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Debt Category in Budget Planner

Norman Drews

Can I provide a top level budget value for the Debt category? I am using DRP and would like that to reflect in my monthly budget. I don't care to track the individual entries underneath.

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Boatnmaniac

Yes, you can budget at the top level category and not show the details of the subcategories. If you set it up this way, the top level category will roll up the actuals from from the subcategories but not show them. If you then want to see the individual transactions that are included in the top level category you can click on the actuals dollar amount and you will get a popup showing the transactions.

To do this, on the Budget screen: Click on the Manage Budget Categories button. Then check the box(es) for the top level category(ies) and uncheck the box(es) for the subcategories. Click on OK when done.

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Norman Drews

Thank you. ‘debt’ isn’t an actual budget category. Please see the picture. If it were present on the right-side of this dialog, your steps would work. Perhaps I need to see if it's possible to create a new category called debt and assign specific accounts into it so that I can follow your steps.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6031128/uploads/editor/5r/whbd85j8eupw.jpg

Boatnmaniac

There are several different kinds of DRP definitions. What do you mean by it?

Norman Drews

Sure. I have a Debt Reduction Plan set up. The monthly amount I contribute to the X accounts I am paying down will remain fixed. The individual amounts per account enrolled in Debt Reduction Plan will vary over time. I found that in the Budget Planner, all those accounts roll-up under a Debt category as shown in the above image. I want to set that to the same fixed amount as noted in the Debt Reduction Plan so the payments against the accounts underneath roll-up into it.

I hope that clarifies it. Basically, I don't want to have to add each credit account separately in the Budget Planner and modify the individual dollar amounts each month.

Boatnmaniac

Thanks for the explanation. Now I understand much better.

An issue is that the payments made to a DRP (or any other kind of debt account like credit cards, loans, etc.) is that those payments aren't really expenses. The expenses were incurred earlier when the debt was created. Those payment are, however, transactions that affect cash flow and budgets can be helpful in tracking and managing that.

My initial thought is along the lines of what you suggested:

Create a custom category called "Debt".
Then create custom subcategories beneath that...one for each debt account.
Assuming you are making the DRP payments out of your checking account, enter a transaction for each payment to be made to the DRP using the appropriate custom subcategory. If a single payment will be applied to multiple debt plans, split the category with each line of the split to be assigned to the applicable subcategory.

Then you should be able to set up your budget as I'd mentioned in my initial reply above. And if you want to see a breakdown by subcategory you can pull up Spending or Income & Expense report by category.

But this method by itself won't track the outstanding debt and debt reduction. It will only track the payments made.

Another approach would be is to set up separate offline Accounts for each debt. During the Account setup process you will be asked to enter the amount of debt along with other terms (i.e., interest rate, length of term, etc.). Quicken will calculate the payment amount and the amortization schedule and set up a Loan Reminder for each debt account. The advantage of this is that Quicken then tracks the outstanding debt, the payments and and progress toward the elimination of the debt. This will require multiple payments to be made each month (or whatever the payment schedule is) but that is OK if that is how you are making your payments. But if you are making a single payment and applying each payment to multiple debts then let me know because there is a way to accommodate that. Anyway, this process could be tracked in the Budget by budgeting for Transfers to each debt Account but I think each debt then would show up in the Budget as separate line items which is something you want to avoid.

Do you think either of these will work?

Norman Drews

That first approach is what I was thinking of. I'd probably want to recategorize all my past transactions to not be seen as transfers but rather as Bills & Utilities : Credit Card Payment or the subcategories you were suggesting.

mshiggins

Boatnmaniac said:

Thanks for the explanation. Now I understand much better.
An issue is that the payments made to a DRP (or any other kind of debt account like credit cards, loans, etc.) is that those payments aren't really expenses. The expenses were incurred earlier when the debt was created. Those payment are, however, transactions that affect cash flow and budgets can be helpful in tracking and managing that.
My initial thought is along the lines of what you suggested:
Create a custom category called "Debt".
Then create custom subcategories beneath that...one for each debt account.
Assuming you are making the DRP payments out of your checking account, enter a transaction for each payment to be made to the DRP using the appropriate custom subcategory. If a single payment will be applied to multiple debt plans, split the category with each line of the split to be assigned to the applicable subcategory.
Then you should be able to set up your budget as I'd mentioned in my initial reply above. And if you want to see a breakdown by subcategory you can pull up Spending or Income & Expense report by category.

But this method by itself won't track the outstanding debt and debt reduction. It will only track the payments made.

The Debt Reduction Planner tracks the outstanding debt and debt reductions. It can be very handy if you have multiple debts to pay down.

Boatnmaniac

mshiggins said:

Boatnmaniac said:

Thanks for the explanation. Now I understand much better.
An issue is that the payments made to a DRP (or any other kind of debt account like credit cards, loans, etc.) is that those payments aren't really expenses. The expenses were incurred earlier when the debt was created. Those payment are, however, transactions that affect cash flow and budgets can be helpful in tracking and managing that.
My initial thought is along the lines of what you suggested:
Create a custom category called "Debt".
Then create custom subcategories beneath that...one for each debt account.
Assuming you are making the DRP payments out of your checking account, enter a transaction for each payment to be made to the DRP using the appropriate custom subcategory. If a single payment will be applied to multiple debt plans, split the category with each line of the split to be assigned to the applicable subcategory.
Then you should be able to set up your budget as I'd mentioned in my initial reply above. And if you want to see a breakdown by subcategory you can pull up Spending or Income & Expense report by category.

But this method by itself won't track the outstanding debt and debt reduction. It will only track the payments made.

The Debt Reduction Planner tracks the outstanding debt and debt reductions. It can be very handy if you have multiple debts to pay down.

The Debt Reduction Planner is one of the few(?) Quicken functions I don't recall ever having toyed around with before. I'll have to check it out. Thanks for dropping in here.

mshiggins

@Boatnmaniac, I pay my credit cards off every month and was already paying extra on the mortgage and tracking the loan paydown in Excel, so only used the Debt Reduction Planner in Quicken for testing. It has a few quirks, but overall would be quite handy at planning how to get out of debt.

Norman Drews

A fork in the thread but no matter. The debt reduction planner is missing integration with Online/Manual Bills similar to what MS Money had (and I miss). It’s tedious to go back and forth between the two. It also still isn’t integrated into the Lifetime Planner. Other than those two items, it works rather well for me.

mshiggins

Norman Drews said:

A fork in the thread but no matter. The debt reduction planner is missing integration with Online/Manual Bills similar to what MS Money had (and I miss). It’s tedious to go back and forth between the two. It also still isn’t integrated into the Lifetime Planner. Other than those two items, it works rather well for me.

The prior iteration of the Debt Reduction Planner did have integration with reminders. Don’t recall when that revamp happened - maybe Q2009?

The Debt Reduction Planner should be integrated with the Lifetime Planner, but it only works if you created the debt plan long ago. There is some bug in the Lifetime Planner where it fails to see more recently created Debt Plans. It might be listed in @Scooterlam list of Lifetime Planner fixes and Improvements.

Edit to add:
Here is the link to the “improvement” suggesting the problem with the Lifetime Planner not recognizing the debt plan:
https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7869558/lifetime-planner-idea-debt-reduction-plan-not-recognized-for-some-users#latest