I know that budget rollover is not yet a feature with Mac.

willeaton

What is your work-around for now? How can I do this by hand month to month?

jacobs

Quicken is not designed to do "envelope budgeting," which is what you're describing. And as you're aware, there isn't (yet) a rollover feature to move the difference in each account at the end of the month to the next month. You can do a search on this forum for envelope budgeting for some ideas about how people try to push that square peg through the round hole of Quicken Mac's budgeting.

Quicken Jared

willeaton said:

What is your work-around for now? How can I do this by hand month to month?

Hello willeaton,

Thank you for reaching out to the Quicken Community. You are asking about budget rollovers, but I want to be sure I understand what you are seeking, here. Are you inquiring about how to carry your annual budget information into the New Year?

Thanks,

Quicken Jared 

jacobs

willeaton said:

What is your work-around for now? How can I do this by hand month to month?

In business, I would almost never revise a budget based on actual income/expenses; the budget was a plan or projection which didn't change month to month. If something was over in one category, hopefully some other category would be under. But part of the budget-to-actual comparison was knowing if we were ahead of or behind the budget.

For personal use, I don't feel budgets need to be so rigid, so I think editing a budget as the year goes along is okay. It really depends how you are using your budget. I feel that if I'm $23 under in one category and $17 over in another category, these aren't meaningful, and I wouldn't adjusting a budget. But if you're $250 over or under in a category, then you might want to adjust the remaining months in the year. How to adjust depends on the type of category. If it's groceries, you might spread the difference over the remaining months of the year; if it's auto repair or travel, you might move the lump sum to a single future month. It comes down to what the point of your budget is. If it's to give you an idea if you're spending more than you planned, or to hit a savings goal by the end of the year, then you needn't change it all the time, because it's the bottom line you're interested in. You might find you need to make only a few small tweaks to your budget from month to month, rather than exhaustively updating every category.

willeaton

First, thank you for responding. However, maybe I didn't explain myself properly. Think about a sinking fund. An example might be "Vacations". "Christmas Gifts" or "Medical Expenses". You may want to put away a certain amount each month to save up for these. With Q-Mac, it deletes that amount each month that you are trying to save. I am coming from YNAB Mac, where it gives an option to delete leftover money from each item or adds it to the next month.

jacobs

Quicken is not designed to do "envelope budgeting," which is what you're describing. And as you're aware, there isn't (yet) a rollover feature to move the difference in each account at the end of the month to the next month. You can do a search on this forum for envelope budgeting for some ideas about how people try to push that square peg through the round hole of Quicken Mac's budgeting.

willeaton

Thank you. I will review that. It looks like this is a feature in Q-Windows - https://help.quicken.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=3216845