Go to menu bar and Click File, Click New. This opens the window CREATE QUICKEN FILE. The folder appearing in Save in: is the folder where Quicken 2002 is located. At this point there are 15 folders within the Quicken 2002 folder.
In the upper right corner of the CREATE QUICKEN FILE window, there are five icons.
Point to each icon and a description will drop down. Point to the one that says CREATE NEW FOLDER and Click. NEW FOLDER will appear in the list of folders and will be highlighted. Type DATA to replace NEW FOLDER. Click off to side and away from the list of folders. After DATA is one of the folders, Double Click on DATA folder to put DATA in Save in:. The DATA folder is where the file containing your record data will be saved. Creating and using a DATA folder for your data file is not absolutely necessary, but by using a DATA folder your data is separate from the program folders and easy to locate on your computer’s C drive.
Click in the blank to the right of File name: to get the cursor in the blank. Type in a name for your data file. A suggestion would be to use your last name or your business name as your data file name.
Click OK to close the CREATE QUICKEN FILE window and open the QUICKEN NEW USER SETUP window.
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Click Next. The next window, "Personalize your Quicken data file" has four questions to answer. The first three questions can be answered however you want. The fourth question, "Will you be tracking a business in Quicken?" should be answered NO. By answering "no" you will be able to create your own farm-related income and expense categories. If you answer "yes" the program will create many non-farm business categories that may not relate to your farm business. Click Next. Click Done.
After the program creates your data file, it will come back to the MY FINANCES page.
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On the menu bar Click Finance, Click Category & Transfer List to view the categories contained within your data file. Depending on how you answered the questions mentioned above, Quicken will create a varying number of family living categories. If you answered "yes" to the tracking a business question you will also have a number of non-farm business categories related to Schedule C. You won’t need these categories unless you are also tracking a non-farm business. It will be easier to delete your newly created data file rather than trying to delete all these categories. See Deleting a Data File later in this chapter for instructions on deleting a data file.
While some family living categories are needed to keep track of your business and family finances, there are probably more categories than are needed and some should probably be deleted. Since most farms also have off-farm income, the non-farm income categories at the top of the list, listed as income under the type column, can be left on the list. Examine the family living expense categories to determine if you want to use any of these categories. If you want to delete some of these, go to the Deleting Categories section of the Categories and Classes chapter for instructions.
One category on the list that should be deleted is the category "Cash." We will create a Cash Account later that will be used to track income received and expenses paid by cash. Keeping "Cash" as an expense category creates confusion.