Section total will not zero out when line items below it are zeroed out

Paul Kleeberg

I seem to have encountered a problem. Section total will not zero out when line items below it are zeroed out. This was a budget that was created from an Imported Mac Quicken 2007 file. How might I correct this? Below is an image:

John_in_NC

This is working as designed.

The Parent category (in your case, Insurance) can have a separate goal than the sub cats below. In your screenshot, it is not intended to be a total of all the sub cats below. If you want a goal of zero for the parent, then you have to zero that out as well.

What is a bug is the negative values that gets triggered in certain cases. All the goals set in the budget should be positive. I will post back when I recall what triggers that. But, be sure to enter all goal items as positive amounts

John_in_NC

Note: when editing a budget, if you go into Select Categories, you can remove the parent and it will then haven an uneditable field that sums the cats selected. That might be what you want instead so you don't have to zero things out.

I can no longer reproduce the negative number issue in budgets, so it might have been corrected. I know a bug report was submitted. So, my comments might be a false alarm. (And there might be a legitimate reason a negative gets populated there depending on the situation. That would be based on transaction history. 

Alternatively, you only have a few days left for this budget year. (After making a backup of your date file), in the date field of your current budget, you can select the year and hit up arrow. This will go ahead and create next year's budget. You will get an option to use historical data, zeros, current data, etc. Choose which option you find best. 

John_in_NC

This is working as designed.

The Parent category (in your case, Insurance) can have a separate goal than the sub cats below. In your screenshot, it is not intended to be a total of all the sub cats below. If you want a goal of zero for the parent, then you have to zero that out as well.

What is a bug is the negative values that gets triggered in certain cases. All the goals set in the budget should be positive. I will post back when I recall what triggers that. But, be sure to enter all goal items as positive amounts

Paul Kleeberg

Interesting. Thanks so much. I was not aware that I could modify that! What seems odd to me is in many instances as I add items to the sub-cat, it appears to be summed in the cat. I guess it is those negative numbers that throw it off. An old workaround that would take hours to make right but at least I have gotten this to work! Thanks!

John_in_NC

Note: when editing a budget, if you go into Select Categories, you can remove the parent and it will then haven an uneditable field that sums the cats selected. That might be what you want instead so you don't have to zero things out.

I can no longer reproduce the negative number issue in budgets, so it might have been corrected. I know a bug report was submitted. So, my comments might be a false alarm. (And there might be a legitimate reason a negative gets populated there depending on the situation. That would be based on transaction history. 

Alternatively, you only have a few days left for this budget year. (After making a backup of your date file), in the date field of your current budget, you can select the year and hit up arrow. This will go ahead and create next year's budget. You will get an option to use historical data, zeros, current data, etc. Choose which option you find best. 

Paul Kleeberg

Thanks. The negative number issue appears to have been resolved. My 2020 budget now appears to be how I want it. Now I am struggling to understand the summary page. I will look for the documentation and if I still have questions will start another thread.