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Edit Budget enhancements (11 Merged Votes)

bobsully

When viewing a budget, when noting a category which is over or under budget, it would be helpful to be able to modify the budget without completely escaping the current page and its information. Depending on how you open the "Edit Budget" link the information on the budget can be hidden behind a locked window. It would also be helpful to filter the budget results to show only those categories which are under or over budget, excluding and which and no values presently.

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Under Consideration

Budgets

Mac

Status: Under Consideration

Comments

Gabor Gresz

MUCH TO IMPROVE IN BUDGET

1. We should be able to edit the budget in the budget view without having to leave the budget view, going to "edit budget", trying to remember what we want to change / adjust. Each time I make adjust my budget it's a 3 step process for each category - seeing where I'm, going to edit budget, save budget, go back to see again how it had been adjusted in the budget view. This is pitiful. I should be able to adjust my budget in the budget view - that way I can see exactly what I've spent, etc.

2. Another major feature is missing from budgeting - that's rollover budget. It summarizes for the up-to-date column, but what ever I've not spent should roll over to next month's budget and vice versa.

Those two features are making a budget really usable. Otherwise it's just an excel chart.

cnjamros

Good morning. There are 2, I think, very important features needed for the Budget tool to make it usable. Without them, you spend more time managing the software than managing your own finances:

1. Ability to carry over unspent share of budgeted amounts from one month to the next. If I'm budgeting each month toward a large yearly expense, right now there is no way to track that without devising a workaround. Each month I end up leaving "unspent" money in that month, and then when it is time to pay the bill, I show myself spending WAY more than my income in that particular month.

2. Ability to edit the budget directly from within the 1- or 12-month main screen. If I need to move money from one category to another, right now I have to Edit Budget and remember, from memory, how much I need to adjust each category. Because the way the window pops up, it covers the actual reporting screen... so if I want to adjust the budget to the "actual spent" amount, I have no way to see that. It would be better if the fields in the reporting screen were simply directly editable, OR if the Edit Budget screen included the "actual spent" amount.

Please consider adding these features. Without them, the budget is simply a spreadsheet and more time is spent devising workarounds than actually budgeting.

I am THRILLED that QMac is such an improved product. Because of it, I switched back to Quicken after many years away and I love it for the most part. Adding these features would remove a lot of frustration that I've found with the new version.

Chip Osborn

I suggest eliminating the "Edit Budget" screen. Allow changes to a budget to be completed on the "Actual vs Budget screen. Click on the "budget number" on the "Actual vs Budget" screen and make the change to the budget. It is extremely cumbersome to use two screens when one will do. Cordially.

Barbara O'Keeffe

How about doing away with the crappy bar graph for the 1 month budget view and just having the same format as the 12 month view but for just one month. I really don't need big red and green bars splashing across my screen. I absolutely detest it as it now is formatted and don't use it.

Chip Osborn

As we move into 2020, I would once again like to suggest doing away with the separate budget screen. To make it much easier, each user should be able to change the budget within the actual/budget main screen. It is cumbersome and unnecessary to have a separate budget screen.

I would like to add one more comment about budgeting. I believe many people don't budget because the moment a budget is created it is wrong. There is no way to guess how much gas, groceries, vacations or many other things will be bought within a month.

The value of a budget is to forecast future profit or loss (Personal or Business). Therefore, actual expenditures for a month plus future budgeted items forecast the future. Example: Lets say that the months of January and February are complete. Those two months now have actual amounts spent. I change the budgeted amounts in those months to match the actuals spent. Then I review my budget items for the remaining months...March through December. Now, my "budget" becomes more accurate in forecasting my yearend profit or loss. As the months go by, I change a completed months budget to reflect the money I have actually spent and then adjust future budgets with increased knowledge of my expenditures. By the time June comes around, I know from my actuals plus future budgets that I am going to run out of money before the end of the year or have money left over.

It would be nice if Quicken would create a button at the top of a month that would allow users to match that month's budget to that month's actuals. Right now I do it manually.

Here's what's important about the budgeting process. Actuals plus future budgeted months equals a yearend forecast. Good news or bad news, at least a user has an early warning system to manage their money. Doing a budget without this system is a waste of time and that is why so many people don't budget.

Quicken_Tyka

Hello All,

This Idea seems to have fallen stagnant and due to the Age of the request and lack of User Votes/Comments, will be archived within the next 7 business days.

If you would like to see this Idea kept alive and considered for possible future implementation in Quicken, be sure to Add your Vote and a comment explaining how this Idea would be beneficial for you.

More information, including steps to vote and how to submit your own Ideas for future product features/improvements, is also available here.

Thank you,

Quicken Community Support Team

bobsully

This idea seems to have fallen stagnant as Quicken has not improved the issue. The issue still exists.

jacobs

This should absolutely not be archived. I don't know how often people can post new things about the same ideas that have been expressed well already. There are a series of issues people have repeatedly be asking for with budgets, and the product manager has said some of those are actively being worked on. Until the next wave of enhancements to budgets are rolled out, none of the budget idea posts should be retired.

bobsully

jacobs said:

"Until the next wave of enhancements to budgets are rolled out, none of the budget idea posts should be retired."
Exactly. Common sense please.

JayBugs

Just making clear that both ideas in this set of messages are still needed and are valuable missing items. Do not archive this request. Rollovers from month to month and year to year are the most important missing feature in all of Quicken!

jray

[removed - rant/unhelpful/off-topic]

pbsaxton

I want budget creation the way it used to be. For the whole year, then spread out evenly for each month. Now I have to put in each month. I need to be able to see all categories at once. Can only see 2 or 2 and only 2-3 months at a time. I need to be able to see the whole year and all categories. Why is this NOT an option????

jacobs

@pbsaxton I'm confused by your comment/complaint. Nothing has changed in the past several years in the Budget screens. Are you sure you you've clicked on Budgets, then the 12-months tab, then Edit Budget?

This screen shows all accounts as rows, and all months as columns. You can see the entire year wide, and 20 to 40 or more rows, depending g on the size of your screen.

Chip Osborn

1) At minimum allow the "Edit Budget" window to be moved around so that one can see the "Actual vs Budget" display underneath. The current system locks the "Edit Budget" display in the center of the "Actual vs Budget" display. That prohibits seeing the data underneath.

2) Even better then the above suggestion, eliminate the "Edit Budget" display entirely. Allow changes to the budget to be made in the "Actual vs Budget" display. It would make changes to the budget so much more user friendly.

jacobs

Those aren't unreasonable requests, but I'd just note that implementing either one would likely require some very significant re-working of the code in the budget section of the program. The former would require live updating of the actual budget screen every time a field is touched, instead of refreshing that screen only when a user saves their edits currently. The second would require completely redoing the user interface. Again, not bad ideas; I'm only trying to provide some information to set your expectations realistically.

My understanding from conversations with the previous product manager for Quicken Mac is that the budget code is particularly fragile, and they're reluctant to monkey with it until they can significantly re-write it. There are some very popular users request stop improve the budget functionality (such as a usable actual-to-budget report, budget rollovers for over/under amounts each month, an "everything else" budget line for accounts not specifically budgeted, and others), so my guess would be that at some point they will introduce a re-written budget module which includes or is capable of growing to support all these types of budget features -- and until then, they probably won't make significant changes.

Quicken Anja

Hello @Chip Osborn,

Thank you for taking the time to reach out to the Community with your request.

I went ahead and changed your post to an Idea so other users who have the same or a similar request can vote on your idea by clicking the up arrow (see below).

Ideas are also reviewed by our Development and Product teams in order to improve Quicken and implement new features requested by customers.

Please, be sure to add your own vote as well.

Chip Osborn

Continue using the Budget Spreadsheet as currently developed. After the creation, allow changes to the Budget Spreadsheet to be made from the Actuals vs Budget Spreadsheet. I believe it can be done by just unlocking "budgeted items" and feeding the changes back to the original Budget Spreadsheet. Here's why it is important. The Budget Spreadsheet opens over the top of the Actuals vs Budget Spreadsheet. This doesn't allow one to see the actuals that may effect forecasting future budget items. The current system forces the user to go back and forth between the two spreadsheets.

Zoolook

One of the most frustrating lack of features in the budgeting tool on the Mac is that you cannot edit the budget while viewing your actuals, which you can on Quicken Windows, and also Quicken on the Web when syncing to either file.

Example below:

Here in Quicken Mac, there is no way of editing these amounts without hitting "edit budget" which takes you to a full year view, and then you can't see your actuals. You can't edit the budget in a monthly view, so to edit and view at the same time, you'd need the monthly view in a new window and edit that month in the annual view.

Whereas this screenshot from Quicken on the Web shows you can edit the amount in-line while viewing the details, making cleaning up monthly budgets a lot easier

Can we get this in-line editing in the Mac App? I'll save the rollover request for another time ;)

jacobs

Here in Quicken Mac, there is no way of editing these amounts without hitting "edit budget" which takes you to a full year view, and then you can't see your actuals. You can't even open that in a separate window.

That's actually incorrect. You can open the budget in a separate window, and that enables you to view the standard budget view (with actuals) and the Edit view, at the same time.

Open your budget, then select View > Open in New Window. Voila, now you have the budget in the main window and in a separate window. Click Edit in one of them, and you can view your actual-versus budget in one window while editing the budget in the other. 😁

Of course, it would be better if they re-designed the budget screens completely so one could edit the budget directly without the separate edit screen, but that's apparently a major project which along with various other budget requests like rollover and "everything else" would require re-writing the budget part of the program almost completely. Until that happens, using two windows can be the next-best thing.

Zoolook

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20422753#Comment_20422753

Of course there are workarounds, although what I meant in my comment is you cannot edit in a monthly view (even in a new window) in the Mac App, only in the annual view. I've edited for clarity.

Your suggestion is the probably the best workaround, so thanks for that, but given you can only edit in an annual view, and I'd like to correct/edit at the monthly view, having everything on the screen together to make that easy makes things very cramped, at least on my 16" MBP. It's a lot easier on the web.

The renovated budget functionality you alluded to has been mentioned for 3 or 4 years now, apparently it's not as important as letting people track their mileage, but I'd really love to see it come to fruition.

jacobs

@Zoolook I don't use the web interface because I don't use syncing with Quicken Cloud, so I was only talking about the Quicken "Classic" desktop program.

The 1-month budget screen is a carry-over from the 2010 predecessor program, Quicken Essentials, and wasn't updated/redesigned when they built the 12-month budget screens in 2016. It's clearly in need of a makeover to make it more useful and more visually compatible with the rest of the current program. I suspect that's a piece of the overall budget re-write project.

The renovated budget functionality you alluded to has been mentioned for 3 or 4 years now, apparently it's not as important as letting people track their mileage, but I'd really love to see it come to fruition.

To be fair, mileage tracking is a very small piece of the major project to build a Business & Personal version for Quicken Mac — and that's been a request for decades which is finally now starting to come to fruition in stages.

As for update to the budget part of the program, there are clear signs that we have moved past a wishlist of feature ideas and requests to tangible action. Late last year, the developers marked a bunch of budget Idea topics as "Planned", and this appears to be a significant piece of their development strategy for 2024. All of these budget feature requests were marked as "Planned":

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7716047/actual-vs-budgeted-reports-customize-date-range-and-get-comparisons-q-mac-13-legacy-votes

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7400873/add-ability-to-choose-months-yearly-data-for-budget-prints-reports-43-legacy-votes-q-mac

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7445030/envelope-budgeting-q-mac-9-merged-vote

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7709787/projected-balances-including-both-budget-amounts-and-bill-reminders-1-merged-vote-q-mac

Along with also marking as Planned the Lifetime Planner, Debt Reduction Planner, and Tax Planner features from Quicken Windows, 2024 seems poised to be the "year of planning tools" for Quicken Mac. (As always, we'll believe it when we see it! 😉)

Quicken Anja

Hello @Zoolook,

Your idea has been merged into this already active Idea thread regarding the same request.

Thank you!

jacobs

This Idea needs 5 more votes in order to be forwarded to the developers for evaluation. It's possible they are already planning to revamp the Edit screen as part of implementing some of the other budget features mentioned above, but it would still be good to get this topic in front of the developers to consider when they dig into revisions to the budget part of the program.

To vote: jump up to the first post in this thread, and look for the yellow box with the vote counter. If the little triangle/arrow under the counter is light gray, you've already voted for this idea; if it's dark gray, click the counter to add your vote.

Quicken Anja

Hello All,

The status of this Idea has been changed to Under Consideration as it has reached enough votes and has been submitted to our Product and Development team for further review.

Thank you!