Using the Account Bar
The account bar contains the activity centers and is located on the left side of the home page (unless you changed the position or removed it in Chapter 2, "Learning Quicken Basics," when we covered setting Quicken preferences). The activity centers include the Cash Flow Center, which contains all your banking and credit card accounts; the Investing Center, which contains all your investment and retirement information; and the Property & Debt center, which contains account information for your property, assets, and liabilities. Each of these centers provides access to all your accounts, where you can review, change, and remove account information. The following task provides an overview of the activity centers and shows you how to quickly access your accounts and customize the account bar. We'll get into more of the specifics of using each activity center in Chapters 4, "Managing Your Accounts," through 6, "Managing Your Bills and Transactions."
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See "Setting Quicken Preferences" on page 40 for more information on changing the position of the activity centers. See Chapters 4 through 6 for more information on using the different activity centers.
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Navigate the Account Bar
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If you're in another area of Quicken and want to return to the Home page, click
Quicken Home
.
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To access your bank and credit card account information, click
Cash Flow Center
. You can also click an account
name
to go directly to the register for that account.
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To access your investments, securities, or retirement account(s), click
Investing Center
.
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To view property and debt accounts, such as your home, car, property loans, and so on, click
Property & Debt
.
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Click the arrows at the bottom or top of the activity center to scroll down or up. The arrows appear lighter when there is information hiding and
darker
when there is no information hiding.
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To change the width of the account bar, hover your mouse over the border between the account bar and the Home page until you see the double arrows. Then click, hold down your left mouse button, and drag to the right to expand it or drag to the left to reduce it.
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You can also access account centers from the
menus
.
All the account centers are accessible from the Cash Flow, Investing, and Property & Debt menus.
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See "Setting Quicken Preferences" on page 40 for information on changing the position of the account bar.
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Use the Activity Center
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Right-click in any area of the account bar to view a menu of actions you can perform. For example, you can hide the account bar completely, move it, or choose to view more or less information about each account.
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Create new accounts by clicking the
Add Account
button.
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Your total net worth appears at the bottom of the account bar. To view a detailed breakdown of your net worth, click
Financial Overview
.
TIMESAVER
If there is a red flag
next
to one of your accounts, you can hover your mouse pointer (point, but don't click) over the account name to view the special message. Balances that appear in red and negative
balances
represent debt. Use the flags to help you keep up with your accounts. In the time it takes to take a quick glance at the activity bar, you'll know which accounts need your attention. This saves you the time and the effort of going into each account to review it.
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You can view a hidden account bar.
If an account bar is hidden, a double-arrow (>>) appears in the
upper-left
corner of the Quicken window. Click it to view the hidden account bar.
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For more information on the Financial Overview center, see "Getting the Big Picture" on page 61.
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Add or Remove Accounts on the Account Bar
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To change the accounts that appear and the order in which they appear on the account bar, click
Customize
.
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To remove an account from the account bar, select the appropriate box for that account in the
Hide in Navigation
column. A check indicates that the account does not appear in the account bar.
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To add an account to the account bar, remove the check mark in the
Hide in Navigation
column check box.
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Accounts automatically appear in alphabetic order. To move an account up or down on the list, select the account and click
Move Up
to move it up the list, or
Move Down
to move it down the list. Repeat the move until the account appears where you want it on the list.
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To move an account to a different categoryfor example, to move a savings account to a spending accountselect the account and click
Change Group
.
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Select the new category for the account and click
OK
.
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To return to the Quicken Home page, click
Close
.
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