Budget Planning

Mightyt

I'm new to the current Quicken Subscription and I have an issue I cannot figure out. I set up my Budget in the Planning Tab. All went well, until I realized that my budget allocations did not show up in prior months but were correct in August. It seemed to show a budget amount thousands less than the amount reflected as income. I cannot seem to find a way to make that happen correctly. Any thoughts? Am I missing something?

Thanks!

Tom Young

"All went well, until I realized that my budget allocations did not show up in prior months but were correct in August."

I'm not really sure what you're telling us here.

When I used to use Quicken's budgeting process, if I looked at the budget under Planning > Budget > Annual View > Details or ran a Current Budget report I saw columns with budgeted figures for each month and each Category, with Actual numbers alongside of them. If I did this in April, say, and then again in December, the earlier months' budgeted amounts were always the same.

Are you saying that the "budget" numbers are missing, or have changed somehow? When you set up your budget were you "hard coding" the budget amounts, i.e., the budget numbers for all months are fixed and permanent, or have you elected "rolling over" budget amounts?

Mightyt

Thanks Tom. Actually I’m not talking about running reports. On the top blue bar there is a tab called planning. When you create one you select categories you want included, both income and expenses. It then creates a dynamic bar chart that automatically changes throughout the month that shows you progress on each category, thus in one category you’re under budget by , and another you’re over budget by X. It also show your over all budget for the month and you can see how much of your budget is used/left as each expense is recorded.

When I set it up, this month, August shows all the categories I selected and the correct budget amount for each. And the income and overall were correct as well.

However when I click to the prior month it looked messed up and apparently the category budget amounts were all wrong. Thus, I can’t look back historically and see prior months.

I know you can set up and save/print/export them, but this seems like a great and easy click away dynamic glance at any moment.

I really like it, just not sure why my assigned budget categories did not apply to prior months.

Hope that makes sense.

Chris_QPW

What edition of Quicken Subscription are you using?

Note that the Starter Edition only has the Graph View and not the Annual view that is easier to see this on (which I'm using below).

When you create a new budget, and manually setup the categories in a month in the middle of the year it uses whatever old data it has to try to set the prior month's budget amounts. Example, created account for only Auto:Fuel with budget amount of $194.

Now that you know what Quicken did, there is a quick way to set a given category to a certain amount.

With the given category/month selected, select the gear icon and select "Apply Aug budget to all of 2023".

In the graph view it looks like this:

You will have to do this for each category.

Mightyt

Thank you Chris! I will take a look, but mine looks nothing like that. I have the Deluxe version and it’s a recent install, only data ago.

Chris_QPW

If take grab an image to show what you are seeing, you can drag and drop it on the comment box. With that maybe we can figure out what you are referring to.

Mightyt

Thanks Chris, I will. I tried adding a video to my last comment, but it told me I hadn’t been around long enough to do that. 🫤

Chris_QPW

I didn't even think you could add a video, I was thinking of just an image.

Mightyt

Actually it was a YouTube video link.

Mightyt

here’s a pic with a link to the video

Chris_QPW

Ok the link is for the Quicken video on creating a budget

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkjDBxstPyQ

This video stays entirely in the Graph View. I did include where the button is on the Graph View for changing previous months, but because it was just a part of it, I guess it wasn't clear of what I was referring to.

Here is that expanded:

Hover your mouse in that area next to a given category to see the buttons.

But since you do have the Deluxe edition I suggest that you change this control to Annual view:

That will change it to look like this:

Mightyt

Yes, that’s the graph I’m talking about. Now, back to the original question. When you apply budget allocations why doesn’t it apply the to previous months? Do I have to go in each month for years and change them individually? Would be great if it pre populated them of gave you the option to have it done automatically. Or am I missing something?

Thanks for the help! 👍🏻👍🏻

Tom Young

You can control this. If you're actually starting your budget in August, then click on that column header and make a selection:

Mightyt

Oh! That’s awesome Tom! I would have never found that!! THANK YOU! Especially for sticking with my to find a solution and helping me learn! “REALLY” appreciate that!! 😊👍🏻👍🏻