Add Ability to Include or Exclude Transfers on Budgets in Quicken for Mac (452 Legacy Votes)

Ross Peebles

There is a workaround that is not particularly cumbersome. Create 3 accounts for each asset that has a debt. Also create an expense account with any name that works for you, i.e. "unused". Assume the interest is $750 and Principal is $250. Set the payment up as follows:
Total payment $1,000
interest: $750
principal (transfer) $250
principal (expense) $250
unused  (expense) -$250

Then uncheck "unused" expense in any report that would normally show it.
Recommend that this payment is scheduled so you would only change the amounts every period.

djsnapshack

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Budget Transfers and Credit Card Payments?.


I know this has been discussed on here before, but I want to raise it again to let Quicken know how much of a NECESSITY this "feature" is. In Quicken for Mac, transfers do not show up in budgets. This means savings transfers, credit card payments, etc., cannot be budgeted for -- yet these make up probably half of my actual budget.

I get there's a workaround (show the transfer column, use a non-transfer category, etc.), but that's clunky and shouldn't at all be necessary.

Can someone from Quicken please let us know whether this is something that's being worked on, and what the ETA is?

Unknown

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Budget Transfers and Credit Card Payments?.


I know this has been discussed on here before, but I want to raise it again to let Quicken know how much of a NECESSITY this "feature" is. In Quicken for Mac, transfers do not show up in budgets. This means savings transfers, credit card payments, etc., cannot be budgeted for -- yet these make up probably half of my actual budget.

I get there's a workaround (show the transfer column, use a non-transfer category, etc.), but that's clunky and shouldn't at all be necessary.

Can someone from Quicken please let us know whether this is something that's being worked on, and what the ETA is?

Can you expand on the work around?  I'm not aware of that.  I'm at the point of doing something even if it's a work around.

Unknown

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Budget Transfers and Credit Card Payments?.


I know this has been discussed on here before, but I want to raise it again to let Quicken know how much of a NECESSITY this "feature" is. In Quicken for Mac, transfers do not show up in budgets. This means savings transfers, credit card payments, etc., cannot be budgeted for -- yet these make up probably half of my actual budget.

I get there's a workaround (show the transfer column, use a non-transfer category, etc.), but that's clunky and shouldn't at all be necessary.

Can someone from Quicken please let us know whether this is something that's being worked on, and what the ETA is?

Are you looking for reports...or budgeting, that contain transfers?

To get reports to accurately detail the correct income/expense reports, make sure you have the "Category" and "Transfer" columns show in all the registers.

Then, you can categorize a transaction and have a separate transfer account.

Thus, your mortgage payment would be split as follows:

Category:  Mortgage Interest     Transfer: <blank>
Category:  Mortgage Principal   Transfer: YourMortgageCompany

Make sure your Loan in Quicken Mac is set up as a manual loan without any reminders.  

For investment transactions that are included as income:

Category:  Retirement Investment Income   Transfer: YourInvestmentAccount

Make sure you create the corresponding SELL transaction in the investment account to have the correct cash available to transfer to your checking account from there. 

Select New Reports and use only Cash Flow accounts...cash, checking, credit card.  Do not include the loan account or the investment accounts because the transfer will show up on both sides and cancel each other out.  

You will now get an accurate report that includes the Mortgage Principal transfer amount and your Retirement Investment Income amount.  

If you click on the BANKING descriptor in the Sidebar, you'll now get an accurate graph and amount for the actual cash flow that includes transfers in or out of accounts.  

Unfortunately, you can't pick and choose which accounts to include or exclude when doing budgets...so you are still unable to budget correctly in Quicken Mac.

Maybe one day?????

Unknown

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Budget Transfers and Credit Card Payments?.


I know this has been discussed on here before, but I want to raise it again to let Quicken know how much of a NECESSITY this "feature" is. In Quicken for Mac, transfers do not show up in budgets. This means savings transfers, credit card payments, etc., cannot be budgeted for -- yet these make up probably half of my actual budget.

I get there's a workaround (show the transfer column, use a non-transfer category, etc.), but that's clunky and shouldn't at all be necessary.

Can someone from Quicken please let us know whether this is something that's being worked on, and what the ETA is?

I was asking for budgeting.  I use that feature all the time in the Windows version.  I have monthly budget categories for transfers from one account to another.

mattyv123

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Budget Transfers and Credit Card Payments?.


I know this has been discussed on here before, but I want to raise it again to let Quicken know how much of a NECESSITY this "feature" is. In Quicken for Mac, transfers do not show up in budgets. This means savings transfers, credit card payments, etc., cannot be budgeted for -- yet these make up probably half of my actual budget.

I get there's a workaround (show the transfer column, use a non-transfer category, etc.), but that's clunky and shouldn't at all be necessary.

Can someone from Quicken please let us know whether this is something that's being worked on, and what the ETA is?

I tried the proposed workarounds and they don't seem to work, at least I couldn't get it and I think I am savvy enough to have figured it out

I could not get the transfers to appear at all for the loan accounts on my budget, and even if I could, I am not really excited about sacrificing bill reminders and to have to hack away for every account every month to ensure report accuracy just to do seething that should easily be supported in the software.

My only hope that Quicken is working on this is that they have intentionally broken budgets in the iOS app: hopefully this is indicative of an overhaul or at least improvements.

Unknown

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Budget Transfers and Credit Card Payments?.


I know this has been discussed on here before, but I want to raise it again to let Quicken know how much of a NECESSITY this "feature" is. In Quicken for Mac, transfers do not show up in budgets. This means savings transfers, credit card payments, etc., cannot be budgeted for -- yet these make up probably half of my actual budget.

I get there's a workaround (show the transfer column, use a non-transfer category, etc.), but that's clunky and shouldn't at all be necessary.

Can someone from Quicken please let us know whether this is something that's being worked on, and what the ETA is?

I DID mention that the workaround doesn't work with Budgets...right?

At least, in my case, I can now look at the Banking graph and get an accurate amount of my spending for the month (or previous month, etc).

At least, in my case, I can now create monthly income and expense (profit and loss) reports that accurately show the TRUE amount spent by category, including transfers that I want to include.  

If Quicken Mac would add these features in the new subscription product, I would be all over it...as I'm tired of using Quicken Windows with Parallels on my MacBook.  

But, as mentioned above, I've somehow figured a way to make Quicken Mac 2017 at least functional for me.  Prior to the workaround, I saw no reason to just have a checkbook register with inaccurate reporting capabilities.  With the workaround, I've actually gotten to the point where I like Quicken Mac almost as much as Quicken Windows.  Almost...but no there yet. 

And I've manipulated the Bills and added bill reminders to show the correct categories/transfers so that they actually work well enough to make some sense out of it. 

smayer97

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Budget Transfers and Credit Card Payments?.


I know this has been discussed on here before, but I want to raise it again to let Quicken know how much of a NECESSITY this "feature" is. In Quicken for Mac, transfers do not show up in budgets. This means savings transfers, credit card payments, etc., cannot be budgeted for -- yet these make up probably half of my actual budget.

I get there's a workaround (show the transfer column, use a non-transfer category, etc.), but that's clunky and shouldn't at all be necessary.

Can someone from Quicken please let us know whether this is something that's being worked on, and what the ETA is?

your point may have been obscured by the fact that this thread is about budgets, not reports.

Unknown

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Budget Transfers and Credit Card Payments?.


I know this has been discussed on here before, but I want to raise it again to let Quicken know how much of a NECESSITY this "feature" is. In Quicken for Mac, transfers do not show up in budgets. This means savings transfers, credit card payments, etc., cannot be budgeted for -- yet these make up probably half of my actual budget.

I get there's a workaround (show the transfer column, use a non-transfer category, etc.), but that's clunky and shouldn't at all be necessary.

Can someone from Quicken please let us know whether this is something that's being worked on, and what the ETA is?

He asked what the workaround was.  I gave it to him.

I also said it doesn't work for budgeting.

Unfortunately, you can't pick and choose which accounts to include or exclude when doing budgets...so you are still unable to budget correctly in Quicken Mac.

Unknown

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Budget Transfers and Credit Card Payments?.


I know this has been discussed on here before, but I want to raise it again to let Quicken know how much of a NECESSITY this "feature" is. In Quicken for Mac, transfers do not show up in budgets. This means savings transfers, credit card payments, etc., cannot be budgeted for -- yet these make up probably half of my actual budget.

I get there's a workaround (show the transfer column, use a non-transfer category, etc.), but that's clunky and shouldn't at all be necessary.

Can someone from Quicken please let us know whether this is something that's being worked on, and what the ETA is?

I agree.  I despise that Quicken Mac has been designed to exclude the option to include transfers in category reports and the budgets.

But the workaround has been intended as just that...a workaround to get Quicken Mac to at least be semi-useful in accurate reporting of income and expenses.

smayer97

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Budget Transfers and Credit Card Payments?.


I know this has been discussed on here before, but I want to raise it again to let Quicken know how much of a NECESSITY this "feature" is. In Quicken for Mac, transfers do not show up in budgets. This means savings transfers, credit card payments, etc., cannot be budgeted for -- yet these make up probably half of my actual budget.

I get there's a workaround (show the transfer column, use a non-transfer category, etc.), but that's clunky and shouldn't at all be necessary.

Can someone from Quicken please let us know whether this is something that's being worked on, and what the ETA is?

And they are aware of this but need to prioritize. See this latest comment by Quicken Marcus to give you some context/perspective of what they have to deal with:
https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/quicken-for-mac-2018-v5-4-x-released?topic-reply...

(If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)

Unknown

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Budget Transfers and Credit Card Payments?.


I know this has been discussed on here before, but I want to raise it again to let Quicken know how much of a NECESSITY this "feature" is. In Quicken for Mac, transfers do not show up in budgets. This means savings transfers, credit card payments, etc., cannot be budgeted for -- yet these make up probably half of my actual budget.

I get there's a workaround (show the transfer column, use a non-transfer category, etc.), but that's clunky and shouldn't at all be necessary.

Can someone from Quicken please let us know whether this is something that's being worked on, and what the ETA is?

Don’t care. This is something that should have been instituted from Day 1 when Quicken Mac beyond 2007 was released.


It’s a basic component of financial software that EVERY other product allows.


And since it’s something I need regularly, I think it should get prioritized as number one on the list.


No, all joking aside, this is something that should have a higher priority that Quicken needs to add. Without this, I would never update to a new subscription product.

smayer97

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Budget Transfers and Credit Card Payments?.


I know this has been discussed on here before, but I want to raise it again to let Quicken know how much of a NECESSITY this "feature" is. In Quicken for Mac, transfers do not show up in budgets. This means savings transfers, credit card payments, etc., cannot be budgeted for -- yet these make up probably half of my actual budget.

I get there's a workaround (show the transfer column, use a non-transfer category, etc.), but that's clunky and shouldn't at all be necessary.

Can someone from Quicken please let us know whether this is something that's being worked on, and what the ETA is?

Well, this feature is the 2nd highest requested on this forum, only after Loan Amortization (which is only partially implemented) (or maybe 3rd if you consider the cumulative votes for report types and features, which would place them in 2nd or even 1st place).

So I do believe they understand the demand and need for it. But given the above comment by Marcus, it looks like they have some serious constraints to contend with, given that this has to interact with Quicken Mobile, and hence the Quicken Cloud, as well, and since it touches on Quicken Mobile this affects both QMac and QWin simultaneously...so I do not see this as a simple quick fix issue.

Unknown

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Deleting ALL pending duplicate credit card charges, rather than one-by-one..

With some frequency, the connections between my various credit cards and Quicken become disabled. I disconnect the account, and then reconnect, and I’m all set.

But when I subsequently do a One Step Update, the credit card data downloads ALL of the transactions from months before, most of them being duplicates.

The duplicates almost always have different Download IDs, meaning most probably that the credit card companies have changed their technology, and Quicken is unable to recognize that that the old transactions (already in my register) and the new pending transactions are duplicates.

I suppose that’s on the credit card companies. But I don’t understand why Quicken then requires me to go through each individual transaction one-by-one and delete the transactions from the pending list.

Why not allow us to DELETE ALL, as we’re able to ACCEPT ALL? Or is there another way to resolve this problem without have to go through hundreds of pending transactions one-by-one?

jacobs

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Budget Transfers and Credit Card Payments?.


I know this has been discussed on here before, but I want to raise it again to let Quicken know how much of a NECESSITY this "feature" is. In Quicken for Mac, transfers do not show up in budgets. This means savings transfers, credit card payments, etc., cannot be budgeted for -- yet these make up probably half of my actual budget.

I get there's a workaround (show the transfer column, use a non-transfer category, etc.), but that's clunky and shouldn't at all be necessary.

Can someone from Quicken please let us know whether this is something that's being worked on, and what the ETA is?

Also, just to keep things accurate, there was no Quicken Mac 2014; 2015 was the first release of the new generation of Quicken Mac — and it was woefully incomplete. The 12-month budget feature,

in fact, had not been developed at that time. Budgeting didn’t debut until part-way through the Quicken 2016 product year, with version 3.3 in May 2016. So it’s been about 18 months since they first rolled out the budget feature without this important functionality. (WHY it didn’t occur to them to build in the ability to budget transfers from the start is a question we’ll probably never understand.)


As for voting, it should be clarified that this budgeting functionality has *now* worked its way up to one of the top spots — but many of the things the development team have added over the past few years have been the former top vote-getters. This includes building loan amortization, improving reports (still a work in progress), improvements to investments (like selling specific lots, viewing investments as of a prior date, and investment performance reporting) — all of which were at one time among the top requests from users. In fact, the budgeting functionality was the number one user request during the first year Quicken was out, and product manager Marcus credited user voting on features as an important factor in getting it done:


He wrote in his note about the 3.3 release: “We’ve added the ability to plan and track a budget over a 12-month period. This is a huge improvement over our previous single month budget feature and was the number 1 requested feature from our Quicken.com voting page. If there is a feature you want, please go to that page to add your suggestions.”


Of course the developers have a long list of enhancements on their roadmap, but there’s really no doubt that user feedback leads to them changing the order and priority of things on their list. And of course, none of them can come fast enough for users who are waiting for one or two or more key changes which would make Quicken more usable for them!

brucel

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Budget Transfers and Credit Card Payments?.


I know this has been discussed on here before, but I want to raise it again to let Quicken know how much of a NECESSITY this "feature" is. In Quicken for Mac, transfers do not show up in budgets. This means savings transfers, credit card payments, etc., cannot be budgeted for -- yet these make up probably half of my actual budget.

I get there's a workaround (show the transfer column, use a non-transfer category, etc.), but that's clunky and shouldn't at all be necessary.

Can someone from Quicken please let us know whether this is something that's being worked on, and what the ETA is?

Everyone should also recognize that Quicken.com was purchased from Intuit by the original founders and they have publicly committed to the Mac platform numerous times and are explicitly investing in the Mac product.  While the Quicken team inherited a woefully incomplete Mac product/codebase, the evidence of their commitment is multiple Mac releases that included end-user features even though the team was inundated with large technology-separation tasks (building out a new Quicken.com cloud, subscription model, etc.) The Mac release cadence has also increased to a refreshing level of minor and patch releases interleaved with more substantial major releases.

As for Quicken participating in the forums, I had posted a brief analysis of portfolio performance issues (i.e. beachball) and the Engineer responsible for that area, reached out to me directly with ideas and a commitment to improve the performance.  Marcus also actively communicates with users in this forum and does his best, time permitting, to transparently set expectations and resolve issues.  

Sure, there are gaps in all products but the push by Quicken's Mac team is leaps and bounds above the Intuit minimal-Mac-support mode that lasted too many years.  We need to give the Quicken team a chance to catch up on the backlog and respect what they have achieved so far.  Kudos to Marcus and the Mac development team for raising the bar and all that they have accomplished to date especially considering the starting point and the turmoil of separation from Intuit. I can imagine what that phase was like but with most of that behind them, the team seems well-posisitioned to deliver.

Bottom-line: The future for the Mac product can be bright if we help vs hinder.  Quicken is committed to the Mac and there is a team in place with a lot of work pending to close the gaps.  Sure, the gaps are frustrating, but the time and energy used to slander the product or vent about missing features that only serve to demoralize a team that is working diligently to deliver a better product, would be much better spent on proactive and concrete feedback and scenarios in the forums and voting system that have proven to influence the Mac product roadmap.  The exemplars are those here, like @smayer97, who tirelessly does so for the betterment of the product and this community (sorry for not mentioning others).  

Unknown

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Quicken for Mac Canada Needs more Budget features.


The budget feature and reporting for Quicken for Mac Canada 2018 really needs to allow one to budget for transfers, as the Windows program does.

Unknown

Yes please! I like the ability to add brokerage accounts in Quicken for Mac, but it wreaks havoc with my budget because all the brokerage transactions come into the budget as "uncategorized," putting me thousands of dollars over budget. I find it insane that a Brokerage account would be included in the budget feature by default and even more insane that there is no way to opt out of that. Quicken wants to force me to budget what my brokerage is doing down to the exact amount of individual investment transactions (impossible, btw) if I just want to budget my monthly personal spending?!

Unknown

You can also VOTE for the related feature to Include or Exclude Accounts on Budgets, here: 
https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/add-ability-to-include-or-exclude-accounts-on-bu...

Be sure to click on the link above to go there, then click VOTE at the top of THAT page to increase the count and therefore its visibility to the developers.

If you do not click VOTE at the top of each one, your vote will NOT be counted!

(If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)

 

This is fundamental!  The whole point of showing progress against budget is LOST if you don't have this!!!  Other free budget software does this, I hate having to use something else manual rather than just have it integrated with my Quicken.  Real disappointment. 

RCinNJ

This may be the most voted for thread and yet no action from the developers. I want to include withdrawals from my brokerage account as income in my annual budgeting, but QM nulls out the withdrawal because it is transferred INTO another of my accounts. This just seems like such a basic need in a program that claims to do budgeting.

Before finding this thread, I just spent a couple of hours looking for a work around that makes sense to me. I've seen suggested work arounds but the cost/benefit of doing the work-- and possibly having to undo all the work if this ever gets fixed-- doesn't seem worth it to me. 

jacobs

This may be the most voted for thread and yet no action from the developers. I want to include withdrawals from my brokerage account as income in my annual budgeting, but QM nulls out the withdrawal because it is transferred INTO another of my accounts. This just seems like such a basic need in a program that claims to do budgeting.

Before finding this thread, I just spent a couple of hours looking for a work around that makes sense to me. I've seen suggested work arounds but the cost/benefit of doing the work-- and possibly having to undo all the work if this ever gets fixed-- doesn't seem worth it to me. 

Well, just for the sake of accuracy, the 12-month budgeting feature didn't exist in Quicken 2015, and didn't appear until midway through the Quicken 2016 product year, in May 2019. So it's really a little more than two years since the budget feature was introduced. In the time since, a number of improvements to budgets have been made, including the ability to print a budget which was missing from the original release.

That said, I don't know how or why transfers were not included in the original planning for the budget functionality. We don't know if it was an oversight, or if it was a complex issue that they decided to pass over initially in order to release the core budget functionality for users who were clamoring for it. In any case, around the time the budget feature was being finished and released is when Quicken was sold by Intuit, and the developers subsequently lost a lot of time over the next year re-creating some of the back-end services which had been provided by Intuit. 

But product management heard the cry loud and clear; product manager Marcus wrote last year that "we don't currently support transfers in a budget but we know people want to track them for things like mortgage payments and moving money for savings.  It's definitely on our long-term roadmap for budgets."

Once the initial shift off Intuit's servers was out of the way, they ran into a problem last fall with the way budgets worked in the mobile app, again due to moving off Intuit back-end services. This required a fairly lengthy re-write of the budget section of the mobile app code which was just recently completed. The mobile app is done by a different team at Quicken than the Mac team, and Marcus stated that the Mac team wouldn't work on changes to the budget functionality until the mobile team was done their work, in order to avoid having to re-do their work to maintain compatibility with the mobile app. Now that the new version of the mobile app has recently been released, the way should be clear for the Mac team to dive back into making the necessary changes to the Mac code to allow transfers to be selectively included in budgets.

I agree it's been a long time, and I'm not making any excuses for the pace of development at Quicken -- just explaining the unfortunate sequence of events that got us here. I think some fairly significant architectural work is needed to get budgets to selectively recognize transfers, so I'm still not expecting this functionality in the immediate future -- but I do hope we'll see this work get tackled in the months ahead. If you're looking for any positives or hope, it's that they know people are waiting for this functionality, have promised to address it, and have progressed past some of the roadblocks that have delayed it.

QMac User

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Make scheduled transactions automatically appear in the budget.


It would be super helpful if scheduled transactions (including transfers) could automatically appear in the budget - or at least give the option to do so. This was a standard feature in Microsoft Money and it was sooo great. I hope Quicken will implement this soon!

Unknown

You can also VOTE for the related feature to Include or Exclude Accounts on Budgets, here: 
https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/add-ability-to-include-or-exclude-accounts-on-bu...

Be sure to click on the link above to go there, then click VOTE at the top of THAT page to increase the count and therefore its visibility to the developers.

If you do not click VOTE at the top of each one, your vote will NOT be counted!

(If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)

 

I agree, a major issue, it affects mortgage and credit cards in my budget, 2 significant items. Can’t use the budget figure

[email protected]

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Feature Request: Budget tracking of transfers to savings accounts.


*** I ORIGINALLY POSTED THIS 4 YEARS AGO. EDITED AND REPOSTED. ***
*** DESIRED CAPABILITY STILL NEEDED! ***

Bottom Line: Even Quicken 2012 (Windows) has advanced budgeting features that allow "transfers out" to be tracked in your budget. This simple feature is essential and must be added to Quicken for Mac. It's been a long time request from multiple users!
Explanation: The correct way to account for a savings transfer - as many users already know - is to categorize these fund transactions as transfers in both accounts (out of checking, into savings). This way, the "Net" income/expense is properly accounted for. A work around would be to categorize the transfer as an expense so it shows up in my monthly budget, but then my "Net" summary for all my accounts would be improperly summarized. To keep the "Net" summary accurate while still allowing the user to account for the savings transfers in a monthly budget, Quicken 2012 allowed the user more customizable options; i.e., the "transfer out" feature under advanced budgeting.


Implementation: This feature could be implemented in Quicken for Mac in a similar fashion or it could be added in a new and unique way (e.g. a check box under the savings account's settings that would allow transfers to be counted in the budget). I really have no UI preference, I simply want to be able to include my transfers to my savings accounts in my monthly budget. Why? It's the way I think most of us mentally attack our budgets - I know how much I make in a month and I want to compare that against how much I'm spending & transferring out (not just spending). 


I encourage all users to keep voting and requesting this necessary Budget feature for Quicken for Mac. 


Suggesting post on this request worth following:


https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/add-ability-to-include-or-exclude-transfers-on-b...

smayer97

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Feature Request: Budget tracking of transfers to savings accounts.

*** I ORIGINALLY POSTED THIS 4 YEARS AGO. EDITED AND REPOSTED. ***
*** DESIRED CAPABILITY STILL NEEDED! ***

Bottom Line: Even Quicken 2012 (Windows) has advanced budgeting features that allow "transfers out" to be tracked in your budget. This simple feature is essential and must be added to Quicken for Mac. It's been a long time request from multiple users!
Explanation: The correct way to account for a savings transfer - as many users already know - is to categorize these fund transactions as transfers in both accounts (out of checking, into savings). This way, the "Net" income/expense is properly accounted for. A work around would be to categorize the transfer as an expense so it shows up in my monthly budget, but then my "Net" summary for all my accounts would be improperly summarized. To keep the "Net" summary accurate while still allowing the user to account for the savings transfers in a monthly budget, Quicken 2012 allowed the user more customizable options; i.e., the "transfer out" feature under advanced budgeting.

Implementation: This feature could be implemented in Quicken for Mac in a similar fashion or it could be added in a new and unique way (e.g. a check box under the savings account's settings that would allow transfers to be counted in the budget). I really have no UI preference, I simply want to be able to include my transfers to my savings accounts in my monthly budget. Why? It's the way I think most of us mentally attack our budgets - I know how much I make in a month and I want to compare that against how much I'm spending & transferring out (not just spending). 

I encourage all users to keep voting and requesting this necessary Budget feature for Quicken for Mac. 

Suggesting post on this request worth following:

https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/add-ability-to-include-or-exclude-transfers-on-b...

One of the big obstacles for Quicken working on this has only recently been addressed, that is the complete backend rework of budgets syncing with Quicken Mobile. This was needed as a result of separation from Intuit. 

Now that this is finally done, Quicken has acknowledged that this is a feature they will be/are working on but that it will take time as it requires significant rework in QMac to make it work. (Just passing on info, so do not shoot the messenger)

(If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click "Like", so others will know, thanks.)

Les100

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Feature Request: Budget tracking of transfers to savings accounts.

*** I ORIGINALLY POSTED THIS 4 YEARS AGO. EDITED AND REPOSTED. ***
*** DESIRED CAPABILITY STILL NEEDED! ***

Bottom Line: Even Quicken 2012 (Windows) has advanced budgeting features that allow "transfers out" to be tracked in your budget. This simple feature is essential and must be added to Quicken for Mac. It's been a long time request from multiple users!
Explanation: The correct way to account for a savings transfer - as many users already know - is to categorize these fund transactions as transfers in both accounts (out of checking, into savings). This way, the "Net" income/expense is properly accounted for. A work around would be to categorize the transfer as an expense so it shows up in my monthly budget, but then my "Net" summary for all my accounts would be improperly summarized. To keep the "Net" summary accurate while still allowing the user to account for the savings transfers in a monthly budget, Quicken 2012 allowed the user more customizable options; i.e., the "transfer out" feature under advanced budgeting.

Implementation: This feature could be implemented in Quicken for Mac in a similar fashion or it could be added in a new and unique way (e.g. a check box under the savings account's settings that would allow transfers to be counted in the budget). I really have no UI preference, I simply want to be able to include my transfers to my savings accounts in my monthly budget. Why? It's the way I think most of us mentally attack our budgets - I know how much I make in a month and I want to compare that against how much I'm spending & transferring out (not just spending). 

I encourage all users to keep voting and requesting this necessary Budget feature for Quicken for Mac. 

Suggesting post on this request worth following:

https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/add-ability-to-include-or-exclude-transfers-on-b...

2019 is out and I'm still using a 2007 -  12 years later because they can't or don't want to fix this budget problem.

jacobs

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Feature Request: Budget tracking of transfers to savings accounts.


*** I ORIGINALLY POSTED THIS 4 YEARS AGO. EDITED AND REPOSTED. ***
*** DESIRED CAPABILITY STILL NEEDED! ***

Bottom Line: Even Quicken 2012 (Windows) has advanced budgeting features that allow "transfers out" to be tracked in your budget. This simple feature is essential and must be added to Quicken for Mac. It's been a long time request from multiple users!
Explanation: The correct way to account for a savings transfer - as many users already know - is to categorize these fund transactions as transfers in both accounts (out of checking, into savings). This way, the "Net" income/expense is properly accounted for. A work around would be to categorize the transfer as an expense so it shows up in my monthly budget, but then my "Net" summary for all my accounts would be improperly summarized. To keep the "Net" summary accurate while still allowing the user to account for the savings transfers in a monthly budget, Quicken 2012 allowed the user more customizable options; i.e., the "transfer out" feature under advanced budgeting.


Implementation: This feature could be implemented in Quicken for Mac in a similar fashion or it could be added in a new and unique way (e.g. a check box under the savings account's settings that would allow transfers to be counted in the budget). I really have no UI preference, I simply want to be able to include my transfers to my savings accounts in my monthly budget. Why? It's the way I think most of us mentally attack our budgets - I know how much I make in a month and I want to compare that against how much I'm spending & transferring out (not just spending). 


I encourage all users to keep voting and requesting this necessary Budget feature for Quicken for Mac. 


Suggesting post on this request worth following:


https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/add-ability-to-include-or-exclude-transfers-on-b...

Les, if you read the comments above in this thread, you'll see that it's neither "don't want to" nor "can't" -- the product manager last fall acknowledged this as a top issue for Quicken Mac customers, and publicly have committed to fixing this aspect of budget functionality. (It's quite rare for him to pre-announce a feature they will definitely work on changing.) I won't write here about all the stops, starts, and twists of direction in the development of Quicken for Mac since Quicken 2007 came out. What's relevant is that they've committed to developing this functionality. The product manager explained last year that they couldn't start on that project until the re-write of the mobile app was complete a few months ago, but there's every reason to now expect this functionality to come too the Mac product in the short-term future. We don't know exactly what that will be, but I'd guess within the next half year, and likely sooner.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the frustration with this functionality not existing yet int he modern Quicken Mac. And don't shoot the messenger; I'm just a fellow Quicken user waiting for this like you are, but reading what they've said about this issue makes me optimistic the long wait will be over in 2019.

[email protected]

One idea for including Transfers on the Budget tab: Simply use Excel-style, classic conditional formatting rules. Allow users to create custom entries for the Budget. Name: "Savings Transfers", Accounts from (Select all that apply): "BoA Checking", Accounts to (Select all that apply): "BoA Family Savings", Additional Filters: "Tag = " or "Payee Includes = ", etc., etc. 

Betty Knutson

This feature, when implemented, must be flexible enough to enable/disable transfer from the budget on an account-by-account basis. (Since being able to select accounts for budgets is a feature request Quicken has not yet implemented, I suspect it's why including/'excluding transfers has also not yet been implemented.) Here's why: a transfer to pay your credit card bill should NOT be included int he budget, because you already have all the individual expense transactions in your credit account reflected in the budget. But a transfer to pay down a loan SHOULD be included i your budget, since it's money coming out of your cash flow every month. And you might want the option to include transfers to a retirement or non-retirement savings account in your budget, too, if you set a plan for savings and want to make sure you stick to it. So making ALL transfers show up in the budget won't work; it has to be implemented so it can be done on an account-by-account basis.

In older versions of Quicken, you could select in your budget to include certain specific total loan payments - like mortgage and car payment. In my budget, I need to include the total loan payment and not just the interest / taxes etc.

If they could do it before, they can certainly figure out how to do it again. It worked beautifully.

In Mac 2019, I am having to exclude the non-principal amounts from my budget, and manually include the total loan payment amounts and transfers to savings and non-interest (like care credit) loans. Making a budget in Quicken now is useless. Come on Quicken, listen to your long-term users. We NEED this, and we've been asking for it back for years. And YES,  I voted!

jacobs

This feature, when implemented, must be flexible enough to enable/disable transfer from the budget on an account-by-account basis. (Since being able to select accounts for budgets is a feature request Quicken has not yet implemented, I suspect it's why including/'excluding transfers has also not yet been implemented.) Here's why: a transfer to pay your credit card bill should NOT be included int he budget, because you already have all the individual expense transactions in your credit account reflected in the budget. But a transfer to pay down a loan SHOULD be included i your budget, since it's money coming out of your cash flow every month. And you might want the option to include transfers to a retirement or non-retirement savings account in your budget, too, if you set a plan for savings and want to make sure you stick to it. So making ALL transfers show up in the budget won't work; it has to be implemented so it can be done on an account-by-account basis.

Betty, it's not that they can't figure out how to do it, it's simply (or perhaps not so simply) a matter of juggling their limited personnel/time resources to address a lot of things users are asking them to change/fix/enhance with the program.

Because we all use Quicken differently, what's important to you may not be to someone else, and visa versa. For instance, another user says they don't use budgeting, but they can't migrate off the old Quicken 2007 because Quicken 2019 still doesn't have a report where the user can specify what data to put in rows and columns, for such things as payroll or rental property management. You might say the reports are fine for you as-is, but you need to be able to generate an accurate budget. No one is wrong, and Quicken knows they need to tackle both issue. It's just a matter of which they do first. That could depend on how much time they estimate it will take, which of the engineers need to be involved in modifying different parts of the program, the number of users they think are affected, etc. 

In this case, the product manager acknowledged late last year that this is near the top of the list of user requests, and that they will tackle this. (It's rare for them to state something they will definitely include in a future release, so that's hugely encouraging.) He explained that they needed to wait for the overhaul of the Quicken Mobile App, which is developed by a different team at Quicken and needs to work with budgets from both the Quicken Windows and Quicken Mac programs, before they started work on modifying Quicken Mac budgets. The mobile app work was completed a few months ago, so there's therefore reason to expect this will show up sometime in 2019; unfortunately, there's no way to know exactly when.