Did Quicken add the ability to create budget for ONE account in Quicken 2019?

Benjer

I'm hoping that the new version of Quicken for Mac (2019) now includes the ability to create a budget that includes ONLY one account. Specifically, I want transfers to a savings account or a payment to a loan/credit account to be counted as a transaction in the budget. Without this feature, transfers are counted in the budget as a net-zero transaction. It makes it almost impossible to use Quicken's budget feature when you want to create a budget each month for just our checking account. It's the only thing keeping us from upgrading from Quicken 2008 for Mac. If someone using 2019 can let us know if this was included as a feature this version, that would be great!

John_in_NC

No, the budget will still draw transaction activity from all visible accounts. You can't isolate it to a single one in 2019.

QMac User

There are many related posts, comments, etc on this topic. It is truly amazing how this functionality could possibly be omitted. Long overdue functionality. 

NotACPA

From an accounting perspective, I'm totally baffled by your issue.

A BUDGET is for income and expense items.  Your loan payment consists of 2 parts, the principal payment, and the loan interest payment.

The principal payment is NEITHER an income nor expense item.  You're neither richer nor poorer after the principal amount is paid.

It's the interest portion that's an expense ... it reduces what you're worth.

SO, are you unable to budget the Interest expense?

OR, perhaps, what you really want is a cash-flow report ... because that will show all monies coming and going, including that principal payment.

Benjer

NotACPA - QW HBRP 2019 said:

From an accounting perspective, I'm totally baffled by your issue.

A BUDGET is for income and expense items.  Your loan payment consists of 2 parts, the principal payment, and the loan interest payment.

The principal payment is NEITHER an income nor expense item.  You're neither richer nor poorer after the principal amount is paid.

It's the interest portion that's an expense ... it reduces what you're worth.

SO, are you unable to budget the Interest expense?

OR, perhaps, what you really want is a cash-flow report ... because that will show all monies coming and going, including that principal payment.

Hi, NotACPA: I apologize in advance for not being as proficient as you in accounting. Thank you for generously bearing with me.

Perhaps a cash-flow report is what I want. Put simply, I would like to create a spending plan that helps me plan how much I will spend for the next month, including how much I will put aside for savings (i.e. transfer to my savings accounts). The issue is that you can't create a budget (cash-flow plan, spending plan, etc.) in recent versions of Quicken that treats a transfer to another account (whether savings or a payment to a credit account) as an expense.

Such a thing was possible in earlier versions of Quicken, which is partly why it is a common feature request today.

jacobs

NotACPA - QW HBRP 2019 said:

From an accounting perspective, I'm totally baffled by your issue.

A BUDGET is for income and expense items.  Your loan payment consists of 2 parts, the principal payment, and the loan interest payment.

The principal payment is NEITHER an income nor expense item.  You're neither richer nor poorer after the principal amount is paid.

It's the interest portion that's an expense ... it reduces what you're worth.

SO, are you unable to budget the Interest expense?

OR, perhaps, what you really want is a cash-flow report ... because that will show all monies coming and going, including that principal payment.

NotACPA: I don't think this should be baffling to you. For a *budget*, people are looking to budget their cash flow, not net income like a business. No one wants to budget just for the interest expense of a loan payment; they want to budget for the total they'll need to pay. People may want to budget a certain amount for savings, even though accounting-wise this is just a transfer of funds.

Benjer: Hundreds of people have asked on this forum for this functionality; the Windows program apparently has had it, but the modern generation Mac program does not. The Mac product manager has said they will work on adding this enhancement to budgets in the program; we just don't know when it's due to arrive.

QMac User

NotACPA - QW HBRP 2019 said:

From an accounting perspective, I'm totally baffled by your issue.

A BUDGET is for income and expense items.  Your loan payment consists of 2 parts, the principal payment, and the loan interest payment.

The principal payment is NEITHER an income nor expense item.  You're neither richer nor poorer after the principal amount is paid.

It's the interest portion that's an expense ... it reduces what you're worth.

SO, are you unable to budget the Interest expense?

OR, perhaps, what you really want is a cash-flow report ... because that will show all monies coming and going, including that principal payment.

Exactly!

smayer97

You can monitor the release notes, either after each downloaded update, posts on this forum, or the release notes here for changes.

Meanwhile, you can add your VOTE to Add Ability to Include or Exclude Accounts on Budgets.

First, click on the underlined link above to go there, then click VOTE at the top of THAT page, so your will vote count for THIS feature and increase its visibility to the developers by seeking to have the features you need or desire end up in the latest version.

While you are at it, you may want to add your VOTE to related IDEAS found on the 
List of Requests Related to Budgets. Click on the underlined link, then follow the instructions to add your vote to more related ideas. Your VOTES matter!

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