Duplicating budgets

dajoslyn

When I try to duplicate one month's budget to the next month, it doesn't duplicate it; it just shows #s that I did not enter. I just want to duplicate the budget numbers, not balances. How does that feature work?

Chris_QPW

The Starter version is going to have some "unique side effects".

They have restricted it to the Graph View, which means that you can only change the budget numbers when set to Monthly, and only see one month at a time with that setting.  But that doesn't change the fact of what is really happening underneath. 

Quicken's budgets are "allocated" one year at time.  I say "allocated" because a single budget can be extended forward and backwards any number of years.

"Duplicate Budget" creates a copy of your budget, the whole budget.  At a minimum that is the current year, but it will be an exact duplicate of whatever is in the current budget which could be multiple years but is never less than one year no matter what is being shown on the Graph View.

There is also "Create new budget", which creates a new budget based on past transactions.  About the only time you have a choice on what is going to be used to set the default values for the budget is when you extend a budget into a new year.

So, what that all boils down to is that you need to do this on a category-by-category basis.
When you select a category you will see this icon/menu:


As you can see from the menu, you can use it to apply this month's budget number to the reset of the year.

Chris_QPW

Note that even though Deluxe and above have the Annual view, and as such you can see all the numbers for the year at once, if one needs to change the budget numbers for a category for the whole year, the process is the same.

Chris_QPW

What edition of Quicken are you using? (Starter, Deluxe, ...)
And are you in the Graph View or Annual Views (which is only available with Deluxe or above)?

In reality the budget for the year is always created at the same time.  There isn't any kind of "duplicate month" feature.  As you move through months you are just seeing what was put in there when the budget was created, and the budget numbers were picked based on your past transaction history.

There are ways to push a given categories budget values to future months, but that is one category at a time.

Jim_Harman

At the top of the Budget page, select Annual view and Budget only or Details.

Select a category and enter the amount to duplicate in the month you want to start with. Click the gear next to the selected category and you have several options, including of copying that amount for the rest of the year or using that amount for the whole year.

Is that what you are looking for?

dajoslyn

I am using the Starter edition. I created a budget in January. Clicking on the Planning button and then Budget Actions, in the January screen, a selection appears the says "Duplicate Budget" but when I selected it that didn't happen in my February file. I got other budget numbers that I did not enter. I must not be understanding what that does. Or how to transfer my monthly budget amounts to the following month.

Chris_QPW

The Starter version is going to have some "unique side effects".

They have restricted it to the Graph View, which means that you can only change the budget numbers when set to Monthly, and only see one month at a time with that setting.  But that doesn't change the fact of what is really happening underneath. 

Quicken's budgets are "allocated" one year at time.  I say "allocated" because a single budget can be extended forward and backwards any number of years.

"Duplicate Budget" creates a copy of your budget, the whole budget.  At a minimum that is the current year, but it will be an exact duplicate of whatever is in the current budget which could be multiple years but is never less than one year no matter what is being shown on the Graph View.

There is also "Create new budget", which creates a new budget based on past transactions.  About the only time you have a choice on what is going to be used to set the default values for the budget is when you extend a budget into a new year.

So, what that all boils down to is that you need to do this on a category-by-category basis.
When you select a category you will see this icon/menu:


As you can see from the menu, you can use it to apply this month's budget number to the reset of the year.

dajoslyn

Thanks for the information. I was able to transfer budget numbers to the rest of the year as you showed in your response, so that's great. I don't have so many categories that it was a huge job to do one at a time. I may have to upgrade my version at some point.

Chris_QPW

Note that even though Deluxe and above have the Annual view, and as such you can see all the numbers for the year at once, if one needs to change the budget numbers for a category for the whole year, the process is the same.

dajoslyn

I can see an annual budget, too, in my edition, and where I am in spending for the year. It may look different than other editions, but it's usable for what I'm doing.

Chris_QPW

Are you referring to the reports?
Those should be the same in all editions.

The annual view looks like this:


ADDED showing all columns, not just the budget numbers.

dajoslyn

What I'm looking at doesn't look like what you showed above, but it works for me. I'd send a screen shot, but I don't remember how to do it! I'm not as techy as I'd like to be but not ambitious enough to figure things out.

Chris_QPW

You can just drag and drop an image on the comment box to attach it.  But I'm pretty sure that you are looking at the budget report like this and that will definitely work for reviewing the budget.

dajoslyn

You can click on "Interval" and get the annual view, too.

Chris_QPW

Yes, the reports are quite flexible for "viewing".  The main point of the annual view though is being able to look at the budget for the year and make changes right there.  It is certainly not "required for use", it just "nice to have".