Before creating a new category, access Quicken's built-in categories and see if something appropriate is already there. Not all built-in categories are visible from the Category List window, as much of what you see depends on information you give Quicken during set-up. Quicken comes with numerous built-in categories that cover many standard items. For example, if you want to track the money you spend on incidentals for a child in college, create a tag with the name of the child and then apply it to the appropriate category or subcategory, such as Groceries, Auto: Fuel, or Telephone: Cell phone. They allow you to track transactions within and across category groups. Creating subcategories for fuel, maintenance and registration makes it much easier to see where your money is going. This is especially useful in a category such as Auto, where you incur multiple types of expenses. Use a subcategory to provide greater organization and detail within a category and for assistance in creating a budget. For example, all grocery purchases, no matter where you buy them, go under the Groceries category and all income, regardless of the source, goes in the Income category.

You use a single category per transaction to track how you earn and spend money. A Quicken category is a label, such as Groceries or Household, that defines a broad group of both income and expense transactions.

Quicken 2017 home and business tutorial