Easily manage your money on the go! Check account balances, track your budget, enter transactions, and receive timely updates and alerts wherever you are. With Quicken 2013 and the Quicken mobile app, your information is synced between your computer, tablet, and smartphone. This guide shows you how to:
• Create a Quicken Cloud ID
• Install and set up the app
• See a quick summary
• Get and stay in sync
• View your accounts
• View your transactions
• Enter new transactions
• Check your budget
• See where your money goes
• Receive and customize alerts
• Stay safe and secure
• Find help when you need it
Create a Quicken Cloud ID
A Quicken Cloud ID authenticates and protects your personal information and settings. It’s also used to identify your Quicken data file and the mobile devices that you want to sync with it. Here’s how to set one up:
1. Start Quicken 2013 for Windows* and click the Mobile & Alerts tab.
2. Click Create Your Quicken Cloud ID.
We’ll lead you through the simple process of setting up your desktop software, selecting the accounts you want to see on your mobile devices, syncing your accounts, and downloading the Quicken app for your
phone or tablet.
*To use the Quicken app, you must have Quicken 2013 for Windows software: Starter Edition, Deluxe, Premier, Home & Business, or Rental Property Manager.
Install and set up the mobile app
The Quicken mobile app is available on the App Store, Google Play, and the Amazon Appstore. Here’s how to find it and get started:
1. Open your phone or tablet app store and search for “Quicken” to find the app. Then download and install the app just as you would any other app. Easy.
2. Open the Quicken app, then tap Sign In.
3. Enter the Quicken Cloud ID and password you created when you set up your Quicken desktop software. When you’re done, tap Sign In again.
See a quick summary
After signing in you’ll see the Overview screen. It provides a high-level summary of your finances, and lets you drill down for more detail when you need it. Here’s what you’ll see:
• Your budget for the month. Tap to see your individual budget categories.
• Your latest alert, and the total number of unread alerts. Tap to learn more.
• Your cumulative account balances. Tap to see your individual account balances.
• Your income and expenses for the month, and what’s left. Tap to view by category or payee.
Get and stay in sync
When you sync, you transfer Quicken data to and from your desktop software and your mobile devices.
What to know:
• Data moves in both directions—between your desktop and mobile device. Anywhere you have new data, Quicken figures out which device needs that data and moves it where it needs to be. This includes additions and changes to the accounts you choose to sync, your budget, and the transactions you download or enter manually.
• At the end of a sync everything matches: transactions, balances, and budget results, regardless of where you choose to view your data.
• There is no need to sync one mobile device with another mobile device—only your Quicken desktop software needs to be synced with your mobile device(s).
Here’s how:
When you set up Quicken for mobile in your desktop software, we take care of the first sync for you automatically. Afterwards, here's how to sync whenever you want.
To sync your desktop software:
• Click the Mobile & Alerts tab, then click Sync Now.
• Progress messages appear during a sync.
• We’ll let you know when it finishes.
• If you change your desktop data and exit the program, Quicken reminds you to sync your data.
• Also, if you use One Step Update, you can sync your data as part of the normal transaction update process. Just be sure to select Sync to Quicken Cloud in the One Step Update dialog.
To sync your mobile app:
• To sync your mobile devices with the Quicken Cloud and with your financial institutions, tap .
(On Android: Tap at the top of the screen.)
• Any transactions downloaded from your financial institutions to your mobile device will also appear in your desktop software the next time you sync it.
View your accounts
To view your accounts, tap anywhere in the Accounts section of the Overview screen. We try to make it easy!
What to know:
• The accounts listed are the ones you’ve chosen to sync. To add or remove accounts on your mobile device, click the Mobile & Alerts tab in the desktop software.
• The balances displayed are online balances. If you have pending transactions, they are not reflected here. (More on this in the next section.)
• The All Accounts balance is the sum of the accounts and transactions on your mobile device.
• You can see when your accounts were last updated by looking just below the account balance, or at the bottom of the screen.
• To sync your balances and transactions with the Quicken Cloud and with your financial institutions, tap .
(On Android: Tap at the top of the screen.)
View and edit your transactions
To view the transactions within an account, tap the account name.
What to know:
• At the top of the screen is the balance of the account.
• For accounts connected to your bank, tap anywhere on the balance line to switch between:
o Online Balance: The sum of your transactions that have cleared your bank, as of today.
o Ending Balance: The Online Balance plus the sum of your pending transactions. A pending transaction is a transaction that hasn’t cleared your bank yet. In many cases, it is a future-dated transaction that you’ve entered in the desktop software.
• For accounts NOT connected to your bank, you’ll see:
o Current Balance: The sum of your transactions entered into the register, as of today.
• Thirty days of transaction history is listed, sorted by date, with the most recent at the top. For the Ending Balance, pending transactions are listed first.
• Tap a transaction to change its payee, date, category, tag, or memo.
Add a new transaction
To enter a new transaction on your mobile device, tap .
(On Android: Tap and choose Add Transaction.) You’ll find the icon on every screen in the app.
What to know:
• Based on your location, Quicken presents a list of local merchants. You can choose one of them as the payee, or enter a payee of your own.
• Quicken defaults to a debit or credit card expense. If necessary, tap Expense to record a check, add an income transaction, or to change the account.
• Use the keypad to enter the amount of the transaction.
• Tap Next.
• Assign a category, tag, and memo. To save time, you don’t have to do this now. You can sync, and do it later in your desktop software.
• Tap Done. The transaction is added to the account on the mobile device. The next time you sync, it will be copied to your desktop software. Perfect!
About transfers and splits:
• To record a transfer in the Quicken app, select Transfer as the category for the transaction. After you sync and view the transaction in your desktop software, you’ll notice that the transfer is assigned to an Unspecified Account. Simply choose the correct account and sync again. The transfer will then appear on your mobile device as recorded in your desktop software.
• To work with split transactions in the Quicken app, the transactions must have been:
o Downloaded from your bank into the Quicken app, or
o Created in your desktop software as a split and then synced to your mobile app.
Check your budget
To check your budget, tap anywhere in the Budgets section of the Overview screen. If you don’t have a budget yet, click the Planning tab > Budgets in your desktop software to create one.
What to know:
• To choose the budget to view on your mobile device, click the Mobile & Alerts tab in the desktop software.
• The colored bars represent your monthly expenses to date for each budgeted category amount.
o For example, in the Auto category at the right, you have spent $63 out of a planned $723 in December. You have $660 left for the month.
• The bar at the top represents your overall monthly plan.
o The TODAY indicator moves to the right with each passing day. There is no amount associated with it.
• Tap a bar to drill down and see the transactions behind a category.
• Tap to change a budgeted amount. The change is copied to your desktop budget the next time you sync.
See where your money goes
To take a look at where your money is going, tap anywhere in the Earned and Spent section of the Overview screen.
What to know:
• Your expenses for the month are listed first, sorted by category amount, in descending order. Tap to drill down and see the transactions behind a category.
• Your income (or other credits) for the month are listed last. Again, tap to see the transactions.
• Tap Payee to sort your expenses by payee amount instead of category amount.
• If you continue to drill down you can change the categories assigned to transactions if you need to.
Get and customize alerts
To take a look at your account notifications, tap anywhere in the Alerts section of the Overview screen.
What to know:
• The alerts listed are the ones you’ve chosen to receive.
• To add or remove alerts on your mobile device, and to set the threshold at which each alert is triggered, click the Mobile & Alerts tab in the desktop software.
• Tap an alert for more information. For example, in the graphic at the right, if you tap High Spending you’ll see the transactions behind that spending.
• The number displayed in the Alerts section on the Overview screen represents the number of alerts on the mobile device that you haven’t seen yet. After you view all of your alerts the number goes away.
• To delete an alert, touch it then swipe your finger horizontally. A red “Delete” icon appears allowing you to delete the alert. (On Android: Press and hold the alert, then choose Dismiss.)
Stay safe and secure
Quicken understands that the privacy and security of your personal financial data is of the utmost importance to you.
What to know:
• Your Quicken desktop software and mobile app use encryption and Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology to secure the transmission of your financial information over the Internet.
• Your Quicken Cloud ID password is not saved on your mobile device.
Things you can do further protect yourself:
• To password protect the Quicken app on your mobile device, tap Settings at the top of the Overview screen (On Android: Tap first.), and then tap Passcode. If someone borrows your phone, or if your phone is lost, this passcode needs to be entered to gain access your Quicken data.
• To completely erase your Quicken data from your mobile device (Don’t worry, it’s easy to get back!), go into Settings again, and tap Sign Out. The next time you use the app, just sign in again and your data will be restored.
• To deactivate your mobile device(s), click the Mobile & Alerts tab in the desktop software and then click edit profile at the top of the window. When you deactivate a mobile device it will not be able to sync with, or view, any of the data associated with your Quicken Cloud ID until you sign in on the device again. This is useful if you lose your device or in any case where you want to ensure that someone with access to your device cannot see your account information without first signing in. You can reactivate the device at any time by signing into the Quicken app with your Quicken Cloud ID.
Get help when you need it
We want to make sure you get the help you need. If after reading this guide you have questions, you can turn to the following resources.
Quicken Help
Includes explanations about how features work and steps on how to do most tasks. From the Help menu, choose Quicken Help.
Quicken Live Community
An online forum where you can get answers from other Quicken users and experts. Click the Help button in the lower right of Quicken. You can also access Live Community at qlc.intuit.com
Quicken Support
If you run into a bug or other malfunction in Quicken, contact Support at quicken.com/support
McGraw Hill’s Quicken: The Official Guide
Offers a more thorough intro to Quicken and all of its features. Available at many bookstores and online.
