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Create a personal expenses report

SlyGuy

How can I create a "personal expenses" report, by which I mean a report that excludes expenditure on my Schedule E rental property and on my Schedule C business? Referring to the dialog box opened by the Tools > CategoryList command, my personal expenses are assigned to categories in the "Personal Expenses" group while my rental property expenses are assigned to categories in the "rental property expenses" group and my business expenses are assigned to categories in the "business expenses" group.

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Jim_Harman

Try Reports > Spending by Category.
Select the date range you want
Click on the gear at the top right of the report to customize it
Select the Category Groups tab
Clear all and select Personal expenses

This will show the totals for each category. To see the transactions, you can double click on any number in the report.

Not all the reports allow selection by Category Group. If you want to see the transactionss for all the Personal expenses categories at the same time, you can use the Itemized Categories report, but you will have to select the Personal expenses categories individually.

SlyGuy

When I open the Reports > Spending by Category, set date range to Year-to-date, and click on the gear I do not see a "category groups" tab in the dialog box that appears. I see a "Categories" tab but not a "Categories Group" tab. Is there a way to make the "Categories Group" tab appear? I am using Quicken Home, Business & Rental Property, version R45.21, build 27.1.45.21 on Windows 10.

Tom Young

Quicken help states "Click the Category Groups tab (if available), and then select the category groups you want to include in the report."

The Spending by Category Report doesn't have that tab. But if you're dealing with reports that you think you'll use on a regular basis I'd suggest getting that Spending by Category Report customized by selecting individual Categories and/or Accounts as needed then saving the reports with appropriate names. That way you can simply call up the saved report when you need to.

SlyGuy

Thank you Tom. Your suggestion to select all categories in the "personal expenses" category group does produce a personal expenses report, but setting up the report initially is rather laborious. I'm surprised that Quicken makes it so much work to produce what I think would be a commonly desired report.

Quicken help Article ID: GEN82123 "How To Customize Reports for Categories, Category Groups, or Tags" does indeed say "Click the Category Groups tab (if available)". This statement suggests that there are at least some reports for which the "Category Groups" tab is available. However, using the Reports > ReportsAndGraphs dialog box I systematically clicked the "Customize" button for each report and could not find a single report in which the "Category Groups" tab is available. Perhaps at some point in the past the Category Groups tab was available for some reports but has now been totally removed. If so, it's a loss for users.

mshiggins

That is strange. My Spending by Category report’s Customize dialog has a Category Groups tab. Perhaps you only get the Category Groups tab if you have created one or more custom Category Groups?

SlyGuy

mshiggins: bingo, you're got it. I created a new category called Baked Crickets and assigned it to a new Category Group that I created called Crickets (my first custom Category Group) where I will record future expenditures on this delicacy. Now a Category Group tab appears in many of my Customize Reports dialog boxes and it includes category groups called "Personal Expenses" and "Personal Income". Thanks.

Jim_Harman

mshiggins said:

That is strange. My Spending by Category report’s Customize dialog has a Category Groups tab. Perhaps you only get the Category Groups tab if you have created one or more custom Category Groups?

Good insight, @mshiggins! I have a custom Category Group "Needs" that I use to distinguish between discretionary and necessary spending, so I knew the tab was there. "Crickets" is a good one too!