Adjusting the date of income to reflect new budget month (Q Mac)

P_D_N

I am new to Quicken and have a question - Can I adjust the date of income to fall into a new month for budgeting purposes. E.g. When salary hits on Jan 31 but is for Feb 1 pay period. I tried doing this and Quicken entered a "Live Opening Balance". Now my bottom line is off... Thank you

John_in_NC

Changing the transaction back should fix things.

But yes, as Jacobs noted the cure might be worse than the problem. If you are new to Quicken, I would leave well enough alone until you get used to the program.

I have used Quicken since '91, and it wasn't until 2015 I actually started actively using the budget. Well, there were previous failed attempts when I made it too complicated :-)

John_in_NC

Howdy, P_D_N, and welcome to Quicken!

No, you can't adjust the date of income as the budget will simply pull the transactions from their date. Undo whatever you did to alter the Live Opening Balance. If you are confused, just ask.

And, Quicken's budget doesn't carry balances forward (rollover) as some people might like. But, that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

I wouldn't fret about your budget; focus on a few things, and monitor those categories. Sometimes we are over/under, but the budget simply helps us monitor things.

I will tell you that people who try to budget EVERYTHING have little success as the budget is unwieldy. Just focus on what you can control. 

P_D_N

Thanks for the quick response. Will do. Once I undo the edit, will the Live Opening Balance fall off? Or do I need to do anything with that?

jacobs

Well, there are ways to do this... they just may not be worth the effort.

First, you might try (after marking a backup copy of your file) replacing the current Live Opening Balance transaction with a static adjustment transaction that establishes your opening balance and won't change it. Then, you can edit the date of your paycheck to be a day later, but I wouldn't do it until after that date, so Quicken doesn't create any placeholder adjustment transactions to match the bank's balance on the day of the deposit. (That is, if your paycheck downloads on January 31, wait until after February 1 to move the transaction date to February 1, so Quicken's balance will match the current bank balance.) 

If your reconcile to a bank statement that is dated by month-end, changing the transaction date can create a problem because the bank shows the money being present as of January 31, but in Quicken, you have the transaction dated February 1. Quicken uses the posted date of a downloaded transaction, so if the posted date is January 31, it may work fine. If the transaction doesn't show up in your reconcile screen, simply change the statement ending date from 1/31 to 2/1 when you start the reconciliation, then then the transaction will be int he list to check off.

The ultimate way to deal with time shifting transactions is to create an asset "holding" account. I have one I call Exchange which I use for various things where the date of the transaction is different than when I want the income or expense to be visible on my reports. In the case of your paycheck being deposited on 1/31 but wanting it to appear for budget purposes on 2/1, I'd record the net amount of the paycheck as a deposit in the checking account on 1/31, with the category set to Transfer:[Exchange] and no splits. Then on 2/1, in the Exchange account, I'd enter the actual paycheck transaction with the net amount of the check for the transaction amount and the all the splits for gross pay and withholding taxes. So these two transactions put the deposit on 1/31, put the income and taxes on 2/1, and zero out the asset account. Again, that may be more complicated than you want, but it's a way to do it precisely if you want.

John_in_NC

Changing the transaction back should fix things.

But yes, as Jacobs noted the cure might be worse than the problem. If you are new to Quicken, I would leave well enough alone until you get used to the program.

I have used Quicken since '91, and it wasn't until 2015 I actually started actively using the budget. Well, there were previous failed attempts when I made it too complicated :-)