satman40

Quicken can do it easy, track it and even generate a report.

Peridot83

Thanks! I just registered. Looks great!

Silverthunder

Sorry that I am kind of acting a newb here. I have been thinking about this/ trying to interpret what you are saying for about 10 minutes. Not clear on what you are saying, though.

Are you saying that you split the credit card transaction as some kind of a "transfer" to two separate accounts (checking account and some kind of expense account)? One is an actual checking account and one is a virtual account for the fees. Are you using some sort of liability account for the fees?

Or are you just entering the fees by hand and not having them linked to anything (creating a new item, as opposed to the aforementioned "split transfer")?

unkinected

I do a similar thing using a program called "You Need a Budget" (which is a very awesome philosophy/tool, but that's a separate topic).

I have a "virtual" account called "MS Cash Account." A $500 OV purchase, for example, goes in as a split transaction. A $500 transfer from the purchasing CC to the "MS Cash Account" and a $4.95 purchase against a "MS Fees" category. When I go to liquidate the OV, I make a transaction FROM the "MS Cash Account" to wherever it's going (BB, Serve, MO, whatever).

So this process involves creating a virtual cash account to keep track of the GCs I have, and a category to keep track of the fees I'm accumulating. I also have a "MS Income" category that is obviously used to keep of any income I receive from MS, such as CC cash rewards, portal CB, etc.

cdancer20

I do almost identical thing on Mint.com. For the credit card charge, I mark it as "Gift Card Purchase" if I am not liquidating immediately that day or the next OR "Money Order" OR "Bill Pay" OR "Prepaid Load". Then when I get the money into the appropriate checking, prepaid, etc. acct I mark them the same. I take the fees used for purchase (e.g. $4.95) or money order fee (e.g. $0.89), etc and split that off into the category "Cashback Bonus". And any positive money I get cashback (i.e. credit card cashback or portals) also goes into that category. This way it's easy to see if I am missing money anywhere. Every month my "money order", "prepaid load", etc category has a $0.00 balance. (I found $500 missing this way. I had an unused gift card sitting in a bag in my car. Good thing I caught it and didn't throw the bag away!)

Trying to put into an asset group or whatever would take too long given the amount of GCs I buy a month.

Stoughton

Man, there's a LOT of over complication going on here.

ericdabbs

+1. I mean I don't have the best MS tracking system but I have a rough idea of how much CB/points that I should get back and I just check my statement to confirm this and post them to my spreadsheet. I don't try to keep track of it to the very penny. I do keep track in a running list in a spreadsheet of GC value and GC fees just so I know how much in Fees I have shelled out so far.

Silverthunder

That's interesting. So this software that you speak of lets you transfer part of the charge to these separate accounts. The only way that I can think for Quicken to do something similar is to (1) delete the payments that would normally show on your credit card transaction history; and (2) enter in these transfers that you speak of instead.

Also, I am not in love with your naming of the accounts. I prefer names that start out with different letters (instead of them both starting with "MS"). this way data entry is quicker with fewer errors.

I can't use Mint.com because it can't go back very far in time. I am not aware of a way to bring in older transactions (say from early 2013) into Mint.com. Then again, maybe there is a way.

Let the flaming of my posts begin lol

Stoughton

I do track to the cent, and it's all on 1 page. Liabilities, Assets, Pending, net - updated daily, checksummed Tues & Fri. Also has countdown to target spend, monthly totals, and few other things.

barrytuneup

I have a method for keeping track of the fees paid on all the GC. In the last 15 month of my MS hobby, I have never thrown out 1 GC. When I return home from my rounds or work, I dump all the used cards in this box I have in my garage that I keep adding to, it contains all the OV/VR/VGC/MCGC/PP MY Cash cards. and I think that's it. And the box is heavy. Actually don't want to spend the time figuring. So... 1) what do most folks do with the used cards..2)are they recyclable? Don't really care about #2, but trying to act concerned.

cdancer20

I'm not aware either. I just started using Mint in like 2012 or whatever and it always seemed to start on the date that I created that acct. If Quicken has that ability, that's great! But of course, I would expect Quicken to have far better ability since you pay for it.

rtraveler

I just use a spreadsheet and I track my purchases by month, cards I used to make the purchase, and GC's that I actually purchased. This let's me track how much MS'ing I do each month.

I don't keep track of all the fees but I try to stick to the lowest fee cards to minimize the cost.

unkinected

Well, "MS Fees" is a category, not an account. There's no transferring per se to "MS Fees."

Silverthunder

Yes, Quicken can sometimes get older history. Although a lot of banks don't support this. I think I figured out a 2 step way to convert a PDF bank or credit card statement into a Quicken file. There is some leg work involved, though (but not much).

Ok, that's the functionality that I am familiar with in Quicken.

ThePointsCollector

I make it simple.
20K buffer on my checking account and every Monday morning routine - pay cc bills on line .
As far as managing MS I have spreadsheet and do one card at a time. So if I got approved for 5 cards I write them down, sort columns by how much time I have (1) and amount (2). Bang, two month later its all done. Usually its takes 2-3 weeks just because I have old blue and recently fell in love with flex perks and arrival cards.