Budgets disappear or unavailable

ramona.meirow

Over the past year, I have set up a budget several times only to have it become nonexistent. For several days or weeks, the planning tab says it is unavailable at this time. When it becomes available the budget is gone. Please fix this. It seems other people are experiencing similar issues.
It is very frustrating and time consuming to create the budget over and over again. It has really become a useless feature of Quicken for me. Please update on the status of this bug and let us know what the estimate is for when it to be fixed so I don't waste my time creating another budget.
Thank you.

Quicken Anja

Hello @ramona.meirow,

Thank you for taking the time to visit the Community and telling us about your issue, though I apologize that you are experiencing this.

May I ask when this started? Also, what steps did you take prior to this occurring? And where do you have your data file saved (i.e.: C drive, or are you using Dropbox/One Drive, etc.)?

Check back and let us know! Thank you.

ramona.meirow

This problem started early last year. The only thing I have done was validate the data. I save the data file to the C Drive. It is automatically copied to OneDrive.

Quicken Anja

Thank you for the additional information.

You may want to try turning off the sync to OneDrive. At least for the location in which your Quicken data file is located as we do strongly advise against doing so as it can cause irreversible data damage and/or file corruption. 

Please, refer to this support article for more information. Although the article does reference DropBox specifically, the content of the article does apply to all cloud-based services. 

I hope this helps!

tdroz

@"Quicken Anja" I'm having the same issue, and I don't have my Quicken data file synced to OneDrive nor Dropbox. I've seen in other threads that this is a persistent issue. https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20230719#Comment_20230719

- Tim

Chris_QPW

Do either of you use Sync to Mobile/Web, it has been "implicated" in this kind of problem.

tdroz

@Chris_QPW Yes, I do. Should I turn it off? I'm going to recreate my budget from scratch this weekend.

Chris_QPW

tdroz said:

@Chris_QPW Yes, I do. Should I turn it off? I'm going to recreate my budget from scratch this weekend.

Yes, that would be my suggestion.

Mary6@

This has happened to me MANY times as well, as recently as yesterday! I have not used mobile or cloud sync for a very long time but that has not solved the problem. I have tried to get in the habit of backing up often, but don't always catch it right away when my budget has been deleted so I end up having to waste time re-creating transactions, etc., after restoring a backup file with an intact budget.

I have noticed the following situations:

1. Sometimes an update will wipe out my budget, but not always.

2. Sometimes my budget will just disappear from one day to the next. I noticed one time that it disappeared right after I performed a backup after making some budget changes. This has me wondering if a budget gets wiped out if there is an issue. I have noticed that Quicken allows you to enter different amounts in the same budget for different years. Fox example, I can go back into the previous year using my current budget, change the budget amount and I will see different amounts for the same budget item for different years within the exact same budget. I have accidentally done this and am not sure if this is an actual feature or a bug. @Chris_QPW do you know?

Another reason I stopped using mobile sync is that it was randomly changing my split transactions. My hypothesis is that this happens when quicken mobile sees a transaction before you have entered into your Quicken for Windows register. However, I am not willing to compromise my data to find out and I don't have time to create a dummy file to test my theory. Maybe someone from Quicken can troubleshoot?

These issues make Quicken Mobile useless for Desktop users which has me wondering if Quicken is worth it. There are definitely better mobile finance apps available.

Chris_QPW

@Mary6@ Thank you very much for your very informative post.  At this point I think what is cause the bugs is very much up in the air, and as such any information about them is helpful.

On the subject of the changing of values in the budget.  Let me make sure I have your description of what you are doing correct.

I only one budget that goes back all the way to 2017.
So, say I select this button and go back to 2020:


And then say I change one or more budget values for my Homeowner's Association fee (from 300 to 200):


The expected result should be that only that one value changes, it should never affect any other value in any other year.  And that is what I see.  If I go to 2019 or 2022, none of the Homeowner's Association fee values have been changed.  The different years in the budget should be independent.  For instance, even the categories selected can be different for different years.

Mary6@

@Chris_QPW Yes, that is what I see happening. While using my "2022 Budget" I can change 2021 categories and budget amounts without affecting 2022 categories and budget amounts.

If this is indeed a feature, I have the following comments:

Budgeting for 2021 was originally tracked using a different budget. Quicken forced me to create a new budget for 2022 instead of just automatically extending my current budget. This seems unnecessary if we can use different budget amounts and categories in different years within the same budget. If this is a feature, why not just automatically extend the current budget instead of forcing me to create a new budget? I know there is a workaround for this, but it should be more obvious. It would be much easier if the default is to extend the current budget rather than forcing me to create a new one in January.

As a result, I now have 2 different budgets for the previous year. It is easy to accidentally make changes to the wrong budget and mess things up because I need to manually select the right budget each time I go back and forth from December to January.

What about rollovers? If I am fine-tuning some categories from last year, I will need to pick one budget and stick with it, creating extra work to fix amounts & categories for the previous year in the new budget or current year in the old budget; or I can just start over and zero out rollover amounts in the new budget. BTW, it would be nice to have the option to zero-out all rollovers for the new year instead of having to do it one by one. Maybe this is already a feature that I just haven't found yet?

I think each unique budget should consist of a finite set of line-items (categories) and amounts for a defined period, typically a calendar year. If we can't change which categories to budget month-to-month, why can we change them year-to-year within the same budget? Isn't that essentially creating a new budget? From my perspective, I can see more potential for unforeseen problems with tracking different categories and budget amounts year over year within a single budget.

My thought is that Quicken should restrict budgets to a single defined set of categories for a 12-month period, associate each year with one budget and automatically change the view to the associated budget for the year you are viewing. A single budget can be associated with multiple years, but each year can only be associated with one budget at a time. Give users a "what-if" option to view any year using a different budget and the ability to change the budget association for any year. This would keep each unique budget simple and avoid making the user manually select the correct budget for the year being viewed when you have multiple budgets.

Lastly, it would be great to be able perform a QIF import/export of our Quicken budgets that we worked so hard to create! This seems like a long overdue feature that would save users so much time re-creating budgets given the disappearing budget issues. Another advantage of keeping budgets simple is that it would be easier to import/export even if users have to manually associate each budget with the correct year(s). During the import process non-existent categories could be automatically flagged for the user to deal with as necessary.

Sorry for the long response, but budgeting is an important feature that has been overlooked by Quicken for too long.
Just my thoughts, thanks for responding so quickly!

Chris_QPW

First off, I don't know why Quicken forced you to create another budget.  That shouldn't be the case.
But even if it forced you to create another budget, you should still be able to extend your existing one.

Quicken is very inconsistent on how it gives options to extend the budget.  Since I covered this in another thread, I will just point to the ways that it does it.
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20234463#Comment_20234463

As you can see by #3 in the above thread the expected behavior is that if you haven't extended a budget before the new year, and then open it, it should have forced you to extend the buget (not create) new one.  And unfortunately, that is the possibility with the least number of choices on how to do it.

It has been suggested several times that all the choices should be available no matter how you extend a budget but given that this only happens once a year for most people, I doubt they will ever fix it.

On the rollovers from the year before it has been suggested, but given that it was suggested in 2014, and it is now 2021, ...  You can see it/vote on it here:
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20229260#Comment_20229260

As for this:

Mary6@ said:

I think each unique budget should consist of a finite set of line-items (categories) and amounts for a defined period, typically a calendar year. If we can't change which categories to budget month-to-month, why can we change them year-to-year within the same budget? Isn't that essentially creating a new budget? From my perspective, I can see more potential for unforeseen problems with tracking different categories and budget amounts year over year within a single budget.

I think the very reason they came up with the idea of "extending" a budget is so that they know that one wants to transfer some information from the previous year to the new one.  I think they would have been better off with separate year budgets, and instead made a generic transfer system to transfer information from the old budget to the new one.  But this is what they did, and I doubt at this point they are going to do something like that, especially since you have all these customers now with extended year budgets.

On this:

Mary6@ said:

Lastly, it would be great to be able perform a QIF import/export of our Quicken budgets that we worked so hard to create! This seems like a long overdue feature that would save users so much time re-creating budgets given the disappearing budget issues. Another advantage of keeping budgets simple is that it would be easier to import/export even if users have to manually associate each budget with the correct year(s). During the import process non-existent categories could be automatically flagged for the user to deal with as necessary.

The QIF syntax has nothing for budgets, as such it can't really be used for this purpose. They could "extend the syntax", since in fact it isn't a standardize format to begin with.  But I definitely get the impression they want QIF to die, not extend it.  In fact, other than starting a new data file from some other personal finances software, Quicken Mac doesn't have any support for QIF.

That isn't to say they couldn't have some kind of export/import format, say to CSV.  And that has been suggested too (with not much interest shown):
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7899371/export-import-budget-data

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7883210/importing-budget-data-from-excel

Mary6@

@Chris_QPW
My budget just disappeared today after a One-Step Update.

My exact actions were:
File was already open from earlier.
Checked to make sure budget information was still intact.
Performed One-Step Update
Accepted approximately 10 transactions
Checked budget and got the dreaded notification that "This Quicken file contains no budgetable accounts or categories. The Budget feature cannot be used at this time."

Luckily for me, I backed up everything 2 days ago. Hopefully this information is helpful in finding a solution to the ongoing disappearing budget problem.

Chris_QPW

Thanks for the added information. I'm out of ideas if this problem isn't Sync.  The big problem I see from the development side is reproducing the problem so that they can find what it causes it.

llitch

The same thing has happened to me several times. My budget disappears.

 It seems to happen: after version updates, after syncing to Mobile&Web, and most recently (today) after updating my bank accounts. I also get the message, "This Quicken file contains no budgetable accounts or categories. The Budget feature cannot be used at this time."

 I called Quicken Support and spoke with Estuardo. He was not aware that Quicken had a recurring problem with dropping budgets. I pointed him to this community thread and his only recommendation was to turn of mobile & web sync and then restore from a previous backup. Therefore, I had to re-enter all my transactions that I lost plus now my mobile Quicken app will be rendered useless.

 Oh, and one other thing. Several times while working in my budget, tabing through the months in a category to make a change, Quicken to crashs. This has happened at least 10 times. I have been completing crash reports and including my email address but never get any feedback.

 I have been a Quicken user since 1996 but am staring to dislike Quicken very much.

robertjones

I've used Quicken for over 15 years because it is dependent. However, over the last three months the Budget has disappeared four times! I have to go thru the restore of backup and rekey of transaction information .

 I've contacted support each time and after exhausted efforts the only solution is to restore.

 This is becoming unacceptable and I am shopping for an alternate finance software. No one from Quicken has been able to offer any help or updates as what development is doing. Very frustrating!

UnreactingChemist

I have just rebuilt a budget several times in one afternoon. Sometimes all it takes is addition of a category or changing a line to include a rollover option and poof! Quicken disappears and there is prompt to send an error report.

 While I have the ability to sync with the cloud - it is my understanding that this happens when I call for it, when I do an update of accounts, or on startup/shut down. I've had budgets vanish several times between the places where I would expect sync to have any activity.

 I picked up the subscription to quicken with the anticipation of being able to use it for updates from my bank accounts and to use a budget. It has been a while for me to get back to trying to use Quicken for budgeting - and I'm not happy.

robertjones

Budget gone AGAIN! Budget was fine and then did "One Step Update" and Budget gone. A lot of discussion about this but no update from Quicken. I can not believe it would be that hard to replicate this in development based on the number of people experiencing this problem. Is it going to be addressed by development?

CMRater

I have started several discussions on this problem and try to follow as many as I can to keep up with the status of a fix.  From what I can see, there are several common factors associated with budgets disappearing:

• Cloud sync:  While this concept could have been great, it seems to cause much more harm than good.  Not only do disappearing budgets occur, but it also seems to create account sync errors including CC-800 (the worst) and CC-501.
• Modifying Categories
• Performing Investment Analysis:  Aggregating investments by security from by accounts or performing a MorningStar X-Ray are reliable ways to induce loss of budget
• All of the above potentially involve some memory intensive tasks for Quicken to perform, which I believe can disassociate the file from the budget
• Length of Quicken Usage:  I see a lot of people indicate that they have been with Quicken 15-30 years.  Me too (since 1992).  Could mean that our files contain legacy code baggage?
• After performing every type of validation available, I have been instructed by so called quicken experts to perform a File Copy as a way to ensure that it is not a corrupted file.  I did and had to reconnect all of my accounts again.  What a pain.  I have done this several times.  Still get the error.  At least my file is not corrupt
• I have reduced the number of Express Web Connect Accounts to try to reduce budget loss and the CC-800 errors.  This works pretty well, especially against the CC-800 errors, but I still get budget loss 1-2 weeks apart.
• My last and obvious suggestion is to make frequent back ups throughout your quicken sessions after you first ensure that the budget has endured a memory intensive task.  I alternate between using the date extension and not so as to have alternate back up to the most recent back up because sometimes, even though I restored from a back up that had the budget data present, I have found the budget data was not there with the restore.  Here is another trick, if that happens, before you revert to restore from another back up, try to restore your most recent back up again.  It might just take a second time.
• Of course this entire situation with budget loss is PATHETIC!  I agree with someone above where Quicken owes its users (some of whom have supported quicken for decades) an action plan and commitment to solve this critical software flaw ASAP.
• I used get very angry and frustrated, now I just want to do whatever I can to help Quicken fix this once and for all!  Give me a call Quicken.  Once you prioritize I believe this can be resolved quite quickly.

GuyManDude

My budget has been disappearing for several years. Quicken pretends not to know about the issue and there does not seem to be any fix. Don't waste your time thinking that you can budget with Quicken.

Quicken Jasmine

Hello @all, 

Thank you for contacting the Quicken Community, I do apologize that you are experiencing this issue. 

I have forwarded this information to the proper channels again. In the meantime, we are asking that you please send your information logs over to Quicken to aid in the investigation. You can submit your logs by going to Help>Report a Problem. 

Enjoy your Sunday!

Scooterlam

Quicken Jasmine said:

Hello @all, 

Thank you for contacting the Quicken Community, I do apologize that you are experiencing this issue. 

I have forwarded this information to the proper channels again. In the meantime, we are asking that you please send your information logs over to Quicken to aid in the investigation. You can submit your logs by going to Help>Report a Problem. 

Enjoy your Sunday!

Quicken Jasmine Is there a trouble ticket number users can reference when they report this issue via the Help>Report a Problem?  Perhaps there should be...

CMRater

Thanks Jasmine!
It would be really encouraging to those of suffering through this problem to hear how high a priority this is with the development team and if there is any progress to share.  I would think that we would all be willing to assist in any way possible.

It would be good to know that priority is being given to enabling a reliable budget capability vs working on extraneous enhancements.  It would just be great to have current product work reliably.  Let’s get the fundamental features working right first!  I would imagine that a very small percentage of users utilize those “new” features compared to those who need the basic program to perform reliably.

YTilahun

Hi. Let me be one more person on the list who's frustrated by Quicken. In the last three months I have lost my budget four times. The last time I called tech support, they told me to reduce the size of my data file, which is 150 MB. I don't think that's the issue. I'm not convinced. Now I'm at the point where I back up my data every single day. And my data is stored on the local hard drive. This is so frustrating. Dear Quicken, please make this a priority and fix it.

slindt

I had the problem of disapproving budgets lines items multiple times.

The problem is not the budget perse. If you run a budget report on your current budget you should still see all your budget line items and budget amounts.

The issues is that somehow the budgets no longer recognize the built-in "Category Groups" and hence, none of the categories assigned to those groups will show in the budget Planning Tab.

You can fix that as follows,
- go to your budget,
- click on "Manage Budget Categories" on the top right, the "Select Categories to Budget" window opens
- at the bottom left of that window there is a pulldown for "Options" and pick "Assign Category Groups
- create a customer "Category Group" on the right
- assign few of expenses to this new category group.

Once, I assigned the new category group to the budget, all my budget lines items across all categories appeared again.

Once, I had to assign all my categories to the newly create custom "Category Group" in order for them to reappear in the budget. Once, it does, you can delete customer "Category" and all categories get reassigned to the original category group.

I hope this helps.

CMRater

Thanks for sharing your experience Slindt.  Not sure it is the same problem many of us are experiencing.  When my budgets disappear, the budget report displays something like "you have no budget categories".  If Quicken would listen to your feedback, they should be able to fix that glitch quite easily.  Either way, many of us are waiting for Quicken to take the budget software flaw more seriously by prioritizing the matter.  Perhaps they might even reach out to some of us so we can help them

YTilahun

I just lost my budget for the 3rd time in the last month. I am so fed up with Quicken. If there were an alternative software to switch to, I would have done it in a heartbeat. But I have been using Quicken since 1990, and I have too much history. I don't understand why Quicken doesn't make the date stable and the software reliable.

CMRater

Yeah, I just lost my budget after a few weeks of keeping it.  I have isolated this occurrence to some CC 800 errors for two accounts that I only download monthly to reduce the stress on the software.  Fortunately i had just backed up so I was able to restore.  Had to manually add a few transactions for these accounts.  Yes this is Pathetic.  Are you listening Quicken?

See my notes above for more documentation and help on how to avoid budget loss as much as possible until Quicken hopefully fixes. 

Geno J

I have had this problem several times in the last year. I cannot pinpoint when it occurs. I do not use Mobile version of Quicken. I set my Quicken configuration to backup automatically every time I log out so I always have the latest possible files if I have to restore to get my budget back.

tdreed1265

I've had this problem reoccur multiple times over the last year or so. Budget disappears, have to restore and recreate transactions by hand. I do a full backup every single time I use quicken anymore so that I don't lose a much data.

Possibly they are trying to sell the new "Simlifi" budgeting software. At a minimum, they are not putting any resources into fixing this very annoying budgeting problem in Quicken.

CMRater

Hello Quicken.  Any chance you could provide any encouragement with regards to the status of fixing this basic software function Glitch?  Reliability of the budget feature is fundamental to managing finances.