Include Loan Principal in Spending Reports?

twr102947

Is there a way to get a report of spending which includes the amount that goes to reduce the balance in a loan account?

For me, a spending report would be most useful if it included all outflows from banking accounts. The existing reports such as the Spending by Category graph and the Category Summary report do not include any amount which is transferred to a loan account.

Say for example I make a mortgage payment of $1000: $500 applied to interest and $500 to principal. If that payment occurs in a month where I spend a total of $2000, the Quicken reports will show only $1500 for the month because they do not include the $500 which goes to the balance of the loan account. While this is accurate when calculating my bottom line net worth, it is not very helpful when looking at how much was spent out of my bank accounts.

I have tried deselecting the loan account in the "Create Summary Report" but so far have not found a way to get my desired result.

jacobs

It sounds like you were really close to the right answer! Since payment of loan principal are not an expense but a transfer from an asset to a liability, those payments don't show in traditional Quicken reports based on income and expenses. But you can make it do what you want. In your summary Report, after telling it not to include the Loan account, click on the Advanced tab. Here you can set it to "Include only transfers with accounts outside of report" -- which means the transfer to your loan liability account will now be included in the report. You can flip between the Income & Expense and the Cash Flow Organization setting to see which suits your needs best.

twr102947

Thanks! That was what I was looking for.

jacobs

It sounds like you were really close to the right answer! Since payment of loan principal are not an expense but a transfer from an asset to a liability, those payments don't show in traditional Quicken reports based on income and expenses. But you can make it do what you want. In your summary Report, after telling it not to include the Loan account, click on the Advanced tab. Here you can set it to "Include only transfers with accounts outside of report" -- which means the transfer to your loan liability account will now be included in the report. You can flip between the Income & Expense and the Cash Flow Organization setting to see which suits your needs best.

twr102947

Thanks! That was what I was looking for.