Subtitles of the Movie

Quicken makes it very easy for me to schedule my bills and my deposits automatically. Whenever I see scheduled bills and deposits, there will be a button for Add Bill or Deposit on the bottom. I can switch views and normally find Add Bill or Deposit on those screens also. A word of warning; make sure you have reviewed the information on creating views. This Home page can be customized so bills are not present. Make sure that whichever view you are on, if you're looking for Scheduled Bills and Deposits and can not find it, that you have not re-customized it. I can also go over to the Personal Cash Flow and I'll find my Scheduled Bills there also. Again, just as a little warning, be careful of your layout. Sometimes we have to move our scroll bar to the bottom of the account. You'll notice here I'm getting to Scheduled Bills and Deposits. But this is where a trick can come in. Sometimes we can't always get to the bottom to see this button. This is particularly true if I have All turned on. I may feel like I'm moving down but I'm never seeing that button. All can be a very large list. Notice how my scroll bar is only half way. I will not see my buttons until I'm all the way at the bottom. You may wish to leave your bills and deposits scheduled currently so it's easier to see your Add buttons and remember, we can always get to the Show Full List. Let's go into our Add Screen. No matter where I enter, it'll always be the same. I can be on Cash Flow, I can be Home, I can be on a Customized View. This is the screen that allows us to schedule a bill or deposit. You'll note it's fairly self explanatory. I'll start by adding in the Payee or the supplier that I want to send the information to. You'll notice off to the side I can now update their address information. You'll notice that I can include it in the Quick Fill List. This is very handy if you do a number of checks that you would like to fill in automatically. Now I can choose my Category. Will this be Dining? Will this be Advertising? Will this be Business expense? I'm going to choose it as a Dining Expense that's Personal. If I need a tag, I can also go to a tag. Remember, your tags are going to be further breakdowns. We'll be going through those in details in our upcoming movie. If a memo is required to remind you why this charge is going on, set a memo for yourself and now we move on to our payment information. Is this coming from our Personal account or our Business account? How will you be making this payment? Is it going to be a printed check or is it going to be a transfer? If it is a transfer or if a website is necessary, you can fill it in. This will allow you quick access to an account to see exactly where you're at. Next I'll put in the amount of the transaction or an estimate from the last few payments. Then I can schedule when the event will happen. Now, this can be a recurring event or it could be a one time only event. We'll have a start date of when the first component is going to go through and then we're also going to choose how often that this payment is going to happen. Now, you'll notice that I can put in a reminder that it needs to remind me a certain amount of days in advance of when the transaction's going to hit. The idea here is we want to make sure that we have enough cash in the account to handle the transaction. In our options, you'll notice that the reoccurrence is on a specific date of the month, but I can also choose the third Saturday or the last day of every month. Notice how the date will change automatically based on what I choose on the bottom. If you know you want it to be the last day of the month, don't worry about putting necessarily the start-on date in. It will change it automatically. Now, here's where the scheduling comes in. If I set it with no date, it'll keep going and going and going. I can also set it to a particular date or if it's a one-time event, I'll just say let's go ahead, run it once and then forget it. The idea is I can receive the bill today, put it into Quicken, Quicken then will remind me when it's a day before it's due. The idea is I can have the maximization of my cash flow. Perhaps I have the bill today but I won't receive my paycheck for two more days. I'll put the bill in so that the minute my paycheck goes through, I know I'm okay. Keep in mind when you are scheduling bills, especially if they are going to be a direct transfer, that no one's going to ensure that money is there except you. I have to take the responsibility to ensure that for every automatic withdrawal, that I'm putting the actual money into the account. You'll notice also on the bottom of the screen that we have an Option Tab. In this Option Tab we can count business days for reminders and we can also group it together with other transactions. We'll talk about these snapshots in an upcoming movie. However, I'd like you to note that if we have household expenses such as a mortgage and insurance that always occur around the same period of time each month, rather than having to handle them individually, I can group them together on reports and come up with a nice summary. When I'm happy with the summary information, I'll say OK and I'm ready to go. Also remember; if you ever need help on an individual item, the Help Menu is usually close at hand. On the bottom, left-hand corner of the screen, you'll see Help. When you select it, it'll take you directly to the Help Menu. One of the quickest ways to use the Help is to go to the Search. If I type in a particular word, it'll take me right to that entry. You'll notice right on our screen it took us to Bill and Deposit. That's because we were on the Bill or Deposit Screen when we opened up the Help Menu. Take advantage of this. It's a wonderful way to learn more about Quicken as you go through the screens.