Quicken 2015 for Dummies

Quicken is the country's most popular and highly recommended personal finance software, and with Quicken For Dummies, you can harness the power of this practical financial tool to manage bills, reconcile bank accounts, track investments, and much more!

Personal finance expert and CPA Stephen L. Nelson lends his expertise to this accessible, easy-to-read guide, which has been fully updated to reflect the new features of Quicken available in its newest version. You can quickly learn how to use Quicken to record credit card transactions, track mortgages and other liabilities, minimize taxes, maximize savings, maintain detailed records, and build a solid foundation for creating better financial plans.

• Covers updated features in the newest version of the increasingly popular Quicken software
• Empowers readers to fight the bad habits and decisions that lead to large debts and minimal or nonexistent savings
• Demystifies the software's features for tracking everyday finances, managing investments, and evaluating the tax implications of financial decisions
• Offers invaluable advice and expertise from author Stephen L. Nelson, a recognized authority on personal finance

Every step toward better finances is a step in the right direction. Let Quicken For Dummies start your journey toward increased savings, lowered debt, and a more secure financial future.

Stephen L. Nelson is an author and CPA. He provides accounting, business advisory, tax planning, and tax preparation services to small businesses. He is the author of over 100 books, including all editions of QuickBooks For Dummies and Quicken For Dummies, which have sold more than 2 million copies.

Introduction 1

About This Book 1

Three Foolish Assumptions 2

Beyond the Book 3

Special Icons 4

Where to Next? 4

Part I: Zen, Quicken, and the Big Picture 5

Chapter 1: Setting Up Shop 7

Installing and Starting Quicken 8

Finishing Setup If You’ve Used Quicken Before 9

Finishing Setup If You’ve Not Used Quicken Before 10

Already a Quicken user? 10

Are you new to Quicken? 11

Registering Quicken 11

Describing Your Banking 12

Slogging Through More Setup Stuff 16

Steve’s Overview 19

Using Quicken Qcards 19

Starting Quicken for the second time 19

Using the Accounts bar 19

Navigating with tabs 20

Solving Tricky Setup Problems 20

Using the Quicken Mobile App 20

Did somebody say Macintosh? 20

The mysterious case of the missing Quicken data files 21

Migrating from Microsoft Money 21

Chapter 2: Introduction to the Big Picture 23

Boiling Quicken Down to Its Essence 23

Tracking tax deductions 24

Monitoring spending 24

Printing checks (and other forms) 25

Tracking bank accounts, credit cards, and other stuff 26

Planning your personal finances 26

Banking online 27

Setting Up Additional Accounts 27

Setting up another banking account 27

Hey, Quicken, I want to use that account! 31

Whipping Your Category Lists into Shape 32

Subcategories yikes, what are they? 37

Category groups double yikes! 38

Four tips on categorization 38

Ch-ch-changing a category list 39

Want to Play Tag? 43

Chapter 3: Maximum Fun, Maximum Profits 45

Should You Even Bother with a Budget? 45

Serious Advice about Your Secret Plan 46

Your personal Secret Plan 46

Two things that really goof up Secret Plans 47

Setting Up a Secret Plan 50

Introducing the Budgets window 50

Reviewing the options 55

Reviewing your budget 56

What to do after you enter your budget 56

Part II: The Absolute Basics 57

Chapter 4: Checkbook on a Computer 59

Getting Started 59

Finding Your Checkbook 60

Recording Checks 61

Entering a check in the register 61

Changing a check you’ve entered 64

Packing more checks into the register 64

Sorting transactions 65

Working with a kooky (and clever) little thing named QuickFill 66

Recording Deposits 67

Entering a deposit into the register 67

Changing a deposit you’ve already entered 69

Recording Account Transfers 69

Entering an account transfer 70

Working with the other half of the transfer 71

Changing a transfer you’ve already entered 72

Splitting Transactions 72

Steps for splitting a check 73

Editing and deleting split categories 76

Steps for splitting deposits and transfers 77

Deleting and Voiding Transactions 77

The Big Register Phenomenon 78

Moving through a big register 78

Finding that darn transaction 78

Pop-Up Calendars and Calculators 83

Attaching Flags, Notes, and Images 85

Chapter 5: Printing 101 87

Printing Checks 87

What if you make a mistake entering a check? 90

Printing a check you’ve entered 91

What if you discover a mistake after you print the check? 94

A few words about check printing 95

Printing a Check Register 96

Chapter 6: Online and In Charge 99

What are Online Account Access and Online Bill Payment? 99

Wise Whys and Wherefores 100

Banking with Online Account Access and Online Bill Payment 101

Finding an online bank — online 102

Paying bills 103

Transferring money between accounts 105

Updating your Quicken accounts 105

Chapter 7: Reports, Charts, and Other Cool Tools 107

Creating and Printing Reports 107

Printing the facts, and nothing but the facts 108

Reviewing standard reports 112

Finding the report you want 118

Going to the printing dog-and-pony show 118

Editing and rearranging reports 121

Charts Only Look Tricky 124

Customizing Your Reports 125

Chapter 8: A Matter of Balance 127

Selecting the Account You Want to Balance 127

Balancing a Bank Account 128

Telling Quicken, “Hey, man, I want to balance this account” 128

Giving Quicken the bank’s information 129

Explaining the difference between your records and the bank’s records 131

Ten Things You Should Do If Your Account Doesn’t Balance 135

Make sure that you’re working with the right account.135

Look for transactions that the bank has recorded but you haven’t 135

Look for reversed transactions 135

Look for a transaction that’s equal to half the difference 136

Look for a transaction that’s equal to the difference 136

Check for transposed numbers 136

Have someone else look over your work 137

Look out for multiple errors 137

Try again next month (and maybe the month after that) 137

Get in your car, drive to the bank, and beg for help 138

Chapter 9: Housekeeping for Quicken 139

Backing Up is Hard to Do 139

Backing up the quick-and-dirty way 139

Deciding when to back up 142

Losing your Quicken data after you’ve backed up 143

Losing your Quicken data when you haven’t backed up 145

Working with Files, Files, and More Files 146

Setting up a new file 146

Flip-flopping between files 148

When files get too big for their own good 149

Using and Abusing Passwords 152

Setting up a file password 153

Changing a file password 155

Sanitizing a File 156

Chapter 10: Compound Interest Magic and Other Mysteries 157

Noodling Around with Your Investments 157

Using the Investment Savings Calculator 158

Trying to become a millionaire 159

The Often-Unbearable Burden of Debt 161

Using the Loan Calculator to figure payments 161

Calculating loan balances 163

The Refinance Calculator 164

The Retirement Calculator 165

The dilemma in a nutshell 165

Retirement planning calculations 167

If you’re now bummed out about retirement 170

Retirement roulette 171

Cost of College 171

The College Calculator 171

If you’re now bummed out about college costs 173

Planning for Taxes 174

The Other Planning Tools 177

Part III: Home Finances 179

Chapter 11: Credit Cards, Petty Cash, and PayPal 181

Tracking a Credit Card 181

Setting Up a Credit Card Account 182

Adding a credit card account 182

Selecting a credit card account so that you can use it 186

Entering Credit Card Transactions 186

Touring the credit card register 187

Recording a credit card charge 187

Changing charges you’ve already entered 189

Paying credit card bills 189

Reconciling That Crazy Account 190

What the nasty credit card company says 191

Ouch! Did I really spend that much? 193

If you record a transaction wrong, do this 194

Oh, that explains the difference 194

If you’re ready to finish 195

If you want to postpone the inevitable 195

Paying the bill as part of the reconciliation 196

The Online Banking Hoopla 197

Should you even bother? 197

How to use Online Account Access with your credit card 197

Petty Cash and Mad Money 198

Adding a cash account 198

Tracking cash inflows and outflows 199

Recording checks you cash instead of deposit 200

Updating cash balances 201

PayPal Can Be Quicken’s Friend 202

Chapter 12: Other People’s Money 203

Should You Bother to Track Your Debts? 203

How Do You Get Started? 204

Setting up a liability account for an amortized loan 204

Fixing loan stuff 210

Delivering a Pound of Flesh (Also Known as Making a Payment) 214

Recording the payment 215

Handling mortgage escrow accounts 216

Your Principal-Interest Breakdown Won’t Be Right 219

So you can’t change the world 219

Slightly smarter adjustments 220

Automatic Payments 220

Scheduling a bill reminder 221

Scheduling income and transfer reminders 223

Another way to schedule transactions 223

Checking out the Calendar 226

Chapter 13: Tracking Tax-Deferred Investments 227

Deciding to Use Investment Features 227

Are your investments tax-deferred? 228

Are you a mutual fund fanatic? 228

Some investors don’t need Quicken 229

Many investors do want Quicken 229

Tracking a Tax-Deferred Investment 231

Setting up a tax-deferred investment account 231

Recording your initial investment 236

Buying investments 240

Recording your profits 243

Selling investments 244

Correcting a mistake 246

Working with slightly tricky investment transactions 247

Reconciling an account 249

Trying reports 250

Using menu commands and other stuff 250

Updating Securities Prices 250

Chapter 14: Stocks and Bonds 253

Setting Up a Brokerage Account 253

Recording your initial share balances 254

Working with brokerage accounts 254

Setting up security lists 254

Working with cash 256

Recording other not-so-tricky transactions 263

More Quick Stuff about Brokerage Accounts 265

Monitoring and updating securities values 266

Adjusting errors 266

A few words on the Investing tab’s other tools 268

Part IV: Very Serious Business 271

Chapter 15: Mind Your Business 273

Setting Up a Business the Quicken Way 273

Describing your business(es) 274

Designing business invoices 275

Identifying invoice items 276

Working with Customers 278

Setting up a Customer Invoices account 278

Invoicing your customers 279

Printing invoices 281

Recording customer payments 282

Issuing credits and making refunds 283

Business Bookkeeping Whistles and Bells 284

Jobs and projects 284

Using finance charges, estimates, and statements 284

Managing vendor bills 285

Vehicle Mileage Tracker 285

Quicken Dirty Payroll 286

Getting ready for payroll 286

Setting up the wages expense category 286

Setting up the payroll tax expense category 287

Getting the taxes stuff right 288

Depositing taxes 291

Tax deposit tips 293

Filing quarterly payroll tax returns 295

Computing annual returns and wage statements 295

Doing the state payroll taxes thing 296

Chapter 16: Managing Rentals 297

Describing a Rental Property 297

Describing Tenants 300

Recording Tenant Rent Payments 301

Recording Rental Expenses 302

Tracking Rental Property Profits 304

Part V: The Part of Tens 305

Chapter 17: (Slightly More Than) Ten Questions I’m Frequently Asked about Quicken 307

What are Quicken’s Best Features? 308

Does Quicken Work for a Corporation? 309

What Happens to Stockholders’ Equity in Quicken? 310

Does Quicken Work for a Partnership? 310

Can I Use Quicken for More Than One Business? 311

What Kinds of Businesses Shouldn’t Use Quicken? 311

Can I Use Quicken for Real Estate Investing? 313

Can I Use Quicken Retroactively? 314

Can I Do Payroll with Quicken? 315

Can I Prepare Invoices? 315

Can I Import Data from an Old Accounting System? 315

What Do You Think about Quicken? 316

Chapter 18: (Almost) Ten Tips on How Not to Become a Millionaire 317

Ignore the Fact That You Can Build Wealth by Investing in Ownership Investments and Earning Average Returns 318

Ignore the Fact That You Can Get Much, and Maybe Most, of the Money from Tax Savings and Employer Matching 320

Don’t Tap Your Computer’s Power to Develop Wealth-Building Insights 321

Give Up, Because It’s Too Late to Start Anyway 322

Get Entangled in at Least One “Get-Rich-Quick” Scheme 323

Fake It with False Affluence 324

Give In to the First Big Temptation of Wealth Building 325

Give In to the Second Big Temptation of Wealth Building 325

Chapter 19: (Almost) Ten Troubleshooting Tips 327

Tactics #1 and #2: Use the Quicken Help File and This Book 327

Tactic #3: Visit the Quicken Product Support Website 328

Tactics #4 and #5: Check the Microsoft or the Hardware Vendor Product Support Website 328

Tactic #6: Contact Intuit Directly 329

Tactic #7: Try the Quicken Live Community 329

Tactic #8: Install and Use Antivirus Software 330

Tactic #9: When All Else Fails 330

Part VI: Appendixes 331

Appendix A: Quick-and-Dirty Windows 8.1 333

What is Windows 8.1? 333

Starting Windows 8.1 334

Starting Programs 335

Choosing Commands from Menus 336

Choosing commands with the furry little rodent 337

Choosing commands by using Alt+key combinations 338

Context menus or shortcut menus 339

Using shortcut-key combinations 339

Disabled commands 339

Working with Dialog Boxes 340

Text boxes 340

Check boxes 342

Tabs 342

Option buttons 342

Command buttons 342

List boxes 343

Stopping Quicken in Windows 8.1 344

A Yelp for Help 345

The Getting Started Guide command 345

The Quicken Help command 345

The View Guidance command 347

The Quicken Live Community command 347

The Quicken Support command 347

The Submit Feedback on Quicken command 347

The Privacy Preferences command 347

The Log Files command 347

The About Quicken command 348

The Add Tools commands 348

The Register Quicken command 348

Quitting Windows 8.1 348

Appendix B: Glossary of Business, Financial, and Computer Terms 349

Index 359

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