'everything else'

johnpevear

What is the recurring budget category 'everything else' that appears in reports but not in any category list, and why can't I remove it?

johnpevear

Thanks. I get it, I guess, but why do we have "everything else" plus "Other"?

Chris_QPW

The first thing I'm going to say is that I have found that the use of "Everything Else" isn't consistently applied everywhere.

And I'm sorry, but I don't agree with @UKR "Everything Else" isn't exactly used for making the rollup calculation come up correctly.  It is used because the user requested to see everything.

I think it is the "clearest" in the Annual View so I will start there.
This is Other:


Here I have put in a transaction so that it will show up in Other (something that I never do, I only use the sub categories if I have sub categories under a parent category):

The key being that I used the Auto category instead of any of the sub categories.
With both Other and Everything Else selected, at this point it looks like:



The parent category is "Other".

This is "Everything Else".  It is saying I want you to include the amounts of the sub categories that I haven't included in my budget.


Add this transaction where I have put an amount in a category that I haven't selected in the budget.



So where is the inconsistency I was talking about?
Well for one thing in the Graph View there is always "Everything Else" at the end of every category group.


This one can't be turned off no matter what categories I select.

Then there are the reports:


Notice that the reports don't have "Everything Else".

UKR

Something like this?

In budget calculations, Quicken likes to use this phantom "Everything else" category to make category rollup calculations come out correctly.
It's possible for you to record an expense transaction to category "Auto" that should have gone to one of the other subcategories instead.
Now, if you total up all the subcategories, you'd expect the total in "Auto" to be equal to all the subtotals. But, with a transaction allocated to "Auto", the math wouldn't look right and people would start asking "Why can't Quicken do basic math?". To avoid that, I'm guessing that's why programmers invented "Everything else".
If you ever have one of the "Everything else" phantom categories show up with a non-zero amount, you have allocated a transaction to a parent category instead of one of the subcategories. Please change that transaction, e.g., from "Auto" to "Misc. Auto Expense".

johnpevear

Thanks. I get it, I guess, but why do we have "everything else" plus "Other"?

Chris_QPW

The first thing I'm going to say is that I have found that the use of "Everything Else" isn't consistently applied everywhere.

And I'm sorry, but I don't agree with @UKR "Everything Else" isn't exactly used for making the rollup calculation come up correctly.  It is used because the user requested to see everything.

I think it is the "clearest" in the Annual View so I will start there.
This is Other:


Here I have put in a transaction so that it will show up in Other (something that I never do, I only use the sub categories if I have sub categories under a parent category):

The key being that I used the Auto category instead of any of the sub categories.
With both Other and Everything Else selected, at this point it looks like:



The parent category is "Other".

This is "Everything Else".  It is saying I want you to include the amounts of the sub categories that I haven't included in my budget.


Add this transaction where I have put an amount in a category that I haven't selected in the budget.



So where is the inconsistency I was talking about?
Well for one thing in the Graph View there is always "Everything Else" at the end of every category group.


This one can't be turned off no matter what categories I select.

Then there are the reports:


Notice that the reports don't have "Everything Else".

garysmith87

It's funny.  Why?  Because a lot of Quicken Mac users would like to have the "Everything Else" catch all category.

That is just not an option in Quicken Mac.  You only can budget for those categories/subcategories you select.  "Everything Else" is just ignored in Quicken Mac.  

So I find it a bit funny when Windows or Mac users complain that they don't want to see the Everything Else budget bucket.  Whereas some Mac users would like the option.

And we wonder why the Quicken development team has such a difficult assignment?

johnpevear

Option, yes. Don't mind that. But I only need one catch-all. Give me "Other" or give me "Everything Else".