Mac 7.4.2: Budget Totals are Incorrect

whitepd47

I'm trying to update the budget monthly income for 2024. The amount is correct for all of the individual categories but total is way off. I confirmed on a calculator what the total should be. Not sure what to do?

Help!

BY THE WAY- this forum is really helpful as I've asked numerous questions and always received great answers/advice-

jacobs

Are you saying that in one or more places, the total of subcategories doesn't equal what's showing for the main category? This can happen because the Edit budget screen allows you to enter subcategory amounts only — in which case it will sum them for the category amount — or to enter values in subcategories and the main category, in which case the amount will not be the sum of the sub-categories.

For instance, let's say you have the following category and sub-categories:
Auto
     Gas
     Parking

If you enter $50 for Gas and $25 for Parking, the main Auto category will show $75. Makes sense so far, right?

But say you also have some other Auto-related expenses, but don't want to include additional subcategories in your budget. So you can enter $50 for Gas and $25 for Parking, and to allow for $30 of other Auto expenses, you can enter $105 in the main Auto category. Visually, it now looks like the subcategories don't total to the category — because they don't, intentionally.

To further complicate things, Quicken tries to be smart when you're doing this, so let's say you enter the main Auto amount as $40 for "other" auto expenses, and then enter $50 for Gas and $25 for Parking. Quicken will add the $50 and $25 subcategory values you just entered to the previously-entered $40 in the main category, resulting in the main category showing $115. It makes sense when you're entering it, but it can be quite confusing if you're just looking at the budget.

The way to get the category total back to being just the sum of the subtotals is to blank out the value in the main category cell. So in my example, where it now shows $115 at the value for Auto, if I click in that cell and click delete or enter zero, the value will become $75, the same of the $50 and $25 subtotals.

This can also take place in your budget if you create a new budget year beginning January 2024 and tell Quicken to base it on historical values (e.g. least year's actual values). If you have any sub-categories with income or expenses which are not in the categories you have included in your budget, Quicken will include those other sub-category amounts in the main category value, such that $50 + 25 could sum to $115, not $75. Make sense?

So my suggestion is to go through your budget in the January column and look for any category totals which don't equal the sum of the subcategories. Click in the cell, type 0 and select "0 for all months". Continue down your categories until you've reset all your main categories to be the sum of their sub-categories. Now, your budget will look clean, and all the main category values will add up to the total of income and expenses. Once you are confident your budget looks right, if you want to go back to adjust any main categories for "other" expenses not incorporated in your subcategories.

whitepd47

Not sure what the redL Body is 4 characters means?

jacobs

Are you saying that in one or more places, the total of subcategories doesn't equal what's showing for the main category? This can happen because the Edit budget screen allows you to enter subcategory amounts only — in which case it will sum them for the category amount — or to enter values in subcategories and the main category, in which case the amount will not be the sum of the sub-categories.

For instance, let's say you have the following category and sub-categories:
Auto
     Gas
     Parking

If you enter $50 for Gas and $25 for Parking, the main Auto category will show $75. Makes sense so far, right?

But say you also have some other Auto-related expenses, but don't want to include additional subcategories in your budget. So you can enter $50 for Gas and $25 for Parking, and to allow for $30 of other Auto expenses, you can enter $105 in the main Auto category. Visually, it now looks like the subcategories don't total to the category — because they don't, intentionally.

To further complicate things, Quicken tries to be smart when you're doing this, so let's say you enter the main Auto amount as $40 for "other" auto expenses, and then enter $50 for Gas and $25 for Parking. Quicken will add the $50 and $25 subcategory values you just entered to the previously-entered $40 in the main category, resulting in the main category showing $115. It makes sense when you're entering it, but it can be quite confusing if you're just looking at the budget.

The way to get the category total back to being just the sum of the subtotals is to blank out the value in the main category cell. So in my example, where it now shows $115 at the value for Auto, if I click in that cell and click delete or enter zero, the value will become $75, the same of the $50 and $25 subtotals.

This can also take place in your budget if you create a new budget year beginning January 2024 and tell Quicken to base it on historical values (e.g. least year's actual values). If you have any sub-categories with income or expenses which are not in the categories you have included in your budget, Quicken will include those other sub-category amounts in the main category value, such that $50 + 25 could sum to $115, not $75. Make sense?

So my suggestion is to go through your budget in the January column and look for any category totals which don't equal the sum of the subcategories. Click in the cell, type 0 and select "0 for all months". Continue down your categories until you've reset all your main categories to be the sum of their sub-categories. Now, your budget will look clean, and all the main category values will add up to the total of income and expenses. Once you are confident your budget looks right, if you want to go back to adjust any main categories for "other" expenses not incorporated in your subcategories.

whitepd47

Thank you. I appreciate your respose- you solved it for me. I have an additional follow-on question: how do you make a budget vs actual report? I made one for my 2023 status but now don't remember how I did it and can't duplicate it?

Thank you

jacobs

I have an additional follow-on question: how do you make a budget vs actual report?

Ha ha, you've hit on the Big One. 😂 Because there currently isn't a way to generate a report of budget versus actual for year-to-date. This has been a glaring omission in Quicken Mac since the annual budget feature was introduced. The good news is that the developers have finally acknowledged this and have it listed as a "Planned" upcoming feature. We don't know when it will become available, but at least we know it's coming.

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/7716047/actual-vs-budgeted-reports-customize-date-range-and-get-comparisons-q-mac-13-legacy-votes

So… what can you do in the meantime? There are a few options, none of which are perfect.

1. Print a Summary Budget report on the last day of a month. It probably won't have all your transactions from the last day or two of the month yet, but if you wait until the calendar rolls to a new month, Quicken will be comparing the actual to the budget through that next month.
2. In your Budget screen, display the year-to-date columns. If you look at the budget screen and you see the left column with categories and the next column is January, then press the little "«" button to open up the comparison columns. Then press the "v" icon in this column and be sure "Budget Year-to-Date Totals is selected. Again, this is useful near the end of a month, but not the beginning. That is, on January 31, it will be showing a comparison of actual to budget for January 1 through January 31. But on February 1, if will be showing actual for January 1 through February 1 versos budget of January 1 through February 29, which is pretty useless.
3. The best way to get a true budget versus actual report currently is to Export the budget and open it in a spreadsheet. Delete all the columns for the months after the time period you want. For instance, if it's April 10 and you export your budget, it will show budget, actual and difference values for all 12 months; you just want January through March, so delete all the there columns. But now you need to build a columns for totaling across the budget values each month, and a column for totaling across all the actual values each month. And then you need to build a total row at the bottom, being careful to select only the main category amount and none of the sub-category amounts (which would double-count them). Voila, a year-to-date through last month actual versus budget report! But a pain to build every time you want it.