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Spending - Transactions tab needs better reports/graphs

kcong

I have created a number of reports to track monthly category spending over time. This enables me to see trends where costs are increasing, decreasing or staying flat. I want to be able to create a dashboard to view all of these reports at a glance. In the current design I have to open each report separately and analyze each one individually to determine trends.
Here is a list of the reports I have made for this purpose:
Spending on Auto Fuel
Spending on Auto Service
Spending on Electricity
Spending on Internet Service
Spending on reclaimed water
Spending on Lawn Service
Spending on Music Services
Spending on Mobile Phone Service
Spending on TV Services
Spending on Water

How can I create a dashboard that shows all of these graphs?

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Accepted answers

Sherlock

Jeff B said:

Trying to create a simple graph: Income vs Expenses in one year increments over 20 years.
They only way to do this I could find was to export my Quicken 2020 data to Quicken 2007, where it took 5 seconds to generate the graph.

Select Reports > Spending > Income and Expense ...
Select Year in the Interval pull-down menu
Select Include all dates in the Date range pull-down menu

All comments

Boatnmaniac

I don't think there is anyway that Quicken can generate the graphing you are looking for but maybe someone else knows better and will pipe in here.

I think the closest that you can get Quicken to doing this is to view the Spending by Category report data that has been customized for the desired time period, columns, categories, payees, etc.). But the graph for this report will show only the total spend trend, not the spend trend by category.

I think your best best to get a graph showing spend trends by category or to show multiple graphs (one for each category) is to export the customized Spending by Category report to Excel. Excel has some excellent graphing capabilities and you should be able to set it up to get what you are looking for with that program. But I think this might end up taking more effort on your part and you'll need to decide whether the benefit of going this route is worth that level of effort.

Sherlock

I suggest you consider creating a Home view with multiple customized Expenses items.

To add a Home view, select Add View on the Home tab.
To add an Expenses item to a Home view, select Customize.
To customize an Expenses item, select the small gear icon and Customize this graph.

kcong

I've tried that. All that does is give a snapshot on a donut chart. That doesn't compare data over time. I'd think Quicken would have better data visualization in their product development team.

Sherlock

kcong said:

I've tried that. All that does is give a snapshot on a donut chart. That doesn't compare data over time. I'd think Quicken would have better data visualization in their product development team.

Perhaps you can use the Income vs Expenses or the Auto expenses item to provide the data over time comparison you're looking for.

kcong

ahh, that does kindof do it. Thank you, Sherlock.
I still think if Quicken is going to force me into a >$100/year subscription model, they should provide better data visualization. But I'll take this for now.

Boatnmaniac

@kcong - The Spending by Category report can be customized so that it shows data over time. Just need to make sure the right customization settings are selected. In the following example I selected a Date Range of "Last 12 months" and the Column of "Month" (instead of the default of "None"). Once you selected the criteria you want to see, save the report with a custom name and then you can add it to your Toolbar so all you have to do is click on the icon in the toolbar to see the report per the settings as you saved it.

As I'd mentioned above, it's just that the graph for it shows total spending, not spending by each category. I thought you wanted to see graphing taking into account each category individually which is why I suggested exporting to Excel because it exceeds Quicken's current graphing capabilities.

Here is what the Spending by Category report looks like provided the appropriate customization is done. (There is another column on the far right showing the totals for each row but I missed getting it into this picture.):

Jeff B

Trying to create a simple graph: Income vs Expenses in one year increments over 20 years.
They only way to do this I could find was to export my Quicken 2020 data to Quicken 2007, where it took 5 seconds to generate the graph.

Sherlock

Jeff B said:

Trying to create a simple graph: Income vs Expenses in one year increments over 20 years.
They only way to do this I could find was to export my Quicken 2020 data to Quicken 2007, where it took 5 seconds to generate the graph.

Select Reports > Spending > Income and Expense ...
Select Year in the Interval pull-down menu
Select Include all dates in the Date range pull-down menu