Support Tags on Budgets (3 Merged Votes) (Q Mac)

smayer97

I know that Quicken removed support for using tags in budgets in QWin because of some challenges, and so this is also not available in QMac. 

BUT I believe there is a solution to addressing this that may help this feature be viable.

I presented the same solution (over 2 years ago here) in the context of designing a Columnar Report like in QM2007 that is still lacking in "modern" subscription QMac, with one of the options being creating a report based on categories vs tags. 

So please add this feature back for budgets (as well as for Columnar Reports, when it is implemented).

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Proposed possible solution (refined from original recommendation):

Since transactions can have multiple tags, there is the possibility to get cross-tagging, which would result in double-counting. I believe the options are quite simple to deal with this. Let me present to you my suggestions:

Without having analyzed it completely, I can see only a few solutions to that challenge of designing and developing such a feature:

• either the budget carries a warning that any transactions that have more than one tag and appear on the budget will be double counted, (not terribly useful but better than nothing)
• or the program goes the extra step to warn the user if it found cross-tagged transactions that are being double-counted but nothing else (again, not great but better than nothing)
• or even one step further, for any row where cross-tags are detected, those fields are highlighted (coloured, formatted, etc) to show where the double-counting is taking place; this would give the user a visual cue as to where approximately the cross-tagging exists. 
• or one step further, the user can be given the option to not display subtotal or total for those lines or columns; again enhancing the visual cue.
  

Whichever way, I cannot see any program knowing what to do beyond that; it would be up to the user to decide how best to handle that. In some cases, it may be as simple as the user choosing to not display subtotals and/or totals (QM2007 has the functionality to choose your columns, including which subtotals and totals to display in reports; the same could apply to budgets), or the user would have to decide if that cross-tagging makes sense for the transactions involved and clean it up.

Theresa McTier

I need to be able to make budgets based on my TAGS as well as certain categories. Currently, the only option I have is to include only certain categories.

EXPLANATION:  I manage more than one person's bank account within one Quicken account because all my accounts are linked at my bank and thus download at the same time.  Because I transfer funds from one person's account to another, I need these bank accounts to stay in one Quicken account (as opposed to creating more than one Quicken account with separate passwords).  I need to be able to make separate budgets within my Quicken account for each person's bank account.  I know I could create new categories that include the tag, which would be cumbersome and lengthy (example:  Auto & Transport:Auto Payment:Van) but it would be ever so much easier if I could create a budget including certain tags.

John_in_NC

I believe you mean more than one Quicken file, not accounts.

There was a version of of Quicken for Mac that allowed for Tags in budgets. This functionally was removed because it was a use-case nightmare because things were getting double counted because transactions can be both a budgeted category and also a tag. 

I don't know the details of your situation, but you might have to rethink how you setup you files, categories, and budgets. 

Theresa McTier

John, you're absolutely right. I did mean file instead of accounts. I have several accounts in one file, one joint bank account, one savings account, one credit card account, and one account that I manage for someone who cannot manage his own finances. This is the account for which I need a separate budget.



It would be nice if I could make a separate file, but then I would not be able to transfer funds from one account to another within Quicken.



My issue is that I need a way within this file to separate my funds from this person's funds so I can track his funds better. I guess I'm going to end up making separate categories just for this person. Sigh.

NotACPA

John, you're absolutely right. I did mean file instead of accounts. I have several accounts in one file, one joint bank account, one savings account, one credit card account, and one account that I manage for someone who cannot manage his own finances. This is the account for which I need a separate budget.

It would be nice if I could make a separate file, but then I would not be able to transfer funds from one account to another within Quicken.

My issue is that I need a way within this file to separate my funds from this person's funds so I can track his funds better. I guess I'm going to end up making separate categories just for this person. Sigh.

Since that "account for which you need a separate budget" isn't part of YOUR taxes, and isn't part of YOUR ownership ... it should be in a completely separate file.

The basic principal is that a Q data file should contain all of the info for a single tax entity (one fed tax return) and ONLY the info for that tax entity.

Moving that account to it's own file resolves your Tags issue completely ... and is going to happen sooner that your "budget by tags" request ... which is unlikely.

jsurpless

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Quicken Mac 2019 Budgets & Tags.


It would be really helpful if Budgets could be restricted to certain tags.

I've seen the requests for certain accounts but nothing for tags.

Looking to create a budget for myself, my wife and overall

John_in_NC

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Merging.


Quicken Essentials allowed Tags in budgets. 

It was quite problematic because there were too many use cases where things could get double counted (or ignored) because of the ability to Tag and Categorize. Add in that you can add multiple tags to a transaction made the situation worse. Thus, tags got yanked from budgets.

I kind of missed it because there are times this would be helpful. But, I was aware of the situation. From a programming standpoint, I can see where it had to go. 

Note: This conversation was created from a reply on: Quicken Mac 2019 Budgets & Tags.

smayer97

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Moving to merge.


They will run into the same situation with reports and tags. BUT it is an essential feature to create one of the most requested report types: columnar reports with categories vs tags (and other columns too).
See: Columnar report (with selectable choices for rows and columns)
(of course this type of report, and budget, was much easier when there was only one Class, aka Tags, possible per transaction...trade-offs  :-\  )

SO, they will have to tackle this issue. That said, 2 years ago I have even proposed a few solutions as a guide to solving this problem. I agree it is a challenging one but my approach is NOT to try to solve all the confilicts but rather simply highlight when and possibly where there are conflicts (i.e. double counting) and let the user deal with it.

See my post here:
https://getsatisfaction.com/quickencommunity/topics/in-quicken-2007-i-can-create-custom-reports-with...

The same approach can be applied to budgets.

I have been meaning to bring this back up with Marcus for him to keep in mind as a general approach to dealing with this issue, because they will have to.

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

Note: This conversation was created from a reply on: Merging.

Unknown

How about warning the user of a "duplicate tag" when created initially.  Second tag could be "Tag..2"; tag 3 could be "Tag...3".  Similar to creating sub accounts.

smayer97

How about warning the user of a "duplicate tag" when created initially.  Second tag could be "Tag..2"; tag 3 could be "Tag...3".  Similar to creating sub accounts.

How would Quicken identify a "duplicate" tag?

NickHanson

Maybe this has been suggested before and I just can't find it, but It would be awesome to be able to keep transactions out of a budget if they have a certain tag.

For example, my wife and I went on a vacation, which we saved up for and used our debit account to pay for everything. If I change all the transactions to the "vacation" category, then I can keep them out of the monthly budget, however, then I can not categorize our spending on the vacation.

If I tag all of the transactions with a "vacation" tag, then I can make a report, however, the transactions affect our budget. 

If there is already a way to work around this, let me know, however, if not, then I think this would be a simple but helpful tool to add. 

(Also, and I'll make another thread for this, but it would be nice to be able to turn on an automatic tag for a period of time. Set the dates for the length of a vacation or business trip and automatically tag/categorize everything that is spent for a certain account)

NickHanson

Also, I'm using Qmac-Subscription

Chris Harris

Yes Quicken, please do add this back.  It would make excluding certain transactions from a budget so much simpler.  For example, when the transaction is covered by savings goal, etc. I don't want it to show up in the budget.  Right now, the only way I know of to do this is to have duplicate categories (ex. "Category" & "Category - exclude)"

Cohen Adair

> @NickHanson said:
> Maybe this has been suggested before and I just can't find it, but It would be awesome to be able to keep transactions out of a budget if they have a certain tag.
>
> For example, my wife and I went on a vacation, which we saved up for and used our debit account to pay for everything. If I change all the transactions to the "vacation" category, then I can keep them out of the monthly budget, however, then I can not categorize our spending on the vacation.
>
> If I tag all of the transactions with a "vacation" tag, then I can make a report, however, the transactions affect our budget. 
>
> If there is already a way to work around this, let me know, however, if not, then I think this would be a simple but helpful tool to add. 
>
> (Also, and I'll make another thread for this, but it would be nice to be able to turn on an automatic tag for a period of time. Set the dates for the length of a vacation or business trip and automatically tag/categorize everything that is spent for a certain account)

I essentially do the same thing, but with "unnecessary spending" each month. I use a tag for myself and a tag for my wife. It would be great for budgets to a spending limit on any given tag. Up until now, I've been using a Google spreadsheet to track our unnecessary spending.

probablyjd

I would also like to see this feature. My use case is exactly the same as Cohen's - my wife and I each get some unrestricted "fun money" which can be used on anything we individually want (meaning it can be in any category) but we'd like to be able to budget how much we spend each month.

I've read the comments going back a few years on this and understand that this feature was removed because it caused "double counting," but I don't really understand why that's a problem unless you NEED all your budgets to be mutually exclusive (I don't). Seems like a simple warning that budgeting based on tags could lead to double counting would be enough. Or maybe even a separate budget section for tags that is independent of the category-based budgets? I see plenty of possible solutions, but maybe this just isn't a feature that is important enough to go through the effort.

For now our workaround is to create separate "fun money" category groups with subcategories that are duplicates, which isn't particularly elegant but works fine.