Customize Budget Report Categories

Question

I am try some problems with a Budget report, total expenses by category does not equal total expenses on Budget report.

In looking at the categories that are included in the Budget report I noticed that some of the budget sub-categories I have set up do not appear under the Categories tab for customizing the report.  For example, the category for Tax Spouse: Federal and Tax Spouse: State do not appear.  The only two sub-categories that appear are Tax Spouse: Fed Est and Tax Spouse: SDI.

I have checked and it looks like all of the categories and sub-categories are set up correctly on the Category List.

Also, even though I have de-selected the category for Tax Spouse, the amount for Tax Spouse: Fed appear on the report.  However the category for Tax Spouse: Fed does not appear on the Customize tab.

Any ideas of where I should look?

FWIW I am running the most current version of Quicken Windows.

Chris_QPW · Answer

As @Jim_Harman whenever I had a difference, I was mostly able to drill all the way down to the transactions to see what the differences were in both reports in most cases.  But in the case of the budget report, I did hit a few that I couldn't go to the transaction level.  That happened whenever the Actual amount was in black/a total.  For instance, Salary Spouse.  But in that case, it matched on both reports.  On the budget report the only ones you can drill into are in blue.  Looking at, that seems to be some kind of quirk with the paycheck transactions.  I don't see the same thing on our social security entries which are normal split transactions.

Jim_Harman · Answer

Remember also that in most cases you can double click on a summary number in a report and see the underlying transactions.

rmk28027 · Answer

I understand that different report may have differing default when it comes to selecting categories/transaction when preparing the report.  I also understand that chaning some of the settings on the  Advanced tab will yield differing results even for the same reports.  In fact after playing with the Advanced settings for my Budget report I was able to identify which setting created the unusual totals.

My issue really comes down to the inability to audit and verify the report totals since in some cases it appears that Quicken does not provide the detail information to support a reports totals.

Also, in cases where the report total does not match the line details it is impossible to verify the accuracy of the report.

In the case I mentioned above, where the report total was three times the expected amount I am willing to acknowledge that the higher number may have been correct, but without showing the details of where the total came from it is hard for me to accept the total as being accurate.

It is sort of like when you doing math problems in school and the teacher required you to "show your work."  Quicken is not showing their work.

Thanks again for your input.