How do i get a multi year, projected cash flow for a specific account with scheduled transaction

pame

I have a register for an investment account with scheduled interest payments to be received, and payment obligations scheduled through 2029. How can I view income/outflow for more than just one year?

jacobs

Scheduled transactions aren't real transactions; they're like a template for future transactions in the schedule. If you want get a report of future transactions through 2029, I think the only way to do that would be to convert all the scheduled transactions to real transactions -- mark them all Paid/Deposited. Don't be put off by the terminology "paid" or "deposited"; they'll still be in the future, they'll re uncleared, so you can reconcile them, and make any needed adjustments, as the months roll by.

The only real downside would be that if an amount changes, you can't just change the scheduled transaction and have it apply to all future transactions. But you can find all the transactions for a specific Payee in the future and edit the amount on all of them at once, so even that shouldn't vie a problem. 

jacobs

Oh, yeah, I forgot that you couldn't see more than a year in the future to mark them paid.

But I came up with a way do this. Change the future transaction setting to "Show next instance" (in Bills & Income) or "Next One Due" (in the register). So now it will show the next month's transaction. Mark Paid, and it will show the next month's transaction. Mark paid and ... you'll be able to continue this all the way through the 2029 transactions. You'll have to click Paid about a hundred times to do monthly transactions for the next 8 years, but this will get you there!

jacobs

Scheduled transactions aren't real transactions; they're like a template for future transactions in the schedule. If you want get a report of future transactions through 2029, I think the only way to do that would be to convert all the scheduled transactions to real transactions -- mark them all Paid/Deposited. Don't be put off by the terminology "paid" or "deposited"; they'll still be in the future, they'll re uncleared, so you can reconcile them, and make any needed adjustments, as the months roll by.

The only real downside would be that if an amount changes, you can't just change the scheduled transaction and have it apply to all future transactions. But you can find all the transactions for a specific Payee in the future and edit the amount on all of them at once, so even that shouldn't vie a problem. 

pame

Ahhh... yeah that makes sense, thanks. Although the problem of seeing more than one year ahead still remains. I can't mark them paid because they aren't in view. Quicken won't let me view more than up to 9/11/2022; even though the transactions are already scheduled. I'd probably have to enter each scheduled transaction individually. But still, Quicken only lets me view one year at a time. I want to see the running total five years from now. I'm tearing my hair out here...

jacobs

Oh, yeah, I forgot that you couldn't see more than a year in the future to mark them paid.

But I came up with a way do this. Change the future transaction setting to "Show next instance" (in Bills & Income) or "Next One Due" (in the register). So now it will show the next month's transaction. Mark Paid, and it will show the next month's transaction. Mark paid and ... you'll be able to continue this all the way through the 2029 transactions. You'll have to click Paid about a hundred times to do monthly transactions for the next 8 years, but this will get you there!

jacobs

I meant to add that although you won’t be able to see all the future transactions in the register, you will be able to set up reports with future dates which will include them

This is clearly a use Quicken wasn’t designed for, but I think you can get it to work for you. However, you might consider an alternative approach of building your future projection in a spreadsheet rather than Quicken. I don’t know how many transactions there are, or how often they change, but setting up transactions which repeat monthly for 8 years should be pretty quick in Excel or Numbers.

pame

Thanks. I've been thinking a spreadsheet may be the answer...only problem is, ss make my eyes cross! I think it's an (as yet undetected) allergy. ;)

pame

On another note, I was able to export the register as a .csv file, and I could open it in Excel and Numbers! STILL, however, though in imports data from the opening of the register (early 2020) it projects into the future only one year from present date.

jacobs

pame said:

On another note, I was able to export the register as a .csv file, and I could open it in Excel and Numbers! STILL, however, though in imports data from the opening of the register (early 2020) it projects into the future only one year from present date.

Sure... if you're exporting a register, it will only export what you can see in the register. If it exported all scheduled transactions, you can imagine what a mess this might be: if you have a number of scheduled transactions which occur monthly with no end date, that could be thousands of transactions -- and even then, how many would it show for a transaction with no end date.

Instead of a register, you would have to export a report. Unlike the register, you could set the report to show dates through 2029. This assumes you have converted all the transactions from scheduled to posted transactions, as discussed previously.

But the purpose of doing this externally in a spreadsheet rather than in Quicken is that you can take a single transaction and duplicate it as far into the future as you wish. So if you have an expense which occurs monthly, you only need a single instance of it in the spreadsheet: duplicate it and change the date to a month later, then select the two rows and drag down for as many months as you need. (In Excel, it will automatically add a month on each row as you drag down; I don't use Numbers but assume it has some similar capability. So if you do this for each of your scheduled future transactions, then sort your spreadsheet in date order, you should be in business. 

pame

In the end, once I marked all scheduled transactions as paid, the register does display all ten years of transactions, just what I wanted. I added a Clr column to check them off as they occur, and I'm good to go. Thanks for all your help.