How can I make my budgets add up

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davedish
davedish Member ✭✭

I'm trying to understand (and fix) what's going on. Under planning, all my Tax subcategories for March are zero except Tax:Tax Preparer which is $800. I have all categories selected and displayed including hidden categories. All are zero.

The Tax root category shows $1614.

If I make my Tax:Tax Preparer category $0, the Tax root category shows $814.

How do I fix this? Images below.

Thank you,

Davedish

Answers

  • davedish
    davedish Member ✭✭
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    BTW, there are no more Tax categories below the Tax Preparer category in the images above.

  • UKR
    UKR SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
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    Have you looked in Manage Budget Categories to see if there's another subcategory to Tax which hasn't been selected?

    Are there any actual transactions or scheduled Reminders categorized to the Tax parent category?

  • davedish
    davedish Member ✭✭
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    Hi UKR,

    I have now triple-checked, there are no unchecked subcategories under Tax. I went so far as to do Options - Select All to make sure.

    There are no actual transactions in the Tax parent category. I don't think there are any reminders for the Tax parent category but I'm not sure how to find them if there are.

    Thanks,

    Davedish

  • bmciance
    bmciance SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
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    Actual amounts are not the issue since you are only looking at the budgets. It looks like you put in $814 in the tax root budget. Quicken will let you put in budget numbers at any level although I would suggest only entering at the lowest level. See if you can zero out the root level and put what want at the lowest level an Quicken will add them up at the root.

  • davedish
    davedish Member ✭✭
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    I can't select the root level budget. I can't zero it out. Is there any way to make the root level selectable?

    Thanks!

  • UKR
    UKR SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
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    Can't think of anything else but a shot into the dark …
    Click the "Feb ▾" column header and select "Copy Feb budgets to all future months in 2023". Let's see if that recalculates the roll-up total for Tax.

    If all else fails, please try to Validate and Supervalidate your Quicken data file.

    Validate and Supervalidate instructions
    First save a backup file prior to performing these steps
    Validate: 
    • Click File
    • Select Validate and Repair File...
    • Select Validate File
    • If the data file contains investment accounts also select "Rebuild investing lots". If you suspect that a damaged Quotes Price History causes your problems, also select "Correct investing price history" functions "Delete" or "Repair and Rebuild".
    • Click OK
    • Close the Data Log
    • Close Quicken (leave it closed for about 30 secs)
    • Reopen Quicken and see if the issue persists.
    Super Validate:
    • Click File
    • Press and hold both CTRL and Shift keys while you click Validate and Repair File...
    • Select Supervalidate File
    • Click OK
    • Close the Data Log
    • Close Quicken (leave it closed for about 30 secs)
    • Reopen Quicken and see if the issue persists.

  • bmciance
    bmciance SuperUser ✭✭✭✭✭
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    If you can't select the root you need to add it under "Manage Budget Categories". If there is something there, remove it and then de-select the root. Then just make sure that all of your budget entries are at the lowest level in each category. Then they should add up at the root level.

    Note that if you do have the upper level category selected you will see an "eveything else" sub-category shown in the budget. If the upper level is not selected that doesn't show.

  • Snowman
    Snowman Member ✭✭✭✭
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    Did you categorize a transaction in the Parent Tax category? If you did this would cause this. Categories that are Parent categories should never have any transactions categorized to the parent. This sometimes can happen if Quicken automatically categorizes something to the parent category.

  • davedish
    davedish Member ✭✭
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    The parent was selected under Manage Budget Categories but the amount could not be changed. I finally de-selected it and run all my budget reports using Budgeted Only. Still can't get rid of that amount in the parent category though.

  • davedish
    davedish Member ✭✭
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    Putting a transaction in the parent causes an amount to be there in the budget? I actually don't have any transactions in the last 2 years in the parent category.

  • Snowman
    Snowman Member ✭✭✭✭
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    Yes it does and it causes trouble because the total of all of the subcategories will not longer equal the amount in the parent category. Quicken should fix is so that you can't do this.

This discussion has been closed.