Quicken 2008: The Missing Manual

Quicken 2008: The Missing Manual

by Bonnie Biafore
Released November 2007
Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
ISBN: 9780596515157

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Book description

Quicken is one of the many convenient ways to keep track of personal finances, but many people are unaware of Quicken's power and end up using only the basic features. And sometimes Quicken seems to raise more questions than it answers: Return of capital from stock? "Net worth"? What are they and why do you need to know about them? Luckily, Quicken 2008: The Missing Manual picks up where Quicken's help resources leave off. You'll find step-by-step instructions for using Quicken on your Windows PC, including useful features such as budgeting, recording investment transactions, and archiving Quicken data files. You also learn why and when to use specific features, and which ones would be most useful in a given situation. Quicken 2008: The Missing Manual helps you:

  • Set up Quicken to take care of your specific needs

  • Follow your money from the moment you earn it

  • Make deposits, pay for expenses, track the things you own and how much you owe

  • Take care of financial tasks online, and quickly reconcile your accounts

  • Create and use budgets and track your investments

  • Generate reports to prepare your tax returns and evaluate your financial fitness

    • And a lot more. This book is designed to accommodate readers at every technical level. If you're a first-time Quicken user, special boxes with the title "Up To Speed" provide the introductory information you need to understand the topic at hand. For advanced users, there are similar boxes called "Power Users' Clinic" that offer more technical tips, tricks, and shortcuts for the experienced Quicken fan.

    For a topic as important as your personal finances, why trust anything else?

    Table of contents

    1. Table of Contents (1/2)
    2. Table of Contents (2/2)
    3. The Missing Credits
      1. About the Author
      2. About the Creative Team
      3. Acknowledgements
      4. The Missing Manual Series
    4. Introduction
      1. Managing Personal Finance with Quicken
        1. What Quicken Does
        2. What Quicken Doesn’t Do
        3. Quicken and Accounting
          1. Accounts vs. categories
          2. Following the money
          3. Equity
        4. Choosing the Right Quicken Edition
      2. What’s New in Quicken 2008
      3. About This Book
      4. About the Outline
      5. The Very Basics
        1. About › These › Arrows
      6. About MissingManuals.com
        1. Safari® Books Online
    5. Setting Up Quicken
      1. Launching Quicken
      2. Setting Up Your Data File
        1. If You’re New to Quicken
        2. If You’re a Quicken Veteran
      3. Using Express Setup
        1. Telling Quicken About Yourself
        2. Setting Up a Checking Account
          1. Setting up an account using online services
          2. Setting up an account offline
        3. Setting Up Your Paycheck and Other Deposits
        4. Setting Up Credit Card Payments and Bills
      4. Opening a Quicken File
    6. Taking Quicken for a Test Drive
      1. Recording Payments and Deposits
        1. Recording a Payment
        2. Recording a Deposit
        3. Downloading Transactions
      2. Reviewing Your Finances
        1. What’s Coming Up?
        2. Seeing How Much You Earn and Spend
          1. EasyAnswer reports
          2. Monthly cash flow
    7. Setting Up Accounts
      1. How Accounts and Categories Work Together
      2. Choosing Which Account Type to Use
        1. Cash Flow Accounts
        2. Investing Accounts
        3. Property & Debt Accounts
      3. Creating Bank Accounts
        1. Creating a Banking Account: Step by Step
      4. Editing Account Information
      5. Closing Accounts
    8. Categories and Tags: Tracking Transactions
      1. Understanding Categories and Tags
        1. Organizing “Vertically” with Categories
        2. Organizing Flexibly with Tags
      2. Adding New Categories
        1. Turning On Quicken’s Built-in Categories
        2. Creating a New Category
      3. Editing Categories
      4. Removing Categories
      5. Organizing Categories
      6. Setting Up Tags
        1. Creating a Tag
        2. Editing a Tag
        3. Hiding and Deleting Tags
    9. Recording Banking Transactions
      1. Transaction Basics
        1. Getting to the Register
        2. Entering Transactions
        3. Navigating Between Transactions
      2. Recording Checks
        1. Recording Handwritten Checks in the Register
        2. Recording Checks You Want Quicken to Print
          1. Choosing the checking account
          2. Filling in check fields
          3. Mailing addresses
          4. Reviewing the checks to print
        3. Printing Checks
          1. Setting up Quicken to print checks
          2. Printing to preprinted checks
      3. Recording Deposits
      4. Recording Credit Card Charges
        1. Tracking Credit Card Charges
        2. Entering Credit Card Transactions
      5. Recording Cash Transactions
        1. If Your Memory Is Like a Sieve
        2. Creating a Pocket Money Account
        3. Cash Tracking for Photographic Memories
      6. Editing Transaction Fields
      7. Reminders, Notes, and Attachments
        1. Attaching Reminders and Notes
        2. Working with Attached Images
          1. Attaching images to transactions
          2. Attaching images to accounts
      8. Tagging Transactions
        1. Assigning Tags to Transactions
        2. Changing Applied Tags
        3. Reviewing Tag Results
    10. Quicken and the Web: Online Banking
      1. What Quicken Can Do Online
      2. Connecting Quicken to the Internet
      3. Setting Up an Account for Online Services
        1. Finding Participating Institutions
        2. Applying for Online Services
        3. Activating Online Services
      4. Downloading Transactions
        1. Downloading Transactions Directly
        2. Downloading Statements with Web Connect
        3. Reviewing and Incorporating Downloaded Transactions
        4. Accepting Transactions
        5. When Quicken Doesn’t Match Transactions Correctly
      5. Updating All Accounts: One Step Update
        1. Setting Up One Step Update
        2. Running One Step Update
        3. Storing Passwords
      6. Renaming Payees
        1. Managing Renaming Rules
      7. Paying Bills Online
        1. Setting Up Online Payees
        2. Creating the Payment Request
        3. Sending Payments
        4. Setting Up Repeating Online Payments
          1. Setting up repeating online payments
          2. Setting up repeating amortized loan payments
        5. Canceling Payments
        6. Letting Payees Come and Get Their Payments
          1. Payee setup
          2. Quicken setup
        7. Paying an Occasional Bill Online
        8. Coordinating Bill Payment with Quicken
      8. Setting Up Online Transfers
    11. Transaction Timesavers
      1. Transferring Money Between Accounts
        1. Recording a Transfer Between Accounts
        2. Turning Checks into Transfers
      2. Voiding Transactions
      3. Splitting Transactions
        1. Editing Splits
        2. Handling Remaining Amounts
      4. Searching for Transactions
        1. Finding Recent Transactions with One Click
        2. Finding All Matching Transactions
        3. Finding Specific Transactions
        4. Finding and Replacing Values
      5. The Transaction Edit Menu
      6. Scheduling Transactions
        1. Setting Up a Scheduled Transaction
          1. Defining the transaction
          2. Defining the transaction schedule
        2. Paying and Skipping Scheduled Transactions
        3. Editing and Deleting Scheduled Transactions
      7. Automatically Recording Paycheck Deposits
        1. Getting Started with Paycheck Setup
        2. Setting Up Paycheck Details
          1. Setting up the paycheck schedule
          2. Adding and editing paycheck items
        3. Paycheck Tracking Made Easy
        4. Managing Paychecks
        5. Recording a Paycheck
      8. Recategorizing Transactions
      9. Managing Memorized Payees
        1. Adding Memorized Payees Manually
        2. Removing Payees from the Memorized Payee List
          1. Deleting memorized payees
          2. Limiting the length of Quicken’s memory
        3. Editing Memorized Payees
        4. Locking Memorized Payees
    12. Reconciling: Making Sure Quicken and Your Bank Agree
      1. Prep Time: Reviewing Your Account
      2. First Steps: Telling Quicken What to Compare
      3. Reconciliation: The Actual Review
      4. Modifying Transactions During Reconciliation
      5. Stopping and Restarting a Reconciliation
      6. When Your Records Don’t Agree with Your Bank’s
      7. Reconciling Automatically
    13. Tracking Property and Debt
      1. Property and Debt: An Introduction
      2. Setting up Asset and Liability Accounts
        1. Types of Asset and Liability Accounts
        2. Creating an Asset Account
        3. Setting Up Loan and Liability Accounts (1/2)
        4. Setting Up Loan and Liability Accounts (2/2)
          1. Setting up a loan for an asset account
          2. Setting up a loan with the Loan Setup wizard
        5. Setting Up a Loan Payment
        6. Linking an Asset and a Loan
      3. Making a Loan Payment
        1. Making a Regular Payment
        2. Making an Extra Payment
      4. Editing a Loan
        1. Changing Loan Details
        2. Changing Payment Details
        3. Adjusting a Loan’s Interest Rate
      5. Refinancing a Loan
      6. Changing the Value of an Asset
        1. Changing Market Value
        2. Depreciation
        3. Improvements
      7. Acquiring and Disposing of Assets
    14. Monitoring Spending and Saving
      1. Creating a Budget in Quicken
        1. Creating a Budget Automatically
        2. Copying the Current Budget
        3. Creating a Budget Manually
      2. Filling In Budget Values
        1. Average Budget Values
        2. Detailed Budget Values
          1. Resetting detailed values
      3. Making a Budget Current
      4. Saving or Restoring a Budget
      5. Choosing Budget Categories
        1. Choosing Income and Expense Categories
        2. Choosing Accounts for Transfers to Savings
      6. Comparing Your Performance to Your Budget
      7. Using a Savings Plan
        1. Setting Up a Savings Plan
        2. Managing Spending with a Savings Plan
      8. Watching Cash Flow
        1. Viewing Monthly Cash Flow
        2. Forecasting Cash Flow
    15. Investments and Planning
      1. Quicken Investment Tracking: Details or Overview?
      2. Choosing the Right Type of Account
      3. Creating an Investment Account
        1. Creating a 401(k) or 403(b) Account
        2. Creating a Brokerage Account
        3. Creating an IRA Account
      4. Setting Up and Tracking Securities
        1. Adding Securities
        2. Working with Securities
        3. Editing a Security
          1. Editing the asset class
          2. Editing tax-related details
        4. Categorizing Investments
          1. Categorizing with security types
          2. Categorizing by investing goal
      5. Recording Investment Transactions
        1. Buying a Security
        2. Selling a Security
        3. Recording and Reinvesting Income
        4. Recording a Stock Split
        5. Recording Other Investment Transactions
      6. Downloading Investment Transactions
        1. The Download Process
        2. Dealing with Placeholders
          1. Filling in missing transactions
          2. Using average cost to complete your records
        3. Resolving Duplicate Transactions
      7. Adjusting an Investment Account Balance
        1. Updating an Account’s Cash Balance
        2. Updating an Account’s Share Balance
        3. Updating 401(k) Holdings
      8. Evaluating Your Portfolio
        1. Using the Portfolio Page
        2. Estimating Capital Gains
        3. Portfolio Analyzer
      9. A Tour of Quicken’s Planning Tools
        1. Planning Wizards
        2. Financial Calculators
    16. Creating Reports and Graphs
      1. A Guide to Quicken’s Reports
        1. Banking Reports
        2. Spending
        3. Comparison
        4. Investing
        5. Tax
          1. Tax reports
          2. Using Quicken tax data in TurboTax
        6. Net Worth & Balances
      2. Running Reports
        1. Generating Reports and Graphs
      3. Printing Reports and Graphs
        1. Printing a Report
        2. Creating Print-Ready PDF Files
      4. Customizing Reports
        1. Date Ranges
        2. Subtotals
        3. Adding and Removing Columns
        4. Customizing Other Report Content
        5. Sorting Reports
      5. Saving and Reusing Reports
        1. Managing Customized Reports
    17. Backing Up and Protecting Your Quicken Data
      1. Backing Up and Restoring Data Files
        1. Manual Backups
        2. Backup Reminders
        3. Automatic Backups
        4. Restoring Quicken Backups
      2. Password Protection
        1. Adding a Password to a File
        2. Changing a File Password
        3. Adding a Password to Transactions
      3. Archiving and Compacting a File
      4. Quicken File Maintenance
        1. Copying a File
        2. Creating a New Data File
        3. Renaming a File
        4. Validating: Checking and Correcting Your Data File
    18. Customizing Quicken
      1. Setting Preferences
        1. What Quicken Does on Startup
        2. Lights, Sound, Keyboard Action!
          1. Account Bar display
          2. Keyboard mappings
          3. Turning on sounds
        3. Time and Money
        4. Backup Settings
        5. Alerts
        6. Investment Transactions
        7. Setting Register Behavior
        8. Adjusting QuickFill
        9. Getting Notifications
        10. Write Check Settings
        11. How Quicken Downloads Transactions
        12. Report and Graph Settings
        13. Settings for Reports Only
      2. Customizing What You See
        1. Customizing the Account Bar
        2. Creating New Views for Quicken Home
          1. Creating a custom view
          2. Customizing a view
        3. Customizing the Icon Bar
          1. Adding custom reports to the icon bar
        4. Customizing the Register
    19. Exporting and Importing
      1. Exporting Quicken Data
        1. Exporting Data to QIF Files
        2. Exporting Report Data: Method 1
        3. Exporting Report Data: Method 2
        4. Copying and Pasting Quicken Data
      2. Importing Data into Quicken
        1. Importing QIF Files (1/2)
        2. Importing QIF Files (2/2)
    20. Keyboard Shortcuts
      1. Task Shortcuts
      2. Working with Transactions
      3. Dates
      4. Moving Around in Quicken Windows
    21. Quicken Help
      1. Help for the Task at Hand
      2. Working with Quicken Help
      3. Quicken Product and Customer Support
      4. The Quicken Forums
    22. Installing Quicken
      1. Installing Quicken
      2. Upgrading Quicken
      3. Registering Quicken
    23. Index (1/4)
    24. Index (2/4)
    25. Index (3/4)
    26. Index (4/4)

    Product information

    • Title: Quicken 2008: The Missing Manual
    • Author(s): Bonnie Biafore
    • Release date: November 2007
    • Publisher(s): O'Reilly Media, Inc.
    • ISBN: 9780596515157