nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

How to show income & expense netted in Budget report but separated in Income/Expense report?

SCBJQ

Hi everyone, I'm new to Quicken and bookkeeping so please go easy on me. :smile: I have looked everywhere in Quicken and can't figure this out, so thought I should ask here.

What I need:
- Generate a budget report that ties to a nonprofit's annual budget.
- Generate an "Income/Expense" type report that meets needs of tax accountant.

A little background:
I volunteer for a small nonprofit keeping books in their Quicken. They get income from membership fees, and spends them to host member events. Each event charges an entry fee and in return provides a heavily subsidized event. In their annual budget, membership fees are categorized as income, and everything else is categorized as expense since event entry fee + event spend is always a net expenditure. The Quicken categories match the organization's budget setup.

The issue arises when I need to send year end info to the tax accountant. They want to see income include both membership fees and event entry fees. The expenses should only include what the organization outlaid for events, not netted with entry fees for events. This makes sense to me, but I can't figure out how to reflect this in Quicken reports.

What I tried:
1. I thought if I have 2 versions of each category, one as income and one as expense, then they can show up under the correct section in the "Income/Expense by Category" report. However a) I can't make 2 categories with the same name even if one is set as income and one as expense, b) if I name them differently then they won't automatically net out in the "Current Budget" Quicken report to match with annual budget, and c) if I create 2 subcategories of a category, they must take both take the same income or expense type of the parent.

2. I thought maybe there could be a version of the "Income/Expense" report that automatically shows all positive dollar entries under 'Income' and negative dollar entries under 'Expense' while ignoring each category's own setting. However, this doesn't seem to exist.

3. I thought about modifying the nonprofit's budget to split everything into income and expense budget lines, but it's challenging to estimate amount of entry fees and outlays for events.

Appreciate any tips and suggestions to approach this differently! Thank you.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Sherlock

I suggest you consider changing the event entry fee category into an Income category: press Ctrl + Shift + C, right-click on the category, select Edit, choose Income, and select Save

Before making any significant change to your data file, always save a backup: press Ctrl + B

SCBJQ

Thanks Sherlock for your suggestion. This will take care of the Income/Expense report for the tax accountant, but seemingly not the monthly budget report for the nonprofit. What you suggested is what I tried to achieve with my try #1, however I don't know of a way in Quicken to associate it with a corresponding 'event outlays' category so that the end result will net together in the same "Events" budget line that aligns with the organization's budget.

For example: Annual budget:
Income
- Membership $1000
Expenses
- Monthly meetings $100
- Administrative fees $100
- Event Type 1 $100
- Event Type 2 $100
- [...additional event types...]
- Event Type 8 $100

If I create "Event entry fees" as Income and "Event outlays" as Expense categories for each "Event Type" budget line, how do I run a report in Quicken to automatically associate and net them together in one "Event Type" budget line to match the nonprofit's budget?

Sherlock

SCBJQ said:

Thanks Sherlock for your suggestion. This will take care of the Income/Expense report for the tax accountant, but seemingly not the monthly budget report for the nonprofit. What you suggested is what I tried to achieve with my try #1, however I don't know of a way in Quicken to associate it with a corresponding 'event outlays' category so that the end result will net together in the same "Events" budget line that aligns with the organization's budget.

For example: Annual budget:
Income
- Membership $1000
Expenses
- Monthly meetings $100
- Administrative fees $100
- Event Type 1 $100
- Event Type 2 $100
- [...additional event types...]
- Event Type 8 $100

If I create "Event entry fees" as Income and "Event outlays" as Expense categories for each "Event Type" budget line, how do I run a report in Quicken to automatically associate and net them together in one "Event Type" budget line to match the nonprofit's budget?

To group Event, I suggest you consider using tags: https://www.quicken.com/support/create-and-use-tags-quicken

SCBJQ

I see. I'm currently using tags to track individual events within each Even Type, but if this method works I'm willing to forego the tracking of individual events.

Now the question is - how to generate a report against Current Budget and group by Tags instead of by Category? When I look at the settings of the Current Budget report, under the Display tab I only see options for Organization by Income & Expense, Cash Flow Basis, and Category Group. Don't seem to see how to have the report compare Tags against budget...

I do see a report for showing Spending Itemized by Tags, but that does not compare spend against budget, which is what I need.

Sherlock

If you’re wedded to using a Quicken budget report, here is an approach I think will work:

When you enter the entry fee transactions, you use a split transaction with an income category for the tax accountant, an expense category for the budget, and another category to balance the transaction.

SCBJQ

Thank you Sherlock, I think I understand what you mean and tried it out on a test Quicken file and it achieved both requirements. Basically, each time I enter an entry, it needs to be split into the following categories:
- Event Type 1 - Income [only visible for Income/Expense Report]
- Event Type 1 - Expense [only visible for Income/Expense Report]
- Event Type 1 - Budget Line [only visible for Budget Report]
- Event Type 1 - Balance Line [not visible in either report]

Too bad it's so much work for each entry!

I'm starting to think maybe I should try to convince the nonprofit to estimate what they think would be the annual income from each Event Type's entry fees and pull those out into the Income section for all 8 Event Types... It seems that would match budgeting best practices, right?

Appreciate the thoughts.

Sherlock

SCBJQ said:

Thank you Sherlock, I think I understand what you mean and tried it out on a test Quicken file and it achieved both requirements. Basically, each time I enter an entry, it needs to be split into the following categories:
- Event Type 1 - Income [only visible for Income/Expense Report]
- Event Type 1 - Expense [only visible for Income/Expense Report]
- Event Type 1 - Budget Line [only visible for Budget Report]
- Event Type 1 - Balance Line [not visible in either report]

Too bad it's so much work for each entry!

I'm starting to think maybe I should try to convince the nonprofit to estimate what they think would be the annual income from each Event Type's entry fees and pull those out into the Income section for all 8 Event Types... It seems that would match budgeting best practices, right?

Appreciate the thoughts.

I was thinking you would only use the hack for the event entry fee:

event entry fees [income not used in budget]
Event Type 1 - entry fee [expense used in the Budget]
Event Type 1 - fee balance [not used in budget]

but you understand your requirements better than I do.

It would certainly be cleaner to have the events budget income as income

q_lurker

I concur with the bias to categorize based on the accountants needs -- Income as Income, Expenses as Expenses.
I agree with the use of tags for each event.
I would suggest for your board review, you try Reports - Cash Flow by Tag rather than budget reports, though you may need some combination -- budget reports looking forward, Cash Flow for current and historical tabulation

You might also consider exporting reports to Excel or similar and adding in additional info there as needed..