Feature or bug in budget? (Q Mac)

BrianG67

When changing the amount in a budget sub, sub category the main sub category does not update automatically, even with a re-start. Entering zero into a 12 month budget sub category does force an update

jacobs

@BrianG67 What you're describing is actually intended behavior, although it can be a little confusing.

The budget allows you to enter values for sub-categories, and the main category will automatically show the total of the entered sub-category values. But it also allows you to enter a value in the main budget category. For instance, let's say you have a main category of Auto, with half a dozen sub-categories, like Gas, Tolls, Parking, Service, etc. You want to budget for Gas every month, but you don't want enter values for each of the sub-categories for each month — you just want to put a value for all other auto-related expenses in your budget. So you enter $150 for Gas and $250 for the main Auto category, essentially meaning there is $100 in other Auto expenses. In this case, the sub-categories don't add up to the main category, and it's by design. Further, if you change the value for Gas in June to $175, the main Auto category will change to $275, because the program retains the $100 "other" value you had originally created and adds the extra $25 you just added to Gas. It's pretty intelligent in this way, but it can be confusing because you can't see where the total value came from. In that case, entering zero in the main category tells Quicken to set the budget value back to the sum of the sub-categories.

If you're getting tripped up by this functionality, and if you just want to enter all he sub-category values and not the main category values, you can simply un-check the main categories in Select Categories. Quicken then displays the main category value as the total of the sub-categories, but it's a gray value which is non-editable. 

BrianG67

Great! thanks for the detailed explanation...I was wondering why the main category could be selected or de-selected. I love january planning but miss the old days of Mac 2007 when you could create a year-end file and begin the next year "fresh"