interest income Oct 26, 2009 09:56 pm
This post is about: Quicken Online
I have a line of credit. withdrawals show as income. I can't wrap my head around this and I think it is giving a warped view of my true finances....I started this to get a clear picture, but this just does not make sense...
Even an accountant would have problems with this...
Auto Loan: Interest Expense, not interest income Nov 04, 2009 06:47 am
This post is about: Quicken Online
I've only been using Quicken Online for a couple of days, however I've used Quicken Desktop for years, and I am an Accountant. I've also got a USAA loan and was having trouble with how to categorize the interest vs principle on the loan payment, but I think I've come up with a solution. Its not ideal, but I think it will work.
Under the loan, delete the "interest" transaction. It will throw up a warning about only deleting transactions that are duplicates, but just do it anyway. Then, categorize the "principle" transaction as "Transfer In". Take note of the principle amount, then go to your checking account and find the loan payment transaction. Change the transaction category to "Interest Expense". Then, click the transaction, click details, and then click "add another category" Choose "Transfer Out" and enter the principle amount you took down earlier. The "Interest Expense" amount will then update to the difference between the payment amount and the principle amount.
Now you have a transfer in and a transfer out for the amount of the principle, and an expense for the amount of the interest. Unfortunately this requires a little bit of manual entry every month, but its the best way I've found so far to make the loan payment right.