Average Monthly Cost

norrasemaj

Can Quicken (Mac) tell me my average monthly costs for a single category? For example, take a category like groceries and calculate the average amount I paid per month for groceries? I know Quicken will tell me how much I spent each month on a category, but surely there's a feature to give me the average monthly cost so I can setup my budget based on actual numbers..

jacobs

If you're setting up a budget, Quicken will pull in your actual values from the past year, and you can choose to use those values in your budget. 

Additionally, the Edit Budget screen gives you two things to make this super-easy. First, it shows the total for the year at the far right. Second, if you then enter that value in the first month of the year, you can choose to have it spread evenly across the year.

For example, if Quicken shows you spent 4,000 a year on groceries, click in the first month of your budget on the grocery line and enter 4,000 -- and then from the drop-down menu select "4,000 per year (333.33 per month)". So it will do for you exactly what you wanted.

NotACPA

There's no such tool in QWin, and I don't believe there's such in QMac.

Why can you run a simple report on that category and do the simple division yourself?

jacobs

If you're setting up a budget, Quicken will pull in your actual values from the past year, and you can choose to use those values in your budget. 

Additionally, the Edit Budget screen gives you two things to make this super-easy. First, it shows the total for the year at the far right. Second, if you then enter that value in the first month of the year, you can choose to have it spread evenly across the year.

For example, if Quicken shows you spent 4,000 a year on groceries, click in the first month of your budget on the grocery line and enter 4,000 -- and then from the drop-down menu select "4,000 per year (333.33 per month)". So it will do for you exactly what you wanted.

MargieLH

You can create a budget and change the numbers in the report to reflect the historical (2019) numbers. When you click on the number field and start entering a number next to the category it will give you a drop down menu to select "per year (... per month) then it will populate that figure thru the entire year by month.
I hope this makes sense. You can reach out to me directly to explain further.
Thanks,
[email removed for privacy]