QWin 2018: average spending for income/expense category

Quicken Community
Quicken Community Employee mod
edited August 2019 in Reports (Windows)
I have used Quicken for years, yet even after all of these upgrades, I still dont see a way to do an "Average Monthly" Spending for the Income/Expense Category? I have verified in Quicken Deluxe 2018 this still isnt available. Why? It would seem this would be very easy to add. I cant use "Current Spending vs Average Spending by Category" because it will not allow me to do for current year. Is this a feature that can be implemented rather quickly?
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  • mshiggins
    mshiggins SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November 2017
    Why don't you use a report for the entire year and divide the total by 12?


    Another idea would be to create a budget. The budget defaults to average monthly spending amounts.


    A third idea would be to use Expenses topic in the Lifetime Planner. The detailed category expenses will default to average annual spending.
    Quicken user since Q1999. Currently using QW2017.
    Questions? Check out the  Quicken Windows FAQ list
  • Unknown
    Unknown Member
    edited December 2018
    Thx for the suggestions, forgot to monitor. Regarding your first suggestion, seems like a pretty easy ask for Quicken to implement. I mean, why should I have to divide every category I have for 12 months, when a simple software feature can take care of this. I am trying to understand what has happened for the last 12 months, then I can plan better with a budget as you have suggested.
  • Unknown
    Unknown Member
    edited November 2019

    Thx for the suggestions, forgot to monitor. Regarding your first suggestion, seems like a pretty easy ask for Quicken to implement. I mean, why should I have to divide every category I have for 12 months, when a simple software feature can take care of this. I am trying to understand what has happened for the last 12 months, then I can plan better with a budget as you have suggested.

    It is easy to ask for Quicken Inc to implement it.
    You just did with this idea.

    And it might even be pretty easy for them to implement (what you were really suggesting), but in fact it has to get in line behind all the other things people are ask for.  That is quite a long line, and don't see a ton of people asking for this to get it push up on that line.

    There is a ton of things in Quicken that if I could control it I would change first, but I don't own Quicken, and Quicken Inc, and the other customers don't agree with my priorities.  The reality of life!
  • Unknown
    Unknown Member
    edited January 2019
    This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled It would be great if Quicken would give the option to average the totals for bot....


    It would be very helpful if Quicken would have the option to create the average in both Categories and tags. If this was part of reports we could see the average spent in a category and tags for month to date, last month, qtr, year to date and all. Without looking at a budget. 
  • Unknown
    Unknown Member
    edited January 2018
    This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Average Reports.


    I also would support this request.  A column on a report that is the average of whatever timeframe has been selected.  If annual report, than an monthly average of the 12 months, if a quarter report than an average of the 3 months etc.

    Note: This conversation was created from a reply on: It would be great if Quicken would give the option to average the totals for bot....
  • Unknown
    Unknown Member
    edited November 2019

    Thx for the suggestions, forgot to monitor. Regarding your first suggestion, seems like a pretty easy ask for Quicken to implement. I mean, why should I have to divide every category I have for 12 months, when a simple software feature can take care of this. I am trying to understand what has happened for the last 12 months, then I can plan better with a budget as you have suggested.

    I would like this feature.  I used Quicken for Windows and that feature was in there at one time.  I miss this feature and would love to see it return and also be in the MAC version.  Should have just been added from the start.
  • Janicedmd
    Janicedmd Member
    After the report I sent it to excel and them divided it by 12. Hope it helps you.
  • UKR
    UKR SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    There isn't a report available to show average actual income/expense for each budget category.
    While we're waiting for such a report to be created, there's a way to see average actual income/expense for a single category:
    • Go into your Budget view, either Graph view or Annual View.
    • Click to select a category.
    • Locate the "Category history" icon (looks like a graph with 3 bars) and click it. In the Annual view this icon is in the category name field. In the Graph view it's all the way to the right,
    This will show you your last 12 months actuals as a bar graph, with a horizontal line showing the average amount. A numeric average amount is shown under the chart title.

    If you want a report showing average actual annual income/expense to be added in a future version of Quicken, please do not forget to vote for it.
    Locate the big blue box near the top of this webpage (or page 1 for long discussions) and click the "Up" triangle under the voting count. Wait a moment for the vote count to be registered and updated before you continue.
    Every vote counts!

  • bseidel
    bseidel Member
    Need a report showing "average" spent per month. Example: If I spent $12,000 on Food in the year 2020, I want a report telling me I spent an "average" of $1,000 per month. Currently, it seems I have to manually divide the total for the year by 12.
  • Quicken_Tyka
    Quicken_Tyka Alumni ✭✭✭✭
    Hello @bseidel

    Thank you for taking the time to visit the Community to post your question, although I apologize that this feature isn't currently offered.

    I have moved your post to the ongoing Idea thread to add the ability to generate an average spending report.

    Be sure to navigate to the top of this post and click the up arrow to add your vote!


    Ideas are reviewed by our development team to see what people would like to be available in the future.

    Thank you,

    -Quicken Tyka

    ~~~***~~~
  • Robp0900
    Robp0900 Member
    I cannot believe there is no way to view AVERAGE spend for the year for each category. All this stuff Quicken has but I can't see average spend. Crazy. I'll be asking for a credit and will be looking for some other software that has this most basic option.
  • Jim_Harman
    Jim_Harman SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
    @Robp0900, Have you looked at the report at Reports > Spending > Current Spending vs Average Spending by Category in current versions of Quicken?

    Does that meet your needs?
    QWin Premier subscription
  • gabidly
    gabidly Member

    Same need here. This type of report seems logical and needed. Should be offered as a boiler plate report….