Part 4. Speeding Up Transaction Entries

You might be thinking that using Quicken causes you to swap tedious hours of handwriting checks for tedious hours of typing transactions at your computer. Not so! This part introduces you to features and tricks you can use to streamline transaction entries in Quicken. After you take a little time to set things up, Quicken rewards you by doing even more of your work.

Quicken includes a variety of features to help you automate the task of entering transactions into your cash flow accounts, such as the checking account register. For example, Quicken is automatically set up to memorize your transactions. This means that Quicken keeps track of your payee names and details about the transactions, including any category you assign to a transaction. When you attempt to type in that same payee name again, Quicken automatically tries to fill in the payee name for you. This feature, called QuickFill, can save you the time of typing in the same name over and over. If the check amount to the payee is the same each time, you can quickly press the Enter key and record the transaction without filling out all the other details again. Quicken "remembers" the details from the previous time you entered the transaction.

Using QuickFill is just one way to speed up your work. This part of the book introduces you to other features, such as scheduled transactions, alerts, and paycheck setup.