Actual vs. Budgeted Reports: customize date range and get comparisons (Q Mac) (13 Legacy Votes)

jacobs

Just be aware that changing your computer's clock to a date in the past can cause unexpected problems. For instance, I consider my local backups with Time Machine and cloud backups with iDrive crucial aspects of my computing environment; for that reason, I would not set my clock back. (Other background functions in macOS rely on a consistent clock as well.)

I remain hopeful that the developers will deliver a usable budget report, and as we head towards the middle of 2024, sooner rather than later.

John D. 777

I vote for this one, too. It is an essential feature of any budget analysis. Doesn't everyone want know "actual performance versus budget" at each month end?

Milton Adam

This was a go-to report when I used Q for Windows. Please include this in the Q for Mac.

NorthernExposure

I came to the Community specifically to post this same request and found 145 comments already made on the subject. Wow. What an active community! As a career software product marketing professional I would say that the Quicken team is very fortunate indeed! Looking forward to the enhancement!

gstella

I came on today to suggest that Quicken for Mac make it possible to customize the dates of Budget reports and see that this has been requested since 2018 without apparent resolution!! It is frustrating that if I for example want to check on July 1 how I did on my budget for Jan through June, the report includes anticipated expenses for July also…

aguyawry

Another +1

obrienjm1

Another +1

John Oehrke

It appears that improvements to budgeting have been requested for many years now. I would plead that the developers begin with adding date range parameters to the budget summary report. Not to sound snarky but this really doesn't feel like a very big ask.

michaelweinberg

A couple months ago I spoke with a Quicken developer about this (at their request). They did not think it would be difficult to implement. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the conversation will have helped push this issue to the forefront.

new002

I would use this feature a ton! I have a few big payments (car, daycare) that hit at the end of the month, and they may not clear until the 1st of next month, and then you can never see what your budget was from Jan-[Month].

newcastlelinda

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20441577#Comment_20441577

Actually, this request is MUCH older than 2018. It was initiated during beta testing. Some of us have been waiting a very very long time. 🤨

NorthernExposure

I just took a look at page 1 in this thread, and it appears this made the cut in August 2023. Working through a backlog of enhancement requests is a frustrating reality but it is good to know it's coming. One day we'll see the update newsletter with this feature included in the release. Meanwhile, I am exporting the budget versus actual 12-month summary report to CSV, importing it into Numbers, and trimming it to the period I am interested in seeing. Just did this on the first weekend in April to see Jan-Mar.

newcastlelinda

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20485893#Comment_20485893

Hi @NorthernExposure I would be very interested in a bit more detail on you export the budget versus action and how you do the trimming of the CSV file. I’d like to do this myself. Thanks in advance

jacobs

@NorthernExposure There have been additional signs that major changes are coming for budgets. Last year, there was a survey asking for user input on budget features as they apparently moved through the design stage; I think it's reasonable to expect that we'll see at least some new budget functionality later this year — and a functioning budget report should be be first out of the gate.

The problem with exporting to a spreadsheet is that you have to do the trimming and create the formulas each time. The formulas to sum the columns across is pretty quick, but the vertical summing is tricky because you have to avoid including both a category and its subcategories in your totals. So it's helpful to build a budget template with all the formulas, and then each month do an export, open the .csv file in a spreadsheet, copy-and-paste the exported values into your template, and blank out the months after the most recent one. At one point a couple years ago, when I was helping my parents and they wanted a monthly budget-vs-actual report, I built a spreadsheet template where I could paste in the Quicken export in one sheet, and in another sheet just enter in one cell the the number of the latest month, and it would generate the year-to-date report. (But that takes a bit of spreadsheet skills to get right.) Hopefully, the Quicken developers will make this all unnecessary by delivering a budget report in the months ahead.

NorthernExposure

The exported file contains a 12 month template and as much data as you have accumulated. For my purposes I do this analysis quarterly, and I sum the three columns (budget, actual, and variance) horizontally for each line item. It's not perfect but it's worth the time and effort every quarter.